Football Combination matches 14:03 - Apr 15 with 5504 views | gainsboroughblue | Did anyone go to them? I recall many a Saturday afternoon (2 pm k.o) at Portman Road while the senior team were away from home. Fringe players like David Barnes, Tony Kinsella, Tommy Parkin, Mich D'Avray, Irvin Gernon, Tommy Parkin etc etc. The A4 sheet of paper with the teams on them. The groans as it came over the tannoy that Town were 1 down at Roker Park. Pretty sure the North Stand was always closed off and there was one lone steward who would have to fetch the ball if it went in there, disappearing from one pen and appearing in the other. Later on, I remember skiving off school for the odd game as they moved to a Tuesday afternoon. [Post edited 15 Apr 2018 14:03]
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Football Combination matches on 14:05 - Apr 15 with 5481 views | poppiesman | Yes I went to a few of them in the 70's. Cant remember much about them though. | | | |
Football Combination matches on 14:07 - Apr 15 with 5469 views | Bluespeed225 | Used to be a cheap afternoon for us kids! See some big names coming back from injury, keep an eye on the up and coming talent. I remember being there when Cooper saved a penalty at Anfield! Always think we lost something with its demise. It was a tough game, played in the proper grounds, a good learning curve for the youngsters stepping up from youth team football. | | | |
Football Combination matches on 14:18 - Apr 15 with 5434 views | Bluegene | Went to few yeah Happy days! Some great players of the time there | | | |
Football Combination matches on 14:37 - Apr 15 with 5404 views | longtimefan | When I went regularly in late 60s and very early 70s the North Stand was definitely open. You could also move around all the terraces at will. | | | |
Football Combination matches on 14:40 - Apr 15 with 5397 views | Pendejo | Went to a few late 70s / early 80s if my father wasn't playing football / cricket but with his football / crocket team mates. Main memories are that all the gates were open so you could walk all the way around the ground from Churchmans thru West Stand thru North Stand thru Portman Stand back to Churchmans... the only real no-go areas were the seats, we even climbed into the old scoreboards one day and regularly stood on the mini scaffold tower that housed the TV cameras when we were on MotD or MotW. I don't remember this but my father tells me that circa 1982 Allan Hunter was playing in a game, HE made a mistake but berated the young defender beside him [he doesn't recall who that was], one of my dad's team mates [cricket] shouted... "Your mistake Hunter!" Big Al yelled back an Anglo-Saxon encouragement to multiply ones off spring... then a few minutes later came back and apologized [dad reckons it was because it was his Testimonial season]. Of all the players I remember Big Al at a few reserve games when he was injured. Last one I went to was when Baltacha was first signed. | |
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Football Combination matches on 15:19 - Apr 15 with 5335 views | Trequartista | I've always wondered what Combination refers to. Did we combine football with something else? A circus perhaps? | |
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Football Combination matches on 15:26 - Apr 15 with 5328 views | monty_radio | I and mates went most weeks in the 60s as they alternated with first team. Also took a ball to kick about on practice pitch when it got boring. Often team would be full of players who never ever appeared for the first team. Injuries seemed fewer and further between then, so, for some, the chance never came. Some were never likely to make it. I remember a game v Luton that was 7-4 to us and seem to think there were about 7000 people there, rather than the usual 2000+. | |
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Football Combination matches on 15:40 - Apr 15 with 5309 views | factual_blue |
Football Combination matches on 15:19 - Apr 15 by Trequartista | I've always wondered what Combination refers to. Did we combine football with something else? A circus perhaps? |
The competition started out, apparently, with the players wearing their 'combinations', or long johns. Here's the Leeds Utd back four doing their pre-match warm-up | |
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Football Combination matches on 16:27 - Apr 15 with 5252 views | osborne |
Football Combination matches on 14:37 - Apr 15 by longtimefan | When I went regularly in late 60s and very early 70s the North Stand was definitely open. You could also move around all the terraces at will. |
Yes. I used to go regularly around that time. We used to get behind the away goal and try to wind up, tease and distract their goalie. If we were having any success, we'd be waiting to greet him at the other end after half time. If not we might stay and get behind the town goalie, like Alec Bugg. Sometimes you could get quite a bit of chat out of a goalie if the ball was up the other end. TWTD | | | |
Football Combination matches on 21:46 - Apr 15 with 5056 views | allezlesbleus | All the time from mid-70's to early 80's. Used to be the youth team on the practice pitch in the morning and the reserves on the main pitch in the afternoon. Remember watching the Fashanu brothers playing for Norwich in a youth team match and one of their training team telling me that one of them could have been a professional boxer. Used to be great wandering around the whole ground, depending on which end we were attacking. | | | |
Football Combination matches on 23:16 - Apr 15 with 4990 views | Rocky | Under SBR we were nearly always in the top two or three of the Football Combination. If I remember correctly, the Combination was just for Southern based teams. Northern reserve sides and teams from the West Midlands played in the Central League. | | | |
Football Combination matches on 07:41 - Apr 16 with 4902 views | christiand |
Football Combination matches on 23:16 - Apr 15 by Rocky | Under SBR we were nearly always in the top two or three of the Football Combination. If I remember correctly, the Combination was just for Southern based teams. Northern reserve sides and teams from the West Midlands played in the Central League. |
It appeared a lot more structured and competitive back then. The quality of the squads were amazing at times. Not sure that the U23 league provides that same level of quality or competition. | |
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Football Combination matches on 08:35 - Apr 16 with 4870 views | ITFC_Forever | Yep, I used to go to them.... you could usually roam the ground and have the pick of the terracing depending on what took your fancy. There was usually only one refreshment kiosk open, manned by the same guy every time. And there was always a much higher chance of being able to retrieve a stray ball. TWTD. | |
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Football Combination matches on 08:35 - Apr 16 with 4873 views | Radlett_blue |
Football Combination matches on 15:19 - Apr 15 by Trequartista | I've always wondered what Combination refers to. Did we combine football with something else? A circus perhaps? |
The Football Combination was founded in 1915 as the London Combination, originally as a regional league for London clubs after first-class competition had been suspended due to World War I. After hostilities ended, the Combination became a competition for reserve sides only, becoming the Football Combination for the 1939—40 season, which was abandoned due to the start of World War II, as teams from outside London started to join. I remember an Arsenal Football Combination fixture attracting a huge crowd on a Saturday afternoon in the late 1960s as Highbury was the only ground with under-soil heating so this was the only game in London. | |
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Football Combination matches on 08:40 - Apr 16 with 4864 views | PJH | I know that tickets for our January 1970 home F.A. Cup match against Man U were sold via the turnstiles at a combination match so the crowd for that combination match was pretty high. I don't think that that was the only way to get a ticket but as all ticket games back then were very very rare I can't remember what other sources there were,I know I got my ticket at the combination game. | | | |
Football Combination matches on 08:48 - Apr 16 with 4850 views | Radlett_blue |
Football Combination matches on 08:40 - Apr 16 by PJH | I know that tickets for our January 1970 home F.A. Cup match against Man U were sold via the turnstiles at a combination match so the crowd for that combination match was pretty high. I don't think that that was the only way to get a ticket but as all ticket games back then were very very rare I can't remember what other sources there were,I know I got my ticket at the combination game. |
Yeah, back in those days some clubs made you produce programmes or vouchers from earlier games to get a ticket for a really big game, such as an Fa Cup semi final or final. | |
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Football Combination matches on 08:51 - Apr 16 with 4844 views | PJH |
Football Combination matches on 08:48 - Apr 16 by Radlett_blue | Yeah, back in those days some clubs made you produce programmes or vouchers from earlier games to get a ticket for a really big game, such as an Fa Cup semi final or final. |
Yes although thinking about it I think you got a voucher at the combination game which entitled you to a Man U ticket rather than getting the ticket itself. Either way it put several thousand on the combination gate. | | | |
Football Combination matches on 11:26 - Apr 16 with 4783 views | backwaywhen |
Football Combination matches on 14:37 - Apr 15 by longtimefan | When I went regularly in late 60s and very early 70s the North Stand was definitely open. You could also move around all the terraces at will. |
Reserves at home while first team away , sat 3pm , announcer would read out the score from the first team game , at half time then full time ......remember playing on the practice pitch with me mates for almost the entirety of the game ! lol.....great days in the late 60s. | | | |
Football Combination matches on 11:35 - Apr 16 with 4762 views | gainsboroughblue |
Football Combination matches on 11:26 - Apr 16 by backwaywhen | Reserves at home while first team away , sat 3pm , announcer would read out the score from the first team game , at half time then full time ......remember playing on the practice pitch with me mates for almost the entirety of the game ! lol.....great days in the late 60s. |
Was invariably also the first match a new signing would play in. That would often swell the attendance. | |
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Football Combination matches on 11:40 - Apr 16 with 4752 views | ITFC_Forever |
Football Combination matches on 11:26 - Apr 16 by backwaywhen | Reserves at home while first team away , sat 3pm , announcer would read out the score from the first team game , at half time then full time ......remember playing on the practice pitch with me mates for almost the entirety of the game ! lol.....great days in the late 60s. |
Can remember we went to a youth game on the practice pitch at PR one Saturday morning. We had taken a ball to have a kick-around in the recesses of the Pioneer Stand, and when the game got boring, we did exactly that. We were using the entrances on to the terraces as a goal, and inevitably, we ended up on the terrace. We then started daring each other to run on the main pitch further and further, until one of us took the ball on and scored a goal in the North Stand goal.... so then we all wanted to do that. Before too long, a full-blown game of headers and volleys had broken out on the main pitch in the North Stand goal, which was only spoiled 15 minutes later when someone from the club angrily told us to get off the pitch or else we'd be reported..... TWTD. | |
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