How Come You're A United Fan

Kev mate I was really saying how much slimmer you looked mate ;D ;D not that I ever felt you were fat. Only eat the english, don't like foreign muck, H.m.S.Ganges means

Her Majesty Says Girls Are Not Getting Enough Sex ;D ;D

I have reposted bartondowns post here as I fear It may not get seem on the grounds board, It Is such a good post and should be read by all.

bartondowns post



Barton Downs
Best Poster Of The Week Winner
Joined: Aug 2008
Best Poster Of The Week Score: 1 Re: Keep A Record Of Your Ground Visits
« Reply #10 Today at 20:12 »

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I can recall the grounds I've visited, but nothing is written down and I've no idea how many. It's at least 250, maybe more. There’s a sort of 92, but not “the 92”. I’ve seen the present 92 at home but not necessarily at current grounds (and Morecambe was long ago). The one that truly got away was Ayresome Park.

I won't list my grounds but will try to tell my football-watching story. It's a sort of Seven Ages of the Football Fan (not that I've yet reached the 7th age).

My First Age – part of a Torquay childhood - started at Plainmoor during the 1963/64 season. We’re supposed to remember the first game but I simply cannot. If truth was told, my interest in TUFC as "lukewarm" between the age of 8 and 11. I can't square why I started buying Soccer Star whilst declining to watch the Spurs game in 1965.

Looking back, secondary school in 1967 - at the start of one of the great seasons - kick-started my interest in Torquay United. Talking about football was wonderful currency in making new friendships with people from such far flung places as Chelston, Preston and Shiphay. I've actually got mixed feelings about a period which, for people of my age, instils such nostalgia. In a way it was too early for me to truly appreciate what I was seeing. Not only was I watching some of the best players in the club's history but I probably expected it to be ever thus. Soon it was gone and we've not reached such heights since. Although I'm grateful to my father for introducing me to football-watching, he was a harsh critic and I found myself parroting some of his views and losing interest when things went wrong.

The great thing about my father was he took me to games when we were on holiday. My second ground was QPR in 1965 and my next - my first Division One game - was Fulham v Everton in 1966. This was 3 weeks after the World Cup Final and featured George Cohen, Ray Wilson and Alan Ball. Chelsea, Spurs, Reading (first Torquay away game), Liverpool, Bristol City, Plymouth and Exeter followed over the next year or so. During the rest of my time at school I went to most games at Plainmoor, a small number of away games - Bournemouth, Bristol Rovers, Argyle, a few more - and anything else that cropped up (including Wembley and Manchester United).

The Second Age started with university in the north of England and featured plenty of away games - I once got a seminar switched so I could make a Tuesday night at Barnsley - and loads of top flight games, internationals, European ties, etc. To be honest I welcomed the opportunity to watch something better than Torquay United (strike me down) when the price differential between watching football at, say, Tranmere or Everton was slight and very few games were all-ticket.

This age continued as I moved between Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, the SE, South Wales and Lancashire. I slowly built up my tally of grounds - not necessarily by intention - and concentrated almost entirely on watching professional football (visiting certain grounds 20, 30 or 40 times). I always went to Plainmoor on visits home - and kept up a goodly number of away games - but, from 1982, my main focus was on watching Everton during the glory times at Goodison. It's a long time ago - and me a completely different football fan - but it was a pleasure to watch that team week after week, the Glory Hunting pinnacle being the Cup-Winners Cup final in Rotterdam in 1985.

My Third Age started on 9 May 1987 with a last-minute decision to catch the 0300 from Lancashire for the Crewe game. Then, a year later, I returned (unintentionally perhaps) to live in the SW. I immediately started to watch 90% of Torquay home games and, season-by-season, more and more away matches. I was a keener supporter than ever. I continued to watch other football but it was a different diet. Hardly any top-flight stuff – save a few trips with friends to watch Newcastle away, a Copa America and other assortments – but lots of other local lower division football and, for the first time, a significant amount of non-league. My interest in big time football was now restricted to the highlights on TV.

The Fourth Age saw a more subtle change and was triggered by a conversation in a pub in Newcastle when somebody made the comment “you know how Manchester United play away from home, well...”. I realised that, for the first time since about 1971, I didn’t know (or believed I knew) how Manchester United, or any other big team, played. I cared even less. Soon I gave up watching football on TV and, for the last 10 years, I’ve struggled to engage in conversation about the Premier League, Champions League or England. This is partly due to a change of interest but also because I know I have a saturation level. I’d rather stop watching TV football than cease going to games. At times it becomes absurd – I was at Portugal v England in 2004 and England v Paraguay in 2006 (largely by chance) but I’ve not willingly watched England on TV since the Year Dot. I’m not taking any philosophical stance against Big Football. It’s just the way it is. If I lived elsewhere it might be different. The actual football I watched during this age was pretty much as before with Torquay United at the centre of things.

The Fifth Age has involved falling into the company of vagabonds who have persuaded me to watch more and more games, often an alarmingly long way down the pyramid. With our relegation this means a lot of non-league with a sprinkling of big games. The number of new grounds visited has rocketed and I now often seek to visit somewhere new. This is fine but I’m reaching a point where it's too much about quantity. Also, last season, I watched every Torquay United game home and away (with the exception of St Albans) for the first and – I suspect – last time. Quantity is easy when you’re having a career break which is continuing longer than planned.

The Sixth Age is hard to predict. Depending on circumstances it might mean a move elsewhere and a switch towards, finance permitting, greater quality (alongside TUFC).

The Seventh Age, should I get there, might see an old man’s shuffle to the nearest football pitch and a belated subscription to Sky or Setanta.

Breet I think your board Is going super fine mate and all down to you some members will only look at In the Torquay United Room, so as It was such a good post, I felt It should be where most will see It. I'm always looking at yours

What I find strange Pete Is, you lived next door to me, you say you were Often In my house, because we had ITV and yet I never knew you were a TUFC fan. I remember well watching you at Newton Spurs and as Merse and I have talked about, my family did all the food etc at Spurs.

About the ITV, I'm sure In those days you had to have one aerial for BBC and one for ITV, bloody black and white and as they always started to lose their vertical hold. You had to play with the knob and try and get the picture to stay still for a while.

It was indeed, my only regret was that latin was not one of the classes.

My first visit to Plainmoor was on the 13th of March 1968 for the game against Mansfield Town which we lost 0-2.
I was not interested in football at the time and had never heard of Torquay United.Even though I was old enough to remember,I didn`t even know England had won the World cup two years before!
When I lived at Sharpham(near Asprington,Totnes) my Dad and a family friend(Ernie Edwards)took me and my brother to the match.
I don`t remember anything about the match except for struggling through the 11,081 crowd to get to the loo!
Went to one more game during that near miss season,but can`t remember who it was against.
I started going regularly at the start of the 75/76 season after my family moved to Marldon and became a Lottery/Bingo agent for Torquay United which entitled me to a complimentary ticket for each home match.
Some people thought I became a supporter because my initials are TU,but this not the case.