petef
Match Room Manager 
Posts: 4,566
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Post by petef on Dec 4, 2014 22:46:17 GMT
A year before I stated attending Plainmoor. www.torquayheraldexpress.co.uk/Xxx/story-25152413-detail/story.htmlMy father, who was a regular - when he could afford it was also a life long Spurs fan and attended this remarkable match and who also had a wasted trip for postponed the replay. Great to see that its being remembered and celebrated. 20,000 plus in a dangerously packed Plainmoor my dad among them For me the mid/ late sixties were the halcyon days at Plainmoor. In 1971 the fixture was repeated in a midweek League cup encounter that again drew a huge 20,000 plus crowd and a game I remember well when we opened the scoring through Bruce Stuckey strike at the "Mini Stand" end where I was standing but only just managing to breath because it was so congested and tightly packed. Wonderful memories sadly never to be repeated. |
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Post by loyalgull on Dec 5, 2014 16:28:37 GMT
yep great days for our club,sadly the only spurs we are going to be encountering any time soon will be newton spurs
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Post by gullone on Dec 6, 2014 12:14:10 GMT
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Post by frankfurt gull on Dec 7, 2014 10:10:34 GMT
I was there. I was 12 years old at the time and stood at the Babbacombe end. There was an area roped off for kids behind the goal but I couldn´t get into it as it was full of grown ups! I managed to get up onto one of the concrete fence posts behind the goal and had to balance on it to see anything at all. The men stood behind me were moaning I was blocking their view so I had to get down. I heard the 3-3 equalizer go in but couldn´t see a thing!
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petef
Match Room Manager
Posts: 4,566
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Post by petef on Dec 24, 2014 13:27:54 GMT
Nice article in the Herald an interview with the great man himself Robin Stubbs with a number of facts about Robin and his playing history that I never knew. Played many games all over Europe with Birmingham City including Barcalona and Milan San Siro. and scored an amazing 21 goals in 16 games in the Spurs season finishing on 39 and failing to beat Sammy Collins record missing the last five games of the season through injury. www.torquayheraldexpress.co.uk/TORQUAY-UNITED-Robin-Stubbs-talks-David-Thomas-50/story-25755589-detail/story.htmlAn interesting read for those fans who never had the chance to see him play that will help those understand why he is held in such high esteem by the older supporters among us. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2015 9:22:36 GMT
On the subject of the FA Cup, I see that Cambridge have drawn Man U in the next round. It doesn't seem that long ago that they were walking off the Wembley pitch in a most disconsolate way after being beaten by a very good Torquay team who had a bit of wedge in the coffers and quite a few good players on the pitch. Now we haven't got two pennies to rub together and the less said about who's on the pitch the better!
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Post by gateman49 on Jan 13, 2015 18:43:19 GMT
At the risk of sending everybody to sleep, can I add my ha'porth?
I was there at the first match but was banned from attending the replay by my parents and by my headmaster (dire warnings were enough). The other day, during some banter with the group who sit immediately in front of the director's box, BH came up with the immortal quote "Us'll Do They" but he couldn't remember from where it came. That set me thinking because I knew. So up to my loft I went (my wife thought I was a long time putting the Christmas decorations back up there) and down I came with the following article as set out by Desmond Hackett in the Daily Express on Friday 8th January 1965.
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US'LL DO THEY!
(CLAIM THE MEN OF DRAKE)
It is rather more than somewhat confusing when touring the oak beamed brass-gleaming pubs around Devon's Torbay, canvassing forecasts of the Torquay United and Spurs cup tie and getting the considered opinion: "Ah, mi old darlin', Us'll do they" writes Desmond Hackett. Finally, with the brain enlightened by earnest application of tangy cider and good ale from battered tankards I got the message: "Us'll meaning us will for Torquay will do they meaning Spurs". In years of cup fighting observation I have never known anything like the atmosphere at Torquay, or should I say Torbay. It is not cup fever it is more like Armada tension. Torquay United do not belong to the chintz and delicate china folk retiring behind their lace curtains and pine-treed retreats of the hills of this so-lovely town.
Torquay United belong to the Devon folk of knitted jerseys and long-legged fisher boots who go out in their chugging trawlers from Dartmouth, Brixham, Teignmouth and Dawlish, and the rugged railwaymen from Newton Abbot. These are the men who last night thumped down their tankards onto dented indestructible oak tables and oohed and ahed their defiance of the Spurs.
UNYIELDING
Men of this unyielding determination must have been around when Drake strode through the inns and taverns of Devon recruiting the men who sent the Spaniards scuttling back home.
As I toured the dark and homely combes and coves I felt that this was Armada night, the sturdy galleons were tugging at their anchors, their guns ready to be run out, the recoil chains were in place, the cannonballs cleaned and oiled, the powder dry and rum cask gleaming at the foot of the mainmast. Those men, who still talk the pirate language of the days of Drake will go out on Saturday and blast the winds of enthusiasm into the sails of Torquay and blast the wind up a rather alarmed Spurs.
But even in the well manicured Torquay Town the chaps whip are something in the City or the landed gentry talk with warm enthusiasm of the cup tie in the Queen's Bar. Violet, hair as black as a smuggler's cave, hands out the large whiskies and pink gins and recalls the great day 10 years ago when Torquay laid about Leeds United as she is quite convinced they will lay about Spurs.
GRATEFUL
At the hospitable and spick and span yachting club on the peak of the bathe members are grateful for the dual diversion of this exciting Cup affair and the Daily Express Boat Show to console the wretched days of their winter-compelled landlubbers. Even retired men of the Army and Navy, living in splendid retirement up among the pines, are taking an interest in this round ball game. They hum and ha, and explain to their lavendered and laced lady wives: "Most important thing, my dear. Rather like the derby winner coming to a selling plater at Newton Abbot." And the dear ladies nod as they have patiently nodded for years and carry on crocheting. But even they ponder whether they should take two hot water bottles and two rugs when they go to watch the men play their little Cup game.
All Torquay has suddenly become tremendously excited about this game. But the threat to Spurs will come from the men with voices that have been roughened and toughened on good ale, cider, and the cruel sea.
ROARING
It is odd that these rip-roaring men should be led by an official cheer-leader in Norman Clegg, who is a mortuary attendant, and Margaret, who is a sister in a children's ward. In this man's world, Norman Clegg is acknowledged the peak of the cheer men. Said a fisherman out of Brixham which a face like an old leather ship's bucket, who grasped a pint as though it were a small Scotch: "When they Norman give out, he make them Beatles and all they foghorns sound like a child's whimper."
As I ponder on the great question: Torquay, or not Torquay, I am getting more and more convinced: Us'll do they.
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David Thomas, eat your heart out!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2015 19:15:23 GMT
Thank you for sharing this, Gateman. I remember, as a child, reading the words of Desmond Hackett in my father's Daily Express when he arrived home from work (it always had the beating of mother's Daily Sketch). Even aged nine I think I was aware of there being journalists, hacks and - well - Desmond Hackett. He was like no other. You suspect this was largely composed in the restaurant car coming down from Paddington long before old Des set foot in Torquay. Maybe that was the point. Fleet Street's finest were in town that weekend. Several nights at the Imperial, most likely, with all that research and scene-setting which was required from the Thursday onwards.
It's priceless. Right down to the entirely gratuitous reference to the Daily Express Boat Show. Mind you, the distinction between posh, Riveira Torquay - as found in sailing circles and in the villas on the hills - with the more workaday side of life in South Devon is nicely put. But, all the same, there was still a pretty big time lag between 1588 and 1965. Robin Stubbs as one of Drake's buccaneers? Steady on, this could be catching.
I'm not a great one for 1960s nostalgia. Yet you suspect Torquay United, the appeal of holidays on the English Riviera and - above all - the Daily Express were all in slightly better shape fifty years ago.
I've probably posted this before but, two or three years later, there was this wonderful piece of publicity:
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Post by gateman49 on Jan 13, 2015 20:26:04 GMT
Yes, and it's actually a bit of social history because in 1965 there was still a very active railway workshop and engine shed at Newton Abbot and estates like Buckland were, I think, built to house railway workers when that town's main employer was the railway. How many people who live there now have such jobs?
Then there are all those trawler men, I don't know how many were employed in fishing in the 60's but I do fondly remember the long gone Brixham Seamen's Boys Home providing the half time entertainment for many years. As an aside, they always put the little ones at the back and when the mud was really thick they tended to get bogged down and had the devil of a job to keep up with the main body of the band - happy days.
ps. having just watched the film clip of Torbay in the good old days, wasn't that the BSBH band on top of the bus at what was the Palm Court Hotel?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2015 19:41:56 GMT
I can't remember if, as part of our recall of the 1965 Spurs game, anybody has posted a link to an article about the game on the People's Republic of South Devon website: www.theprsd.co.uk/2012/09/16/torquays-other-history-up-at-plainmoor/I'm pretty certain the author still follows Torquay United. Unless, that is, he has become disillusioned over the last year or two. He certainly continues to make occasional contributions to one of the other Torquay United Internet message boards. The author's other pieces on the PRSD site are worth further investigation. For starters there's one about working on the buses which will being back memories for a few old stagers: www.theprsd.co.uk/2012/07/29/on-the-buses-in-torquay/But some of the more curious pieces - and videos - concern Torquay's beatnik scene of the 1960s which, apparently, included poetry readings at the Palk Arms on Teignmouth Road. I was far too young for all of that myself but I do remember the Rising Sun and the Melville Inn having a certain notoriety. Find out more at: www.theprsd.co.uk/author/michael-williams/ |
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