Leaving Home

It's not the leaving of Goodison that grieves me...

So, it’s the last game at the Grand Old Lady, and off I go with a box of man size tissues and a steely countenance and no doubt at some point I’ll be gazing into to mid-distance remembering the guys who I went with from the mid 60s onwards…

In the 60s it was with my dad and uncles (one who was a red… who went both teams) on the ‘chara’ from BICC Club. I’d sit on his knee as money was too tight for my own seat.  Then after the game I’d be deposited outside the Dockers Club, with a bag of salf’n’shake and bottle of Barrs lemonade, with the other ‘Guiness Orphans’ whilst they all got lashed inside. If we won, I’d come home with a pocket full of thrupnee bits for ‘minding cars’… I was too scared to ask if we lost.  

Saw us win the League with Ball, Harvey Kendall and Gordon West in goal, who’d always give us cheeky little bastards a wave when he got between his sticks at the Street End. 'Gordon West, Superstar, walks like a woman and he wears a bra' we'd sing in our squeaky voices and he'd wave a fist at us pantomime style.

Then the 70s, when I went on my own — bus from from Huyton and a long walk along Breck Road and into the infamous Boys' Pen for 5p.  If I was lucky the bullies from Walton Vale or Breeze Hill wouldn’t find the 10p I’d hide in my sock for a ‘six of chips’ and my bus fare back to Huyton.  

One day I decided ‘enough was enough’ and I smacked one big ugly bastard who had his hand in my pocket. I got battered but it was worth it because he left me alone next time. Soon after I had a paper round and could afford to go in the Street End with the men. I’d have my own spec at the front stood on an orange box. Me and the other Huyton Lads: Gibbo, ‘Mad’ Micky Williams, Ado, ‘Walshy ’ Rosey, Matt, ‘Little Tony’ ‘Big Tony’ and my best mate Ozzie

Then the 80s, and the Upper Bullens Road; front row almost centre.  I bought the seat in '78 with my first month's wages from my ‘job for life’ at BICC Prescot as a cable maker.

I didn’t realise not even 10 years later I’d be traveling from all over the South Coast from my itinerant building site workplace while Thatcher tried to destroy Liverpool as her policies effectively shut down the North and every factory I knew was demolished and we all got on our bikes... those of us who could.

My old fella, redundant at 56 and a broken old man at 58… he stopped going; wouldn’t even let me sub him. Too proud. And I’d drop into Ma’s on my way back from the match to give him a report. Then back to Southend, or Bournemouth or Southampton to join the Scouse diaspora of builders and demolition men — six of us in a caravan and ‘cash in hand’ and a mad dash to Goodison and back in a '68 Ford Escort Mexico with the exhaust held on with chicken wire.

They were the alcohol years and some of the best football I ever saw. The media called us 'the team with no stars'. They were wrong — they were all stars.  Of the 6 lads I went all over the country with and beyond, there are only two left now, including me.  Ozzie died three years ago — he saw us safe in the Premier League and died of a massive stroke two days after

So today, I’ll be there… so will every memory and all of the ghosts who will be with me.  For, in a life where I have lived in many houses and different places, I’ve only ever had one home.

I will probably be have to be told the result after because I won’t notice...

COYB