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First Football Memories 14:03 - Aug 27 with 4820 views

Started getting all nostalgic again in my dotage and got to thinking about my first football memories. Dad was an amateur goalkeeper and took me to watch his games. I would stand by the side of the goal and watch the ball flying in from corners like a ballistic missile before attackers and defenders, giants in my eyes, all leaped together into the air with Dad somehow rising above the lot of them to punch it clear.

He started bringing home Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly from work, which I devoured. I still have them (many with pictures cut out which I stuck with Cow Gum on various pieces of paper, complete with entire pages of the Ladybird Book of Football copied out, for my junior school ‘Football’ project).

This would have been around 1966/7 though. Thinking back, the very first ‘football’ memory I have was Dad telling me that a Spurs player, John White, had been struck by lightning and killed, a terrible tragedy and something that has stayed with me all these years. This would have been in 1964 when I was six. I can’t really recall anything before that.

I’d love to hear about other people’s first football memories (could be QPR-related but not necessarily so. Might be a news story, event or just some random ‘jumpers for goalposts’ type memory too!)

[Post edited 27 Aug 15:03]

First Football Memories on 17:21 - Aug 27 with 1311 views

TwoHalves

First Football Memories on 16:42 - Aug 27 by colinallcars

It's strange but I think my earliest was of Mike Tomkys who was the first boo-boy target I can remember. I used to be leaning on the wall at the front and Mike played an awful pass that had the crowd booing. Arthur Longbottom came over, put his arms around him and said “that's alright Mike”
Funny, I remember that more than the football.
I think the next booboy target was Mike Keen. Our crowds don't seem to like Mikes.

Not sure if it’s some sort of false memory (or maybe it was just a one-off) but I was so shocked to hear a player being booed by our own supporters because in my case it was Don Givens. No idea why that should be the case.

[Post edited 27 Aug 19:53]

First Football Memories on 17:28 - Aug 27 with 1283 views

TwoHalves

First Football Memories on 16:36 - Aug 27 by BexleyHoop

My first game I attended was at the Old Den. Millwall v Wolves Went with my grandad and cousin. He was a docker, lived in Bermondsey, Millwall die hard. Perched on my grandads shoulders on the half-way line, towards the back near the tea hut. Smell of bovril, fags and piss flowing out the the toilets is the main memory along with flat caps and the unbelievable noise from the crowd and the industrial language not meant for a four year old to hear. Not much has changed down there since!!

‘Bovril, fags and piss’: so evocative! Sounds like the follow up to The Pogues’ Rum, Sodomy and The Lash.

First Football Memories on 18:00 - Aug 27 with 1217 views

terryb

My first "footballing" memory is of standing on the kitchen chair & looking out of the window watching my brother play on the wasteland. As a 4 year old, I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to join him!

Following that, my father was a "scout" for Chesham United & I went with him on Saturday afternoons to watch local football as he looked for players that would get the club out of the doldrums. That led to being a regular at Chesham home & away games until i started playing adult football as a 15 year old in 1967.

I know that the first professional match I saw was Watford at home to Bournemouth in the 3rd Division south while my mother had the joy of Christmas shopping, but I can't remember anything about the game & swore for years that we were at Bournemouth (a long way from home rather than our closest FL team)!

The first match I can remember being present at was the 2nd Division promotion decider in the last match of the 57/58 season between Charlton & Blackburn (my dad's team) in a crowd of over 70,000. Charlton needed a draw & Blackburn a win to go up. Blackburn won 4-3. Prior to this I recall watching the 1957 Cup Final on television & becoming a fan of Peter McParlane.

My first Rangers game was a 0-0 draw at Orient a few weeks after the League Cup win in March 1967 & my first visit to Loftus Road was the opening home game against Norwich in 67/68.

Oh, Happy Days!

[Post edited 28 Aug 9:24]

First Football Memories on 18:32 - Aug 27 with 1159 views

Superhoop83

First match I remember on TV - Man United v Liverpool FA Cup Final - May 1977

First QPR result I remember - Newcastle 0 QPR 3 - April 1978

First match at Loftus Road - QPR 3 Derby 0 - February 1982

Suffering since 1978.

First Football Memories on 18:38 - Aug 27 with 1148 views

lightwaterhoop

England v Bulgaria in 1968 at Wembley my Dad took me i was 6 years old.I can't remember much about the game but the thing that stood with me was that i was amazed at how huge the stadium looked and how many people were there [80.000] England were world cup holders and Moore,Charlton,Peters and Hurst were playing.Alan Mullery also played that night.It was a great experience for a 6 year old though.

First Football Memories on 19:28 - Aug 27 with 1075 views

TwoHalves

First Football Memories on 18:38 - Aug 27 by lightwaterhoop

I found some of my Dad’s old Wembley programmes (complete with tickets stubs) when we were clearing out the attic following his death three years ago.

These included the 1953 ‘Match of the Century’ when Hungary beat England 6-3 and the famous 1956 FA Cup Final between Birmingham and Manchester City when Bert Trautmann, the City keeper, played on with a broken neck.

Such treasured items (together with the programme and correspondence relating to his team’s 1955 Easter tour to Hamburg, where they played one match at the old Hamburger Sportverein (HSV) ground at Rothenbaum).

First Football Memories on 21:40 - Aug 27 with 986 views

qpr_1968

notts forest at home 1968.....2-1 win.
me and my class mate, and best mate, alan, begged his brother to take us to loftus road on that saturday to watch us play notts forest.
me and alan, 10 years old, trotted down from the suttons in ladbroke grove, chaperoned by alans older brother ray, 12 years old.
loved the atmosphere, stood in the boys pen at the front of the loft, think there was 18,000 in attendance, not too packed.
but on the way out going onto the street in loftus road had to be raised up on some fellows shoulders because of the crush....
hooked....next game, same season, arbroath at home in a mid season freindly....won 6-3.

Poll:

how many games this season....home/away.

First Football Memories on 22:38 - Aug 27 with 908 views

WandleR

First memories playing footie over Prebend Gardens near Stamford Brook (known locally as dogs park, poo bags weren't around in 1968) with my 2 older brothers, a big fella called Nick Piggot and a certain Rashid Harkouk who lived in the posh houses towards Turnham Green. I was 7 or 8, instructions to goal hang and knock it in when the keeper spilled it. I wasn't popular.
First game, Plymouth Argyle, 30th Dec 1967, we won 4-1, they wore green shirts with a sort of white and black hoop around the middle.
Under the floodlights it all looked fantastic, and I was hooked.
Anyone else remember there was a bench by the touchline where the Ellerslie stand finished short of the school end where they'd stick young kids? I was lucky to be plonked over on it once or twice that promotion season. Magical.

First Football Memories on 00:47 - Aug 28 with 821 views

Boston

First Football Memories on 17:19 - Aug 27 by LunarJetman

Apparently “White was killed by a lightning strike at the age of 27 while sheltering under a tree during a thunderstorm at Crews Hill golf course, Enfield on 21 July 1964.”

First memory of attending would have been the Simon Cup quarter final away at Watford on 14th Feb 1989 watching David Seaman save at least one penalty to see us through to a semi final v Everton which we lost..

My first football memories as an 8 year old watching the 1982 FA cup final and replay on the tv then the World Cup later that year. Paulo Rossi, Tardelli and Altobelli scoring in the final. Dino Zoff lifting the trophy. Not forgetting Schumacher nearly killing Battisto in the semis!

Not alcohol poisoning then?

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.

Poll:

Thank God The Seaons Over.

First Football Memories on 09:31 - Aug 28 with 654 views

terryb

First Football Memories on 18:38 - Aug 27 by lightwaterhoop

I was there that night & loved watching my hero of the time take England apart.

Why or how I became a fan of Georgie Asparuhov I can't recall, but in the early 2000's the "Bulgarian George Best" was voted by Bulgarians as the best ever player from their country.

First Football Memories on 15:29 - Aug 28 with 542 views

derbyhoop

First Football Memories on 17:19 - Aug 27 by LunarJetman

I was sheltering, from the same (?) storm, under the canopy at St Aidans Church in E Acton and the news came through. Tragedy.
At primary school, I tried to model my game on his.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain) Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky

First Football Memories on 16:07 - Aug 28 with 510 views

Pindarus

First league game I remember was Charlton vs Notts County in 1958. My dad had some business with Charlton and they invited him to sit in tbe directors box so he took me along. All I remember really is the Valley was absolutely huge and some guy called Eddie Werge scored a hat trick.
I hasten to add that was the last time I sat in a directors box.

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