Page 16 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

Matthews, who’d missed the game at our place, was playing at the age of forty-eight. Being in a crowd that big was very exciting and a bit frightening too as it surged around like a sea and there was a lot of squashing against the barriers. Sometimes kids would be passed over the heads of the crowd to a safe place at the front and I always hoped this would happen to me, but it never did.
On 4th May 1963 I saw us beat Southampton 4-0. It was a lovely sunny day and at one point Monty cleared it out to right-winger Jimmy Davison just past the half-way line and he proceeded to run the length of the Southampton half before scoring. Years later, not long after Jimmy’s early death, I described this goal to his brother at a session in the Laburnum. That goal of Jimmy’s seemed so easy that I wondered why we didn’t do that all the time. On the walk home we were passing nearby All Saints Church when a guy just in front of me put a half-crown (twelve and a half pence in modern money but a fair bit in 1963) into the collection box of the vicar who, no doubt well aware of the good result, knew he could garner a few bob.
As it turned out that great win was all for nothing as in the final home match against immediate rivals Chelsea on May 18th we were beaten 1-0 by a Tommy Harmer goal that bounced in off what one correspondent said was 'his jock- strap'. I was listening to news snippets of the game on the radio at home in Elmwood Street and was mortified.. Apparently at Roker Park grown men were weeping. We
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