I was reading a blogpost from a friend the other day.
He was talking about growing up in the sixties and listening to the baseball on the radio. How the announcer used to talk through the play, and you could almost feel as if you were there, at the game.
It got me thinking, and brought back a few memories of games I’d seen or heard over the years.
As a teenager, with money to burn, I used to meet up with my mates on a Saturday, grab some lunch and head off to Old Trafford to watch the only team we considered worth watching give their opponents a good thrashing (let’s face it, very few visiting teams could beat Manchester United on their home turf!)
Imagine this, you’re stood eating a hot meat pie, got cup of tea in the other hand (too young for alcohol, and buying it was too expensive anyway), then you look up at the welcome sign on the scoreboard expecting any minute to see the team announced (each player had their own song) and sixty thousand people would erupt in song as each players name comes up, you had to be there to know the feeling.
One memorable game I went to has stuck in my memory simply for the fact that the game, for 89 of the 90 minutes was so forgettable!
Manchester United were playing Everton (folks this is Manchester and Liverpool, the two biggest cities in Northwest England and two rivals in EVERYTHING!) and Everton were winning, online nil, but that was enough.
They’d come to Manchester United’s own fortress, and looked like they were going to ‘win the day’
A minute before the whistle, the ball was in midfield and we were just about to turn to leave.
The ball came in high, one of United’s defenders, Martin Buchan, who in six years with the club had only scored one goal, he took the ball on the chest, as it came down he let fly with the right foot.
The keeper never saw it coming, straight over his head and into the back of the net!
The ground erupted, even the Everton fans were so stunned at the goal they could only stand gawping in disbelief!
I look back on that time, it was pretty close to the last time I went to Old Trafford, but nearly forty years later it’s a vivid memory, you just had to be there, in that moment!
Lawrence's letters 