Post by tufc01 on Nov 3, 2009 14:25:18 GMT
One of the many Yeovil fans I work with sent me this and I thought it might interest one or two on here;
Hi Rich,
Here are a few excerpts from a Yeovil fan looking back to his younger days in the early '70s. With quotes from a famous Yeovil character, Sage Seth.
Hope you like them, even though they are about Yeovil rather than Torquay. The sentiments hit the mark with most lower league club fans........................
I wonder how many others at 3.00pm today [before the 3-3 draw with Dagenham -ed] were beginning to think that maybe.... after all.... this season.... might just.... possibly.
At such times I’m always reminded of my first meeting with Sage Seth, the Green and White Guru.
Yeovil 1 v 0 Chelmsford, November 9th, 1968
My father is a good man, never swears and I have never seen him angered. He has never knowingly made a wrong decision - except maybe once.
We jostled up the concrete steps of the old C block amongst a hoard of strange men talking about allotments and the advantages of rationing. On past the three fingered ticket collector. I could smell Oxo and pipe tobacco in the darkness of damp overcoats. The crowd pushed on as we were hit by daylight and then, suddenly, a beautiful slope of lush green turf.
All the time my father was talking. "I expect Dickie Plumb’ll play. He always gets into a punch up in the 63rd minute. He sometimes scores, got a good hoof on him. Not like Arthur Hickman of course - now there was a men with a hoof."
It was my first football match. In a strange kind of eight year old way I knew I was being initiated into something special.
We trudged on up the wooden steps towards the top of the stand. A group of men sat around an aging figure with a cloth cap, nodding ruefully. The old man’s gaze caught my father, ignoring the disciples around him he stood up. I noticed a look in my father’s eye - almost as if he wanted to leave.
The Sage spoke, "Who’ve you got with you there, Charlie?"
My father returned the gaze and spoke slowly, "My boy, Sage."
"Take him away."
I was aware that a silence had fallen over the stand and it was spreading.
"No, Sage."
Not just the stand now but the whole ground .An eerie hush.
"You know what I’ve told you, turn around and leave this ground."
"I gotta do it, Sage."
Now, even Cyril Davies had stopped running down the slope after the ball and was stood motionless.
"Why are you doing this to him?" It was like a Saturday morning western. A plastic cup rolled down the steps.
"Because this is my team and now it’s going to be his team."
Suddenly the Sage flew into a passionate speech, his voice booming across the ground. "Do you realise what you’re doing? If you don’t take him out this second, he’ll become caught in a spell - forever bound to Yeovil Town. And what good will that do him? Would you consign your own son to a life time of misery and hurt?"
"He’s my flesh and blood," my father pleaded.
"And it’s because he’s your flesh and blood that you should understand. Take him away. Go down Templeman’s and buy him one of they flash Division 1 subbuteo teams and bind him to another. I’m begging you. Time’s running out. They’ve already kicked off."
My father tried to search for words, "All my life...."
"This is your last chance, Charlie. You let that boy stay and his happiness or sadness will be possessed by the whims of a few part-timers dressed in green and white."
My father shook his head. The great man turned to me.
"Lad, have no part of this. Be gone. This is a place for the miserable. No shell with a hole, no bottomless lake for us. Ours is a punishment more terrible. To be given faint dreams and to have those dreams forever dashed on the rocks of fate."
The six old men around him looked at me with sad, watery eyes, big knuckled hands nervously twisting plastic cups. Slowly they whispered a mantra, "Find one of they teams that wins things. Manchester Rovers, Liverpool United, Tottingham, Everdown. Turn and leave. Turn and leave."
I looked at my father. I looked at the great Sage. I turned and took one final look at the pitch. Dick Plumb was running towards the goal, people were standing, kicking the air in front of them and yelling. I was intrigued. He was in the penalty box. My heart started to thump. He pulled back his right leg and hoofed the ball. Suddenly men, boys, humans erupted in an indissoluble knot of friendship. A smile, not a smile but a whole universe of warmth fell around me and I yelled a yell of delight as my father threw me high into the air.
Amongst the chaos, I noticed the Sage. A shadow of defeat moved across his face as he stared sorrowfully into his Oxo.
WEYMOUTH
On Weymouth beating Yeovil 1-0 in the F.A. Cup 4th qualifying round second replay 12th November 1973:
I was distraught, my child’s world crumbling around me. The thought of yet another season coming to an end on a wet Saturday afternoon in November, whilst having to endure Weymouth’s name being read in the first round results on Grandstand. The world was a dark and grim place and we were not famous anymore. Worse still, they might be. Yet the Green and White Guru’s words were uncannily prophetic. I have the programme before me now and can make out my pencil notes, oddly streaked with tears. But the Sage said;
"You’re all of a fluster now and they’re the top dogs, blowing their horns and ringing their bells up the Dorchester road. And you’re thinking that’s it. But who knows in twenty years time, they’ll be playing in some down in the mouth league with a ground on the edge of a trading estate and wind blowing through rusty, metal stands and the sea peeling off their disgusting pale blue paint."
The Sage took another sip from his oxo and added this philosophical twist. "And will you be glad? Maybe you’ll think you will. Maybe you think you’ll be leaping up and down. But is that what you want? Your most hated enemy to be so down in the heel that it’s not worth hating them anymore? In a rum kind of way you’ll feel sorry for them."
Kettering 1 v 0 Yeovil, March 17th 1973
How many will remember Elect Yeovil of the ‘70’s. A well drilled campaign of glossy brochures, Mr Green ’n’ White and each letter of the slogan lovingly stitched on the tracksuits of the Town’s stars, so that when they stood in a line at the centre circle, Elect Yeovil was there for all to see.
The Glovers were losing to Kettering, a club hopeful of league status and who would be one of our main challengers, when it came to Football League election.
‘Give us a spangle then,’ said the Sage.
‘No spangles today, Sage,’ I said proudly.
‘Eh? No spangles?’
I couldn’t hold my enthusiasm in any longer. I launched into my well-rehearsed schoolboy plan. I explained to the Sage that I would not be buying Spangles anymore; instead each 5p piece would be put into a jam jar with a hole in the top kept under my bed. This would continue until I had a decent sum. This accumulated decent sum would then be judiciously invested until I was at least a millionaire. And then - and here was the really cunning bit - I would buy a football team.
‘Oh yeah, ’ said the Sage somewhat tolerantly as Chris Weller fell over.
Not just a team but an entire club.... not Yeovil but a really small club like Odcombe and in recognition of where it had all come from I would give them a slightly unusual name like Odcombe and Spangles ( I was particularly pleased with the 'and' bit). I would build an incredible new stadium, all seats, all under cover, it would even have an electric score board and probably its own radio station. Furthermore, all my players would be full time. I would buy internationals, Pele, Gordon Banks and almost certainly Bobby Moore and through my hard saved Spangle money we would rifle up through the Yeovil and District Leagues, win all the championships, get elected to the Football League and in ten years time win the First Division, F.A. cup and European League and Odcombe and Spangles would become the first team in the world to win absolutely everything.
I sat back and waited for Sage Seth to comprehend the stunning enormity of my plan.
‘And then what'? said the Sage after a pause.
‘Well, we’d be happy,’ I speculated.
‘So that’s it, is it? You’d be happy because you were the Jason who bought the Golden Fleece. Have I taught you nothing? That’s a pretend club, son. A made up football club. You can’t buy a club son, you’ve got to build a club on blood and sweat and tears. This club’s crap but it’s ours. I’ve watched the Glovers for fifty years. I dug the railway sleepers in before the Sheffield Wednesday game. I cycled to Street to see Alec Stock’s heroes lose. I’ve even got my Chrysanthemums growing on the old Pen Mill ground. I’ve moaned and groaned with each of these ugly buggers around me for the last fifty years. It might have been a grim and dreadful experience but it’s real. And when, maybe just one day, some small crumb of success might be thrown our way, we’ll know that that success is ours to hold on to for one, lonely fleeting moment and us Argonauts will have truly won our Golden Fleece because its ours by right.... not because we bought it.
'No, son you go off and start up your Odcombe and Spangles and good luck to you. And you’ll not be alone there'll be plenty that follow you and jump on your bandwagon. I expect they’ll be three parts of the buggers here today following Odcombe and Spangles to the F.A. Cup final.... but when they see that cup lifted there'll be a little voice deep down in their hearts telling them that they’ve not sweated for this, it’s not real, it’s a made up football club and their happiness is all pretend.’
I went down to the tea bar and bought a packet of Spangles.
Hi Rich,
Here are a few excerpts from a Yeovil fan looking back to his younger days in the early '70s. With quotes from a famous Yeovil character, Sage Seth.
Hope you like them, even though they are about Yeovil rather than Torquay. The sentiments hit the mark with most lower league club fans........................
I wonder how many others at 3.00pm today [before the 3-3 draw with Dagenham -ed] were beginning to think that maybe.... after all.... this season.... might just.... possibly.
At such times I’m always reminded of my first meeting with Sage Seth, the Green and White Guru.
Yeovil 1 v 0 Chelmsford, November 9th, 1968
My father is a good man, never swears and I have never seen him angered. He has never knowingly made a wrong decision - except maybe once.
We jostled up the concrete steps of the old C block amongst a hoard of strange men talking about allotments and the advantages of rationing. On past the three fingered ticket collector. I could smell Oxo and pipe tobacco in the darkness of damp overcoats. The crowd pushed on as we were hit by daylight and then, suddenly, a beautiful slope of lush green turf.
All the time my father was talking. "I expect Dickie Plumb’ll play. He always gets into a punch up in the 63rd minute. He sometimes scores, got a good hoof on him. Not like Arthur Hickman of course - now there was a men with a hoof."
It was my first football match. In a strange kind of eight year old way I knew I was being initiated into something special.
We trudged on up the wooden steps towards the top of the stand. A group of men sat around an aging figure with a cloth cap, nodding ruefully. The old man’s gaze caught my father, ignoring the disciples around him he stood up. I noticed a look in my father’s eye - almost as if he wanted to leave.
The Sage spoke, "Who’ve you got with you there, Charlie?"
My father returned the gaze and spoke slowly, "My boy, Sage."
"Take him away."
I was aware that a silence had fallen over the stand and it was spreading.
"No, Sage."
Not just the stand now but the whole ground .An eerie hush.
"You know what I’ve told you, turn around and leave this ground."
"I gotta do it, Sage."
Now, even Cyril Davies had stopped running down the slope after the ball and was stood motionless.
"Why are you doing this to him?" It was like a Saturday morning western. A plastic cup rolled down the steps.
"Because this is my team and now it’s going to be his team."
Suddenly the Sage flew into a passionate speech, his voice booming across the ground. "Do you realise what you’re doing? If you don’t take him out this second, he’ll become caught in a spell - forever bound to Yeovil Town. And what good will that do him? Would you consign your own son to a life time of misery and hurt?"
"He’s my flesh and blood," my father pleaded.
"And it’s because he’s your flesh and blood that you should understand. Take him away. Go down Templeman’s and buy him one of they flash Division 1 subbuteo teams and bind him to another. I’m begging you. Time’s running out. They’ve already kicked off."
My father tried to search for words, "All my life...."
"This is your last chance, Charlie. You let that boy stay and his happiness or sadness will be possessed by the whims of a few part-timers dressed in green and white."
My father shook his head. The great man turned to me.
"Lad, have no part of this. Be gone. This is a place for the miserable. No shell with a hole, no bottomless lake for us. Ours is a punishment more terrible. To be given faint dreams and to have those dreams forever dashed on the rocks of fate."
The six old men around him looked at me with sad, watery eyes, big knuckled hands nervously twisting plastic cups. Slowly they whispered a mantra, "Find one of they teams that wins things. Manchester Rovers, Liverpool United, Tottingham, Everdown. Turn and leave. Turn and leave."
I looked at my father. I looked at the great Sage. I turned and took one final look at the pitch. Dick Plumb was running towards the goal, people were standing, kicking the air in front of them and yelling. I was intrigued. He was in the penalty box. My heart started to thump. He pulled back his right leg and hoofed the ball. Suddenly men, boys, humans erupted in an indissoluble knot of friendship. A smile, not a smile but a whole universe of warmth fell around me and I yelled a yell of delight as my father threw me high into the air.
Amongst the chaos, I noticed the Sage. A shadow of defeat moved across his face as he stared sorrowfully into his Oxo.
WEYMOUTH
On Weymouth beating Yeovil 1-0 in the F.A. Cup 4th qualifying round second replay 12th November 1973:
I was distraught, my child’s world crumbling around me. The thought of yet another season coming to an end on a wet Saturday afternoon in November, whilst having to endure Weymouth’s name being read in the first round results on Grandstand. The world was a dark and grim place and we were not famous anymore. Worse still, they might be. Yet the Green and White Guru’s words were uncannily prophetic. I have the programme before me now and can make out my pencil notes, oddly streaked with tears. But the Sage said;
"You’re all of a fluster now and they’re the top dogs, blowing their horns and ringing their bells up the Dorchester road. And you’re thinking that’s it. But who knows in twenty years time, they’ll be playing in some down in the mouth league with a ground on the edge of a trading estate and wind blowing through rusty, metal stands and the sea peeling off their disgusting pale blue paint."
The Sage took another sip from his oxo and added this philosophical twist. "And will you be glad? Maybe you’ll think you will. Maybe you think you’ll be leaping up and down. But is that what you want? Your most hated enemy to be so down in the heel that it’s not worth hating them anymore? In a rum kind of way you’ll feel sorry for them."
Kettering 1 v 0 Yeovil, March 17th 1973
How many will remember Elect Yeovil of the ‘70’s. A well drilled campaign of glossy brochures, Mr Green ’n’ White and each letter of the slogan lovingly stitched on the tracksuits of the Town’s stars, so that when they stood in a line at the centre circle, Elect Yeovil was there for all to see.
The Glovers were losing to Kettering, a club hopeful of league status and who would be one of our main challengers, when it came to Football League election.
‘Give us a spangle then,’ said the Sage.
‘No spangles today, Sage,’ I said proudly.
‘Eh? No spangles?’
I couldn’t hold my enthusiasm in any longer. I launched into my well-rehearsed schoolboy plan. I explained to the Sage that I would not be buying Spangles anymore; instead each 5p piece would be put into a jam jar with a hole in the top kept under my bed. This would continue until I had a decent sum. This accumulated decent sum would then be judiciously invested until I was at least a millionaire. And then - and here was the really cunning bit - I would buy a football team.
‘Oh yeah, ’ said the Sage somewhat tolerantly as Chris Weller fell over.
Not just a team but an entire club.... not Yeovil but a really small club like Odcombe and in recognition of where it had all come from I would give them a slightly unusual name like Odcombe and Spangles ( I was particularly pleased with the 'and' bit). I would build an incredible new stadium, all seats, all under cover, it would even have an electric score board and probably its own radio station. Furthermore, all my players would be full time. I would buy internationals, Pele, Gordon Banks and almost certainly Bobby Moore and through my hard saved Spangle money we would rifle up through the Yeovil and District Leagues, win all the championships, get elected to the Football League and in ten years time win the First Division, F.A. cup and European League and Odcombe and Spangles would become the first team in the world to win absolutely everything.
I sat back and waited for Sage Seth to comprehend the stunning enormity of my plan.
‘And then what'? said the Sage after a pause.
‘Well, we’d be happy,’ I speculated.
‘So that’s it, is it? You’d be happy because you were the Jason who bought the Golden Fleece. Have I taught you nothing? That’s a pretend club, son. A made up football club. You can’t buy a club son, you’ve got to build a club on blood and sweat and tears. This club’s crap but it’s ours. I’ve watched the Glovers for fifty years. I dug the railway sleepers in before the Sheffield Wednesday game. I cycled to Street to see Alec Stock’s heroes lose. I’ve even got my Chrysanthemums growing on the old Pen Mill ground. I’ve moaned and groaned with each of these ugly buggers around me for the last fifty years. It might have been a grim and dreadful experience but it’s real. And when, maybe just one day, some small crumb of success might be thrown our way, we’ll know that that success is ours to hold on to for one, lonely fleeting moment and us Argonauts will have truly won our Golden Fleece because its ours by right.... not because we bought it.
'No, son you go off and start up your Odcombe and Spangles and good luck to you. And you’ll not be alone there'll be plenty that follow you and jump on your bandwagon. I expect they’ll be three parts of the buggers here today following Odcombe and Spangles to the F.A. Cup final.... but when they see that cup lifted there'll be a little voice deep down in their hearts telling them that they’ve not sweated for this, it’s not real, it’s a made up football club and their happiness is all pretend.’
I went down to the tea bar and bought a packet of Spangles.