04/09/48: Exeter City (H)

Follis makes a point about the possibility of the ground attendance record being broken on that day reminding us it had stood for twenty-one years since that very first Football League match in 1927.

Well, it happpened....13,676 watched the 2-1 win over Exeter on 4 September 1948 (although the text of the centenary history says the crowd was over 14,000). Whatever the facts, it adds to the significance of this programme.

During WW2 and because of the commodity shortages that ensued, the Government introduced rationing and to ensure that those of more affluent finances didn't buy up all the goods and food and cause inflation; they used a system of coupons in which one had to also present the relevant piece of paper in addition to the money for the transaction.

There were petrol coupons (actually brought out of mothballs and re-issued during the nineteen seventies fuel shortages brought about by the 3 day week), meat coupons, milk coupons and clothing coupons. They stayed into use until well into the fifties in some instances.

If you look carefully at the United team lineup of that immediate after war period, you'll see that the plain white shirts were little more than ordinary long sleeved white shirts complete with buttons and the shorts looked as if they were made out of window black out material, with only the stockings being the "Real McCoy".

By the time the club exploded into a riot of colour with the introduction of the gold and blue, the public of this country were still living a pretty drab and pragmatic existence over a decade after the ceasing of hostilities.

My mother never stopped telling me how deprived they had been during those times, and she never was anything but frugal with her shopping, use of commodities and attitude to left over food. It left an indelible mark in her mentality that she took to the grave. Poke around with a boiled egg and out would come the story of the "rubber" (powdered) eggs that they had to put up with for well over six years; mess around with your Sunday dinner and Uncle Bert's recipe for baked hedgehog (a great substitute for chicken or rabbit)would be regurgitated!

Timbo has now posted several Plainmoor programmes from the autumn of 1948 and we’re slowly developing a picture of a fascinating period in the club’s history.

Reading the small print, supporter involvement in the basics of running a football club is clear to see. Look closely at those programmes and you’ll learn, not only of talk of the saving and donating of clothing coupons, but also of the collecting of materials to develop the Marnham Road side of the ground. This DIY approach must have been typical of an era when supporters groups were thriving and busy all over the place, a famous example being the way Southend supporters virtually took full responsibility for the building of Roots Hall during the 1950s. It makes you wonder, as you appreciate how powerful a force for good these organisations once were, just when supporters’ clubs were at their zenith in this country. Before most of our times I’d suggest.

To understand their role in the late 1940s you perhaps need to remember that - as Merse intimates in his posting – this was a time of austerity with rationing (food, petrol, clothing and otherwise) continuing for a good while yet. In that sense you can make a case for supporters’ clubs mirroring the “mend and make do” spirit of those days.

And talking of rations and restrictions, you’d imagine petrol rationing influenced the means and frequency of trips to away matches. It’s likely very few supporters travelled any distance by private car and, although coaches were on the road (as you can see by the adverts in those programmes), they might not have always been readily available. Consequently “outings” (to use the terminology of the Paignton branch of the supporters’ club) were made by a mixture of road and rail depending on what was most practicable each time. Moreover train travel was, of course, still a big thing for players and supporters alike.

In fact it would be intriguing to know what proportion of any football crowd in the late 1940s was made up of away supporters. If we assume it was a low one, then the massive crowds of those days (the biggest aggregates ever) need to be placed within the context of an almost unimaginable chunk – by today’s standards - of (any) local populace going "to the match”. Furthermore, history tells us it wasn’t just football that experienced the post-war boom in attendances as record numbers were watching other sports (including speedway and the dogs) as well as going to the cinema in their millions.

1948 was also the time of the London Olympics and I’ve seen it argued the Games lifted the mood of the day and played a big part in boosting attendance at other events. To an extent this is true – there was a 2.5% increase in football attendances for 1948/49 (when every league club averaged at least 6,000) on top of already high figures for the previous season – but, in reality, the trend was surely already in process.

But what of Torquay United specifically? Did the presence of Olympic yachting in Torbay lift spirits and cause a mini-boom in attendances at Plainmoor over the next few months? Maybe - maybe not - and I’ve not seen any mention of the Olympics in those programmes from early in the 1948/49 season. Although we’re told the Olympics were a big thing for the area, it’s hard to gauge their real impact on ordinary people. However, there was a short attendance surge at Plainmoor when the first three games of the season were watched by crowds of 10,000, 11,000 and 13,000 (in comparison to the 5-7,000 attendances of the back end of the previous season). And, as we’ve seen from the programmes, there had rarely been crowds of that size since the very first Football League game in 1927.

I guess it’s impossible to judge any Olympic effect. United made ten signings that summer – including several from Scotland – and were clearly out to improve on the previous year’s 18th place (and did so by finishing 9th and reaching the 4th round of the FA Cup). Also Notts County – Tommy Lawton and all – were the first opponents with one of the other early games being a fixture against Exeter. But why should there have been that 11,000 crowd against Ipswich when we’d just lost 5-1 at Portman Road? That was surely a measure of a new burst of enthusiasm.

Yet, as soon as those big crowds had come, they were gone again as none of Torquay’s five 10,000+ crowds that season came after Boxing Day, beyond when every attendance was below the seasonal average of 7,939. A flash in the pan or a prelude to the club starting to capture the imagination of the public rather more than it had done until that time?