Getting into the zone….

Back; W.Morris, Poppitt, Neilson, Dickson, Rennie and Hadden
Seated; Harper, J.Morris, McKay, Adam and Jordan

                                                          Getting into the zone….

The 1958/59 season was a curious one. With the reorganisation of non league football, the Southern League was split into two divisions, the North West and South East Zones. As such, there were only 34 league games to play. Thus in their wisdom, the league management, plucking from their Suggestion Box, introduced a one-off Inter Zone Cup to fill in the gaps. This still wasn’t enough and so it was up to the clubs to organise friendly matches to make the season worth while. A right mixture it was too. The Steelmen arranged friendlies as diverse as the All Stars XI, Bomber Command, amateur clubs Ilford, Sutton Town and one against Bournemouth Reserves which was the most curious of all! What was the connection with the Cherries? If any? Perhaps Chairman Fred had been there on holiday? Who Knows.

What was exciting those days was that virtually every non league club boasted a former international player in their team. Corby had Johnny Morris, Kettering had Jack Froggatt. Wellington Town had Johnny Hancocks. To name just a few. One who in particular sticks in my mind, was Roy Paul of Worcester City. Just two years previously Paul had been captain of the cup-winning Manchester City team. He was also City’s and Wales captain. It just so happened that I had his autobiography, christ knows where it came from but another anomaly was that he was born in Pentre, which is a village just up the road from my family’s home of Treherbert in the Rhondda. Taking this into account is why I still recall the excitement felt around town of Roy Paul’s forthcoming appearance at Occupation Road in March 1959. The previous summer remember, Wales had been the most successful British team in the World Cup held in Sweden. Only Brazil, the eventual winners, had put them out. The Welsh team of the Charles brothers, Allchurch brothers etc. All former teammates of Roy Paul. 

However, despite all this, and his presence, Worcester were held to a 1-1 draw. Which was an improvement for Corby on the previous week’s effort, a 3-0 away defeat to the factory team of Lovells Athletic in Newport. 

Just a month earlier Worcester, with Roy Paul at left half, had knocked Liverpool out of the F.A.Cup, 2-1 in one of the biggest shocks of the competition’s history. Liverpool included legends Tommy Younger, Ronnie Moran, Alan A’Court, Jimmy Melia in their team. A year later, Liverpool, then in the Second Division, appointed Bill Shankly as manager, and as they say, the rest is history.

Roy Paul, aged 39, called it a day after this season and returned home to the Rhondda to become a lorry driver. He passed away in 2002 aged 82. Somehow, in these money mad days of football, it’s hard to imagine any modern day stars taking a job lorry driving after such an illustrious career. Different world. 

Going off on a tangent, Roy Paul played in the only F.A.Cup Final that was officiated by a one armed referee, Alf Bond in the 1956  Manchester City verses Birmingham Final. The game when City keeper Bert Trautmann broke his neck. Bert, a tough old boy, continued in goals, despite this handicap, soothed with a pill, to help City and his captain Paul to a 3-1 victory. If air ambulances had been around in the 50s, it might well have been a different story. Bert would have been carted off and somebody else would have had to have gone between the sticks. Bert, the German prisoner of war was made of sterner stuff though.

Whilst a one armed ref is a rarity, there was another well known one, locally, who lived in Tansfield Road, Corby. Tommy Galt took charge of many a Kettering Amateur League game in the town’s West Glebe Park and other districts during the 50s and 60s. He was also known for his horticultural skills, remembered by neighbour Lynn Head for his garden ‘always being immaculate’, winning prizes, and selling flowers from his garden.’ I’m not leading you up the garden path - it’s a true story.

Wellington Town, later to change their name to Telford United and including ex Wolves and England winger Johnny Hancocks were Corby's first ever opponents in the Southern league. A crowd of over 3000 turned out to see Johnny Morris's team create a piece of history for the club. Before the kick off two new footballs were presented to the Steelmen. One from the Blast Furnace section of Stewarts and Lloyds and one from 30 former residents of Wellington living in Corby. Whatever ball they used, it was in the back of the Wellington net three times! A 3-0 victory sending the herds home and off for a Saturday night out in great mood. Joy wasn't to last too long however. Four nights later the Steelmen crashed 6-2 away at Wisbech. Such is life following the Steelmen! Some things never change it would seem.

Following my adventure with Barry Town I couldn’t wait to go again. The atmosphere at Occupation Road was intoxicating. The football wasn’t always great but ingrained more in my memory is the permeating stench and the steam belching out from the bowels of the ‘Tuck Shop’ at the back of the stand on the Westfields Road side, with a woman that resembled to us kids, Maw Broon from The Broons Christmas Annual peering through the mist like an apparition. Maw served up steaming cups of Oxo, tasteless tea, greasy sausage rolls, Mars Bars and gobstoppers which took care of your last penny! One of the great pleasures of a visit to Occy Road.  Even if the tea was rank. 

And if you think the description of the Typhoo being rank is flippant, the quality, or lack of, was obviously a view shared by a good many. Including the committeemen of the Supporters Club who were likewise unimpressed. In the Kings Lynn programme just a month into the season they duly announced; ‘two new tea urns are being purchased’, adding, ‘you can now expect a cup of tea - just like your maw makes!’ As long as it wasn’t like Maw Broon’s I guess!

I’m sure there were more pressing subjects to worry about at the club, like the form of the first team, which to date had been inconsistent to say the least. Manager Johnny Morris had chopped and changed the team he had assembled to such an extent that faith within the devotees on the terraces was dissipating by the week.

Peter McKay scores from a cross by John Rennie 58/59

One success though was the form of centre forward Peter McKay who was signed from St. Mirren in the summer. Only a ‘wee’ feller, Peter was banging the goals in left, right and centre. Only trouble was, the defence was leaking in goals, left, right and centre! Like a sieve. McKay had scored goals for fun at Burnley, St.Mirren and Dundee United and must have been wondering what he had to do! ‘Keep banging them in!’ Johnny told him I expect. Peter, to this day, is still Dundee United’s all-time record goalscorer. 

Johnny was scratching his head. His selections at times were bordering on the bizarre. Was he pulling names out of a hat? 37 goals had been shipped in 13 games leading up to an away F.A.Cup Tie against fierce rivals Kettering Town. Johnny’s answer was to drop popular right winger Alex Harper and replace him with 18 year old reserve Martin Watson for his debut. 

If supporters, and indeed Martin, was surprised, Johnny had no fears; "Martin has been playing extremely well in reserve games” he explained, “he's an all-round sportsman, can do 100 yards in even time and is a former captain of the successful Uppingham & Corby Boys Club. Martin can catch pigeons.”

But what about the defence Johnny!

Martin Watson recalled his sudden promotion to the first team for a Steelmen match day programme in 2012. 

Martin Watson

"Pace was my main asset, my only one!" Martin joked. "Johnny Morris had been unhappy with Alex Harper's recent performances and the form of the first team altogether was decidedly inconsistent but there was no one more surprised than me when I was called up. What could have been in the manager's mind was that my pace would be too much for the Kettering left back, former Norwich City player Roy Lockwood who had shut Alex Harper out of the previous 'Derby' game. There was over 6,000 in the Rockingham Road ground and the crowd was right on the touchline. Playing for the reserves you were lucky if the proverbial one man and his dog turned up! I was a tad nervous but once the game started I was alright. I didn't notice the crowd really." 

What followed was a complete demolition of the Steelmen by a Hughie Morrow inspired Poppies. 

Martin; ”Lockwood was an experienced former league player and if truth was told, he was far too good for me. Kettering was far too good for us that day. We were hammered 5-1! And I never played for the first team again!”

‘The Friar’, writing in the Kettering based Evening Telegraph, could hardly hide his delight;

‘Due mainly to an exhibition of wing play rarely seen at this level by Kettering's Hughie Morrow, the Poppies were 4-0 up at half time. The tormentor in chief, Morrow constantly had the Steelmen defence tied in knots and laid on two of the four goals before adding a fifth himself. The Corby side should consider themselves fortunate that they got away with a four goal deficit". 

The Friar went on to praise Corby goalkeeper Pat Egglestone for some heroic saves and equally bemoan 'incredible' misses by the Kettering forward line. Likewise he ventured that Corby's forwards suffered from some 'unintelligent distribution from behind’ and 'a lack of power on the wings’.

So ended Martin Watson's dabble in the F.A.Cup, and the Steelmen's first team! It was back to the drawing board for Johnny Morris.

Steelmen celebrating a rare victory. Barry Parsons, John Rennie, Jimmy Adam, Alex Harper and Buddy Irving.

The next five games saw Johnny shuffle his pack again, four more defeats and another 16 goals debited! With Christmas on the horizon, Johnny was looking for some good will. Or a decent defence! A disastrous December, apart from an incredible disbelieving game against the Poppies, which saw the Steelmen thrash their neighbours 5-1, saw 24 more goals sailing into their net in five games, including back to back defeats against Headington United 7-3 and 6-2. 

What inspired the performance for the Kettering game one can only surmise. Revenge? Pissed off with the gloating of the Friar? For some reason it’s a game I recall, chiefly for being taken to the match by my dad! Now I can never recall my dad being the slightest bit interested in football! He did tell me he once went on the team bus to Scarborough in the Midland League days. Which I found hard to believe but he insisted it was true. But how? Or why? He was a workmate of ex Corby players Jim Strathie, Alex Wands and Ernie Middlemiss in the steelworks and whether they went for a piss up and a day out is open to conjecture. What I do remember about the Kettering 5-1 game is standing by the corner flag with my dad and his pals from the Bessemer, and everybody going crazy as the Steelmen tore into the Poppies. It was a hard game, and Kettering suffered injuries to a couple of their players, including their goalkeeper Roberts but that was no excuse, they were pummelled! Corby’s fans milked it, taunting the Poppies supporters with the anthemic ‘A Steelman Fae Me’ resonating around the ground. Ok I maybe embellishing that a bit but there was never any love lost between the two sets of supporters, even if many of them did work together in the steelworks! 

Indeed, Danny Coyle remembers being told his dad, John, an Irishman who later became famous as a porridge eating champion and mentioned by the Apollo 11 astronauts on their way to the moon, getting more and more irritated by abusive Kettering supporters standing behind him that game and snapped, turned round and banged two of their heads together! What ensued was a battle on the touchline as well as on the pitch! 

Alex Harper v Kettering

Disillusionment must have been festering with the Steelmen supporters, even today you can only put up with watching so much crap, but If you were looking for an alternative to the horror shows at Occupation Road in 58’, what better way was there than going to the Odeon Cinema round the corner to see more horror with ‘The Fly’, ‘The Blob’, ‘Dracula’ or ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’?  

Don’t think it bothered us kids though all the same. Occupation Road was still a playground. Results didn’t matter! Running around, in and out of the holes in the back of the grandstand, treading on toes of agitated grumpy older fans, bumping into them as they supped their Oxo, being shouted at and told to ‘F--- Off!’ - it all went over our heads!

An accessory at football grounds back then was the Half Time Scoreboard. Corby’s was at the ‘Wall End’. The small terrace of railway sleepers behind the goal and in front of the huge Poplar trees with the Welfare Grounds at the rear. Picturesque the trees may have been but they served a great purpose in stopping many a wayward shot having been ballooned over the bar. The Scoreboard was a tantalising climbing frame for youngsters, an aid for hitching up to perch on the brick wall, until the health and safety merchants decided to cover it with broken glass! 

We didn’t take much notice of the series of letters on the board. Didn’t really get it. What were they supposed to indicate? Bemusing really. And even more so when not long after the start of the second half a guy would come round with a box of numbers to place against them! Only later when you picked up a discarded programme and discovered inside a list of games with letters against them did you understand. Under the banner - ‘Half Time Scores’. A - Liverpool v Chelsea, B - Northampton v Rochdale, C - Leicester v Preston ..and so on. Turns out, the scores were waited with great anticipation from the supporters, especially those who had filled in their Pools Coupon! “Bollocks’ would often be exclaimed if the  scores weren’t looking too fruitful at half time. 

Studfall 'B'

Meanwhile I was being noticed at school for being a half decent player on the football field and selected to play right half for Studfall ‘B’ away at the Cottingham village school one Saturday morning. Going there in a minibus made it feel even better. Proper football stuff! Our kit was pale green and white squared shirts and black shorts. The shirts were grubby, stank of body odour, hadn’t seen a washing machine for years, full of holes and were too big! The team included Ian Althorpe, John Raby, Michael Virgo, Robert Pinkerton, Joe Ashforth and others I can’t recall. The game was played literally on a cow field. Dollops of cowpat everywhere! Despite the fear of heading a ball with cow crap on, and the pong, it was a good game, ending in a 2-2 draw. 

The 58/59 season was drawing to a close, the Steelmen struggling along in the bottom half of the league, ensuring that they would be placed in the lower division of yet another revamp of the Southern League the following campaign. With a few blank Saturdays to fill in, it was a great surprise when it was announced in February that Bournemouth Reserves were visiting to play a Friendly. A bigger surprise was a raffle organised by the Ladies Section of the Supporters Club advertised on the front of the programme. ‘Win a brand new black Austin A50 car, fully taxed and insured - for just a 1/-‘ Which is 5p in new money. It was in aid of what they called the Peter McKay Fund, an attempt to fulfil the outstanding transfer fee owed to St.Mirren since the summer. The car was valued at £550. The draw was to be made on Easter Monday March 30th during half time of the Hereford United game.
The Bournemouth game was a fairly sedate affair which ended in a draw 2-2. Well, nobody wanted to break a leg I suspect but for us kids it was fascinating to see a Football League team, albeit the second string, at Occy Road. They even had a badge on their shirt! Big Time!

Bob -A Job Week. Corby Scouts Alan Sheffield (13), David Hay (12), Peter Martin (11) giving the A 50 car a makeover before handing it over to the winner who remains anonymous.

A couple of other games stick in my memory. Bath City came to town with the legendary former Blackpool and England centre forward Stan Mortensen, and a character called Charlie ‘Cannonball’ Fleming who was a famed Scottish international previously with Sunderland, threatening to cause havoc with the Steelmen defence. ‘Cannonball’ Fleming conjured up visions of a ‘Roy of the Rovers’ figure spearheading the Bath attack, a guy with fire in his boots, a shot like a bullet and one to keep your eye on if a wayward one came your way behind the goal! We feared this bloke! As it happened though, Cannonball was sidelined through a shoulder injury. All the same it was expected that Bath would rampage through the Steelmen. After all, in 52 games so far, Corby’s defence had let in 150 goals! Instead, it was  'tame', as the bored Evening Telgraph reporter described it. Maybe Bath and Morty in particular weren’t really interested. Like Roy Paul, Morty was ready to hang up his boots. The match was a typical end of season affair, a damp squib. Goals from reserve player George Wilson and a Johnny Morris penalty gave Corby the points, 2-0. 

Five days later on a wet miserable Friday night, the night before the Nottingham Forest v Luton Cup Final, Corby entertained another Welsh side, Merthyr Tydfil. 

The game was another typical end of season affair. I can still see myself standing alone behind the Occupation Road goal, leaning against the fence, shivering and wet through with the rain, wondering what the f--k I was doing there. A feeling I would experience many a time over the following decades! But you stick it out, never give up hope. And I can still see Johnny Morris sliding through the mud in the quagmire of a penalty area to guide the ball home for a 1-0 victory. 

Memories are made of this. The number one record this week was ‘A Fool Such As I’, Elvis Presley. Fairly appropriate you might add.

C’Mon the Steelmen!

C’Mon the Steelmen! 

The hallowed ground of Occupation Road

A lifetime of following the fortunes of a nondescript non league football team, the occasional highs and the perpetual lows, decades of dreams and disasters, brilliance and rubbish. A roller coaster of emotions that will no doubt continue to engross hundreds of others till we shuttle off the mortal coil. 

As supporter Dale Campbell put it; “It's in our blood and always will be. You can run, escape for a bit, go in exile because you go in a huff - but we always return because we love our local club.”

Note, I said back there, hundreds. Not thousands. The Steelmen, Corby Town, like a million other minor football clubs, struggle along for eternity in attempting to entice the ‘armchair football fans’, the ‘glory hunters’, the ‘tourists’ attracted and attaching themselves to the global institutions of the Manchester Uniteds, the Liverpools, the Chelseas. And ok, at this point I have to hold my hands up - I too was once a ‘tourist’, following the Reds of Anfield. Discovering a whole new world of football almost by fate when aged 15, going to watch Leicester City play Liverpool at Filbert Street on the opening day of the 1965/66 football season. Liverpool, the F A Cup winners the previous May offered a nice alternative with the Steelmen, newly promoted to the Southern League Premier Division, playing their first game in the higher echelons of non league for the first time with an away day at Kings Lynn. No transport links, no way of getting to Norfolk by train, bus or car, an offer of a lift to Leicester from a friendly postman was gratefully accepted. So it was that along with future Steelmen goalkeeper Dick Dighton and our friend Nigel ‘Pop’ Portman, we experienced something that was life changing. Liverpool beat Leicester 3-1, the atmosphere and crack, the humour of the scousers was overwhelming. We agreed; we had to do this again! Pop was already a Man Utd fan and ironically, as this is supposed to be about the life and times of an avid Steelmen supporter, the following Wednesday, when Corby were playing the legendary non league team of Yeovil at home, we were all at the City Ground in Nottingham to see Forest play United! Thanks to Pop’s dad Arthur asking us if we would like to go! Well! But that’s another story…Forest beat United 4-2 by the way.

                                                                  1958

Football becoming an all consuming passion for kids in the 50s, the so called ‘Baby Boomers’, began with the hobby of collecting Bubble Gum Cards, sets comprising of 48 football teams, another of

football stars. There was also Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly, a magazine in which you had to save some of your pocket money to buy. Which could be a bit of a stretch. These opened your world up to the excitement of watching and playing the wonderful game of soccer. Other than these you would have to wait until Christmas and hope that an uncle would give you the ‘Football Champions Annual’ as a present. The only present that mattered! Never mind the jigsaw, the train set, the bike, ripping the gift paper off a football book was orgasmic! Of course if you were also lucky enough to get a football shirt off Santa, that was better still. And usually, whatever colour it was, they were always plain, replica shirts were light years away, they dictated what ‘Big’ team you would support. The first one I had was blue and white stripes. Amongst my collection of bubble gum cards, my favourite was Derek Kevan, the West Bromwich Albion and England centre forward. WBA then, became my team! Later, as children do, I swapped it for a blue one and became a Cardiff City supporter! Such are the whims of an eight year old.

Following the fortunes of your chosen ‘Big’ club was difficult, you never saw them! Unless they made it to the F.A.Cup Final. The only ‘live’ game shown on television. And long before ‘Match of the Day’. That and the ‘football pools’ a weekly lottery every dad in the country participated in, in the hope success would transport them from a life of run of the mill drudgery. Excitement would build on Saturday tea times with your dad writing down the scores read out by Australian sports reporter Len Martin from BBC’s teleprinter. ‘Stenhousemuir 3 Forfar Athletic 2’ might be greeted with a groan. ‘Damn, I had that for an away win!’ The weekly failure of the pools meant another week at the grindstone. 

Last but not least in this trip down memory lane there was the Saturday night ‘Pink Un’, a popular sports newspaper sold normally by teenagers riding around on their bicycles after dark with a bag full of them, bellowing ‘Pink Un! Football Results!’ Men would scurry into the street to try and catch him before he disappeared around the corner. 

Larry Wealthall, Corby goalkeeper in the early 60s was one of those teenagers; “I sold the ‘Pink Un‘ for McBryan’s on Rockingham Road for sixpence a dozen. It was very profitable while price was twopence ha’penny, because I never had change for a threepenny bit! The next season price increased to three pence so I gave it up.”

Besides the day’s Football League and Scottish League results, the ‘Pink Un’ also gave a weekly rundown of the fortunes and match reports of all the local amateur clubs, recalled by Graham Henderson, Steelman exile in Australia; “It was amazing how they got all those match results and reports in such a short space of time. Remember us often saying ‘that takes the biscuit’. We were also pissed off if the ‘Pink Un’ boy had sold out or we had missed him.”

Though there were variations of the sports paper around the country, some were called the ‘Green Un’, our ‘Pink Un’ was different. Along the top of the back page was a series of caricatures, each depicting one of the local teams by their nicknames and a cartoon. The Steelman had the predictable ‘Tammy’ on his head, looking delighted if Corby had won, glum if they drew and with a plaster on his face if they had lost. Meant to assume that he had been in a fight and an argument over the defeat! 

Which tells you something about how the folk of Corby were perceived by our county cousins, a legacy of the 1930s and 40s so-called ‘Invasion of Scottish and Irish immigrants’ seeking work in the steelworks.

Other caricatures included ‘The Friar’, a fat bloke in a robe who represented the Poppies of Kettering. Wellingborough had the Doughboy, which presumably had something to do with the town’s flour factory Whitworths. Peterborough, the ‘Posh’, had a gentleman looking like Fred Astaire with a Top Hat. Also included were the Fenmen of Wisbech, the Linnets of Kings Lynn, the Hatters of Luton, the Tulips of Spalding, the Cobblers of Northampton, the Hares of March… 

For the team with the most impressive result of the day went the coveted ‘Pink Un Biscuit’ which looked like a Digestive. The biscuit was the first thing you looked for. If Corby Town was on it, especially after an away game, the excitement in searching for the match report was tangible. You could say the biscuit was the forerunner to the ‘Man of the Match’ award. And later on…in the 1990s.. the ‘Scotch Pie Man of the Match Award’. Presented to a player in the club bar after a game by Corby’s jovial impersonators of ‘Saint and Greavsie', John Crawley and Kenny Hughes. The bemused player receiving a rousing round of applause and the pie for his endeavour. Great fun and an innocent world away from the ‘wonderful game’ of the millennium.

But back to 1958..

In the beginning…the streets were alive with the sound of music… Connie Francis’ ‘Lipstick On Your Collar’, The Coasters’ ‘Charlie Brown’, Jerry Keller’s ‘Here Comes Summer’, Lonnie Donegan’s ‘Battle of New Orleans’, Russ Conway’s ‘China Tea’, Craig Douglas’ ‘Only Sixteen’.  Wafting in the wind from the Tannoy, and adding an extra ingredient of pre-match excitement at the Occupation Road Stadium, if that isn’t too grand a description.   

In truth, Occupation Road was probably one of the best, certainly better, non league football grounds in the country. Boasting newly installed sixty foot floodlight pylons in each corner and officially turned on for the first time in February of this year with a ‘Grand’ celebration match between the Steelmen and an ‘All Stars XI’ of ex international players. The Board of Directors, led by Mr F.C. Deeley, was there ever a more appropriate name for a football club chairman? were rightly proud of the lights. There was less than a handful in the country at this point. It was a sign of ambition the Directors proclaimed. Backed up by the appointment of  new player/manager, former Manchester United, Leicester City, Derby County and England international Johnny Morris for the inaugural season of the revamped non-league pyramid, the North West Zone of the Southern League, Exciting stuff but greeted as bullshit by most Corby supporters. Ambition? Just six years previously the board had released their record goalscorer, centre forward Ernie Middlemiss when Ernie had asked them if they would match an offer he had received from neighbours Kettering Town. “The Poppies offered me an extra fiver a week, I told the board, and they said ‘Go’.” Ernie Middlemiss had scored 134 goals in 135 games in three seasons. They obviously thought he was on the wane. 

Fred introduces Johnny to his Board.

Apart from the streets being alive with the sound of music, they were also alive with the sound of children. Kicking a ball about on street corners. Much to the annoyance of residents and nightshift workers trying to get some zzzz. We were regularly being chased to the nearest local patch of green. We weren’t called the ‘Baby Boomers’ for nothing. The post war years had seen a massive and sudden boom in the population thanks to returning servicemen desperate to get their leg over. 

Around town, every town as well you would assume, football matches of 20 a-side would take place on the green pastures, of which there was plenty.

Our patch was on Studfall Green. The sides included Dick Dighton, who would later make the grade as goalkeeper with Coventry City, Peterborough United, Kettering and Corby. Graham Henderson who gave up football for the guitar and headed for the Antipodes. Ian ‘Bomber’ Wilson who made a name for himself as a hard driving midfield enforcer, dirty bleeder in other words, with a number of local amateur clubs. Stan ‘Snowball’ Watkinson was as blind as a bat which didn’t stop him from becoming a well respected local referee. John Crawley was equally as short sighted as Stan but remembered fondly for booting an irritating dog, which was interfering our game, right up the ass! Fido was sent into orbit much to everyone’s delight and we carried on. 

Frank Clayton followed Stan by taking up the whistle. He too became a well respected ‘man in black’. John Sweeney, now living in Canada, was yet another who gave up playing to officiate and earn the soubriquet ‘well respected.….’ Funny that. How come they were all ‘well respected’? Some of them must have been crap. 

Another star of the ‘Green’ and later would became a significant figure at Corby Town as chairman was Douglas William ‘Bip’ Wetherell. A very successful businessman and entertainer, Bip, back then, was a speedy left winger with the nickname of Billy Whizz, tearing up the turf parallel to Studfall Avenue. 

Four of the Studfall Green stars reunited in the 2000s. L-r Clive Smith, Ian Wilson, Stan Watkinson and Dick Dightion.

Who could have known, back then in the 1950s and 60s, what lay ahead of some of these boys? A scenario which was replicated around the town on pitches at the Uppingham and Corby Boys Club, the Welfare Ground, the West Glebe Park? Norman Dean, Len Chalmers, Jim Fotherigham, Andy McCabe all had their fun here and went on to play for league clubs, Len becoming the first Corby born footballer to play in a Cup Final, and an unwanted statistic as being a member of the ‘Wembley Hoodoo’ club when he was injured in the 1961 Final playing for Leicester. Cup Finals had been marred for years with players breaking legs, a neck even. It would eventually, see the introduction of substitutes, but it took another four years after Len Chalmers had knackered his leg against the ‘Double’ winning team of Tottenham Hotspur.  

1958 was memorable for a number of reasons, the World Cup in Sweden and the magical Brazilian team of Pele, Vava, Didi, Zito and co.  Such exotic names. A tradition carried on by todays great Braziilians, Fred, Malcom, Bernard.. 1958 was also witness to the tragic Munich Air Crash involving Manchester United. Half the team, the famed ‘Busby Babes’ was wiped out. It was a depleted United side that played Bolton Wanderers in the Cup Final with their murderous centre forward Nat Lofthouse scoring both goals in the 2-0 win. Players like him would have goalkeepers cacking in their pants nowadays. One of the youngsters drafted into the United team that day was Alex Dawson who himself gained a reputation in the Lofthouse mould as, shall we say, uncompromising. In the early 1970s, Alex ended up at Occupation Road, putting the icing on a cake of a wonderful career with a couple of seasons with the Steelmen.

Television was still relatively new in those days, not everyone had one. We did, but I don’t recall the Cup Final being shown in our house. Highly unlikely as it was a Welsh household and rugby mad family. I do remember rugby internationals being on and the house full of my brothers, their friends, uncles and my dad getting pissed up and cheering on the Welsh team. Even remember them having a scrum in our front room! Great fun. Mam didn’t seem to mind, well she wouldn’t, she loved it all as well. But the point of this is I guess, I was the black sheep! I was the only football fan in the family!

My passion for the Steelmen started this year, the 58/59 season, joining all the other kids being drawn like disciples following the Pied Piper to the hallowed ground of Occy Road. A passion shared by Graham Henderson; “I vividly remember 5/6 of us walking down Occupation Road to a night game, and when we saw the floodlights switched on we quickened our pace to get there. It was so exciting”.

I have wondered many a time what my first game was. Being the tender age of 8 my main memories of those initial years seem to be more about playing ‘Tig’ or ‘Hide and Seek’ during the games. Running around, no doubt annoying adults, being a pest and generally an all round nuisance! It was like a playground! Proceedings would be halted if there was a penalty awarded or something, and all the kids would make a mad dash to get behind one of the goals. 

Funnily enough, a scene re-enacted a fews decades later by my son Gareth and his friends in the 1980s. ‘Enjoy the game?’ My wife Sue would ask him. ‘Yeah it was great mum!’ he’d reply enthusiastically. Used to make us both laugh!

Looking at and writing the history of the club I have eventually settled on my first game being on October 18th 1958, against a team from South Wales, Barry Town. 

Maybe it was the fact that it was Barry Town, a place where we used to visit on our holiday every year, that caught my attention. Whatever it was, it captured and fired my imagination. 

Getting to Wales in the 50s was a merciless journey. Ten hours on a bus. You could have gone to the moon quicker. It was like going to another planet! I remember feeling sorry for the Barry team having to suffer the torture of that trip which even today I can recall every bleeding place we stopped at! Hated it, we were always talking to ‘Huweee’ ..spewing up, but it was great when we got there.

Barry’s strip was silky green shirts, black shorts, they glistened in the sun. Looked brilliant. Corby, in the traditional black and white, equally looked great. In all honesty the only things I remember about that game was Corby’s goalkeeper Pat Egglestone getting carried off on a stretcher after diving at a Barry forward’s feet, his head covered in blood. Looked horrible and frightened me to death! The other thing I seem to remember, for some reason, was Corby’s centre half, South African Norman Neilson, a six foot seven giant of a guy, playing centre forward this day, blootering the ball right over the floodlights! Impressive. And I’m sure he blasted a goal for Corby from the half way line! Which with research turned out to be a direct free kick from 40 yards that went in off the crossbar against Cambridge City a month later.  Good old fashioned ‘Big Ham’ they’d call him nowadays! 

Egglestone carried off, Willie Morris reduced to a cripple, you'd have thought the Steelmen were well beaten but not so, according to the ET critic. 'The Steelmen should have waltzed through such mediocre opposition' he wrote. Bit harsh but he wasn't happy!
Something I didn't realise, or had forgotten was the pre-match entertainment provided by a dog show! As advertised. Quite an innovative idea by the Steelmen Board of Directors for the time!

For the record,, Corby’s team was Pat Egglestone; Johnny Poppitt, Willie Morris; Johnny Morris, John Croy, who took over in goals from Egglestone, Barry Parsons; Alec Harper, John Rennie, Norman Neilson, Jimmy Adam and Peter McKay.