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THE BACKGROUND

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WHO AM I?

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It was a 2-2 draw against Aldershot, and on that afternoon my County watching life began. It’s been 57 years since that day, and with nearly 2,000 competitive first team games, including around 850 away trips, there’s a whole fund of memories. I have always enjoyed writing, contributing to a couple of books, and also being a regular correspondent for the Tameside Reporter, my local paper.

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THE CONTEXT

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Most followers of English football will know of County’s almost unbelievable rise, and then apocalyptic fall over those years. On Millenium Eve we stood 6th in The Championship, (the 2nd tier of English football). Thirteen years and 4 months later we had fallen in to the 6th tier, playing semi-professional regional football. No other Club has had such a fall.

Over the years County have played at more grounds than any other Club – going through the Divisions, in both an upwards and downwards direction. I started travelling to watch the Hatters in the 1970’s, (admittedly not too many trips then), but essentially from the early 1980’s onwards I have made the very best effort to get to see County home and away. A few years ago it dawned on me that I must have seen them at a huge number of grounds, as indeed proved to be the case.

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THE GENESIS OF THIS SITE

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I’m a statistician, (BA Hons Exeter University 1972-75) which probably is a direct reflection of my interest in things numerical since primary school days. Organising lists and analysing data is a strength, and the records I have have founded the basis of this site.

I’m also an inveterate sports watcher, (but give boxing; tennis and the gee gees a reasonably wide berth), with my main interests football and cricket. I was taken to my first professional football match in 1961 and three years later went to Old Trafford, (the proper one which hosts Lancashire CCC).

And ever since then I’ve also been a collector of anything connected with my interests, be they programmes; scorecards; annuals and so much more. My loft is crammed full of this stuff. At the same time I have always kept records of games I’ve been to and have religiously updated these, leaving me with a complete record of each and every game I have been to. Those have ranged from international matches; FA Cup Finals; though games at every level from what is now the Premiership down to the 10th tier, (North West Counties League).

So all the data and information I needed was readily to hand.

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THE CONCEPT

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I have for many years toyed with the idea of writing a book. It couldn’t be fiction – I don’t have the creative mind for that. It had to be something of interest to me which might have some attraction to others. I originally wanted to do a travelogue type book, featuring a season watching County.

I had the idea but it never came to fruition, partially because I ended up in a really big project at work in the mid to late 90’s, leaving me with no time, but also because Dave Espley beat me to it, in his magnificent tome “Saturday Night and Thursday Morning”. This reflected the Annus Mirabilis of 1996/97; 67 games; a League Cup semi-final and promotion at the end. Not only was it well written, but the subject matter could never be bettered. So that idea was cast aside.

I knew that I would be retiring from full time employment in March 2016. It had been planned for some time. My thoughts turned to what I wanted to do.

I knew that summers would be spent at Old Trafford and Ashton CC. Winters would be spent at Edgeley Park or on the road following the Hatters. But the idea of writing kept coming back to me. And that made the decision easy. Crafting a tale about all the years; the multitude of games; and the myriad of grounds. Something to do at leisure.

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PROGRESS

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April 2016 dawned with retirement status. I set to work, researching, digging out stuff from the loft and putting fingers to the keyboard. Things went well, and by December I’d committed around 60,000 words to the hard drive, whilst at the same time adding another 14 away trips to the catalogue.

Then came the bombshell. It’s a long story, and not really for here, but in January 2017 I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, (no – I didn’t know either when I was told). It’s essentially cancer of the bone marrow. There followed 6 months of chemotherapy; a stem cell transplant; and then 3 months to try and recover some of my immune system which had been completely wiped out by the chemo. 2017 passed without any further meaningful contribution.

Since then it’s been very much a stop and start affair, with more ‘stop’ than ‘start’.

I penned some thoughts about why there had been a lack of progress. It reflects why progress had been minimal for the best part of 2 years. It’s on “The Best Laid Plans” page

The catalyst for taking it forward came in March 2020. My underlying health condition has left my with a less than effective immune system. The arrival of the Coronavirus, (Covid-19), left me with the prospect of being housebound, and without the opportunity to go out for a long period. My mind turned back to the book. I’d put a decent amount of effort into what had been achieved by that point, but there was still a huge amount to do The way in which it was structured lent itself to publication on a website, and at the same time meant that the parts as yet unwritten could be done at leisure. I did my research into the ways and means of setting up a site … and here we are!!

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THE CRITERIA

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As I said above I have a detailed record of each and every game I’ve watched over the years. So in putting this together there had to be a set of rules. Which games get counted; what grounds are called; how to structure my thoughts and a few other things. Check out My Rules here.

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MY FELLOW TRAVELLERS

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Watching football should never be a solo experience. Over the years I have forged firm friendships founded in County. Find out more about who has shared this journey on the “Fellow Travellers” page.

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MY GRATEFUL THANKS

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To her I am more than grateful for putting up with me for these years!! Thank you!!

The photo shows us at Wembley for the Play-Off Final in 2008. It was the first game we had gone to together since Boxing Day 1985. . In the 12 years since then we’ve been to only one more game together – at The Hive in 2018

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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My collection of football memorabilia, programmes, books, videos and so on have formed the basis of jogging my memories. Equally, I have used other sources. I have listed these on the Acknowledgements page..