A brightly coloured snap taken with a Kodak Brownie camera in front of a Victorian terrace in London. About two dozen or so football fans are all smiling at the photographer. Men and women ageing from teens and upwards, and almost in the middle of the group, a young woman is sporting a classic blond peroxide bouffant hairstyle. It’s a bright but chilly Spring day, so it’s coats and anoraks all round. The supporters are kitted out in red and white striped scarves, bobble hats, football tops and a huge banner bearing the legend “Howay Sunderland”.
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| Photo used with the permission of David Wallace |
I accidentally stumbled upon this wonderful picture late at night while scrolling through eBay. I’d tapped in ‘Sunderland 1966’ in the search box, to find a Sunderland FC match day programme from that year. One of many examples that I’ve been collecting as part of my research co-writing a book on the revolution in football programme designs between the 1960s and 1980s. The pocket-sized Sunderland issue is a stylish classic that beautifully sums up the visual culture of footballing life in Britain at that time. As I’d expected, loads of different issues came up in the listings. The cover design had stayed exactly the same over several seasons, so it was a case of checking through Sunderland’s various opponents, and what the condition was like of these tiny half-a-century old publications. Then out of the blue, amongst all the programmes on offer, a photo popped up. It was described as “Sunderland Supporters @ Arsenal in 1966”.
As a life-long Arsenal fan, I could see exactly where the
picture was taken. It’s outside numbers 63 and 65 Avenell Road, bang opposite
the grand entrance to the East Stand of Highbury Stadium, the former home
ground of Arsenal FC. In contrast to that famous 1930s art-deco styled edifice
- whose façade would subsequently be re-purposed into a private housing
development - the surrounding terraced streets were then quite shabby reminders
of once well-heeled Victorian family homes. On match days it was thrilling to
be part of the masses circulating in and around Avenell Road. The noises, the
smells, the atmosphere are still utterly tangible. Tiny doorways that lined the
stadium-side of the street, housed turnstiles and their operators which were like
magical portals into three of the ground’s four stands: the Clock End, the
East Stand or the North Bank. There were programme sellers, hot dog and
hamburger stands, ticket touts, police on horseback, roasted peanut sellers, and
always groups of regulars nattering away about players and past performances at
exactly the same meeting spots. And just
opposite where those Sunderland fans were pictured was the big pre-match attraction.
An imposing staircase led to the main entrance guarded by burly uniformed
commissionaires. On either side the autograph hunters and the stargazers
congregated, catching sight of players, celebrity guests, staff and
important-looking people as they arrived for the big match.
So, this very spot on Avenell Road was exactly where those
Sunderland supporters would want to be photographed, all the way from the North
East of England to the beating heart of London N5. What must have it been like
to travel to matches back in the mid-1960s? At this point in time just a few
months before England would win the 1966 World Cup. An era still in living
memory, but well before the advent of the Premiership, multi-million pound transfers, all-seater stadiums, around the clock football matches, and a massive media industry
spawned by the game.
Before simply pressing the ‘BUY IT NOW’ button, I thought that to make it a must-have purchase, I’ll first check if there is a story behind this photo for sale on eBay. Could there be some genuine provenance accompanying the photograph? Or has the seller just found it in a junk shop, or amongst a pile of stuff squirrelled away in a cigar box at a house clearance auction? I wrote “Hi, I’ve just stumbled upon your great photos. Do you know any of the people in the pictures?”, then I hit the ‘Contact Seller’ button, and went to bed. The following morning, I got the reply that I was hoping for: “Hi. To answer your questions…”
What would follow is an exploration of a snapshot in time as
questions and answers flowed back and forth online. The date back then was
Saturday 23rd April, 1966. The fixture is Arsenal v Sunderland in
Football League Division One, a match played towards the end of a season that
both clubs, who were languishing in the bottom half of the league, would be
looking forward to forgetting as quickly as possible. But this story isn’t
about the football played on the pitch. It’s a social history of fandom through
the memories of someone who was there - and who decided to take his camera
along with him for the ride…
The photographer is David Wallace, then nearly 18yrs old,
who was working in the stores department of an engineering company that
supplied pumping equipment to coal mines, railways, and ships. David was one of
the founding members of the Sunderland Supporters Association having started to
follow his team away from home in 1962/63. The Supporters Association gifted
any profits back to the Club, and offered ordinary fans like him the chance to
travel to matches inexpensively. The cost from Sunderland to Highbury in 1966
was 27/6d (less than £1.50), and as David recalls “with entrance fees not expensive, you could
have a good day out and watch Sunderland lose in lots of different stadiums”.
A freakishly unexpected climate during the 1965/66 Season,
caused a spate of postponements during a long cold Winter, which continued into
a stormy April. So unusually, both
fixtures between Arsenal and Sunderland ended up being played within just a few
days of each other at the end of April. The first, after several cancellations,
took place on Wednesday 20th April at Roker Park (a 0-2 defeat for
Sunderland), and then came the Highbury encounter on the Saturday.
For David Wallace, and his twin sister, who also joined him on the No.1 Supporters Coach for the match in London, the journey to London began on Friday midnight. The 50 capacity vehicles would leave Dundas Street in Sunderland, stopping at Jack’s Hill Café on the old A1, before ending up in Midland Road by St Pancras Station at 7am. “We then went to Euston Station for a wash and clean our teeth. Then up to Leicester Square for breakfast at Lyons Corner House. After spending time sightseeing, there was the obligatory visit to Carnaby Street to see if we could spot anyone famous. We got to the ground around midday, and took in a couple of pints at a local pub before the match”.
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| Photo used with the permission of David Wallace |
David also has a photograph taken earlier on in the day of a
smaller group of six Sunderland fans decked out in their red and white colours
at the fountains of a deserted Trafalgar Square. That’s David in glasses second
on the right, and his sister too, she’s second on the left. In the foreground a
pigeon has remained rooted to the spot - a nice reminder of the days when the
birds were an integral part of the Trafalgar Square experience. After breaking
off into groups, many of the fans then re-united outside Highbury - a scene
which David snapped for posterity. Studying the photo, I was intrigued by the
way the fans are dressed - what’s the story behind their colours? In the days
before fans spending a fortune on their obligatory replica kits, several of the
women - including David’s sister kneeling at the front left – are wearing
Sunderland team shirts. “They were bought from Willie Watson’s Sports Shop.
Willie used to play for Sunderland, and is one of only a handful of players to
have represented England at both football and cricket. The shop was run by his
brother.” And what about the red Sunderland banner? “Well that was made by the
lads from South Shields. They used to say ‘Ho Way’, rather than the more common
‘Ha’ Way’ (a term in the North East meaning ‘Come On’…)”
The official record of the attendance for the match was 25,699. So how many Sunderland fans made up the numbers? David reckons that there would have been no more than 150 from the Sunderland Supporters Association - that’s three
coach loads - and perhaps the number would have been swelled by various
supporters then living in and around London. Another group supporting
Sunderland that day were Glasgow Rangers fans who would have gone to the match
to see their beloved former half-back Jim Baxter, who that season had signed
for Sunderland at a record fee for a Scottish player at that time.
Significantly, David feels that being a member of the
Supporters Club gave him the opportunity to travel outside his home town. It
was a family affair, as along with his sister, two of his aunts were stewards
on the number 1 coach that they always took. Leaving the Sunderland area then known
for its coal mines, they’d pay a visit to the Cobblers of Northampton (shoe
makers), the (stainless steel) Blades of Sheffield United, or even the Hatters
of Luton Town. Along with the education about homes of British manufacturing,
there was the drinking culture too. After the match at Highbury - which ended
up a 1-1 draw by the way - the supporters took off for session in Soho. Even
before their 11pm rendezvous at the coaches in Midland Road, they’d gulp down a
couple of drinks for the road at the Euston Tavern.
On a weekend, the long travelling and the boozing could just
about be slept off before work again on Monday. But what about those away
matches on weekdays? “I had a really great foreman called Ray Brown who used to
let me work Tuesday and Thursday evenings to make up for lost time. I had to
work the overtime at normal rate which never bothered me, but it did upset the
shop steward. I wasn’t in the union, so I never took any notice of what he had
to say anyway! By the way, Ray’s youngest son happens to be Jeff Brown, BBC
Newcastle’s TV anchor. Years later I’d bring back away game programmes
for Jeff when he used to come along with his father to the factory when we were
working on Saturday mornings”.
But all the drinking had to be done when the fans were
off-road. The Supporters Association had a strict no alcohol policy on the
coaches. If anyone broke the rules then they would be barred from travelling.
Back then, because of the low cost compared to taking the train or if you owned
a car, it was the only way for ordinary fans to get to away games. In the
Sunderland home programme for the weekday match versus Arsenal, there’s a piece
about the Supporters Association’s coach trip to Highbury for the ‘return’ game
in the regular ‘At the Sign of the Black Cat’ column. The tone is formal and
school-masterly “Please remember that you must bring your membership card with
you on the coach, and that we expect a high standard of conduct…”
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Following Sunderland away from home over many years
inevitably had its fair share of memorable moments “from sleeping in railway
stations and in a chicken farm, to lying on the floor of the coach when all the
windows were put in after a game at Wolves, and then having to drive up to
Nottingham to get a replacement bus home” - but my favourite of David’s stories
was the trip to West Bromwich Albion when a special guest had asked if he could
travel with the supporters to an away game.
“The great Brian Clough was arranging his testimonial match,
and he wanted to spend some time with the fans (he was a star striker for
Sunderland between 1961-64). He boarded the coach, and sat on the front seat
which had been roped off so no one else could sit there. The extra space was because
of his knee injury. We all had a good time on the way to the match, and
Cloughie chatted away and signed autographs for everyone. Well we got beat
again, and we went to the Throstles Club at West Brom for a quick drink before
setting off for home. We all were in a jovial mood despite having lost on our
travels again. Brian Clough got on the coach - and well, we all got a right
bollocking from him for laughing and carrying on after we’ve been beaten. He
yelled “how can you be happy when your team has just lost and been outplayed”.
Goodness knows how he would have behaved after one of his teams had been
beaten. It showed the passion the man had – and what a loss to football he was
when he died”.
For many years I’ve owned a copy of Arsenal v Sunderland matchday programme for the 1965/66 fixture, but haven’t re-read it up to now. In the line ups that day, I can see that the home team had five players who would go on to win the League and FA Cup Double for Arsenal in 1970/71. However, at the time it was all doom and gloom in the ‘Voice of Arsenal’ editorial: “rarely before in the club’s history have points been so vital to us as they are at the present time as we are striving so hard to break this sequence without a win”. After the 1-1 draw with Sunderland, Arsenal would lose their next three games 0-3. Only 4,554 fans turned out for the next home fixture, an all-time low in the club’s history, and manager Billy Wright would be sacked that Summer. Sunderland finished the season just 3 points above the relegation zone, and would end the decade in Division Two.
However, their goalkeeper Jim Montgomery, who played in
that April ’66 fixture (though he's not in the above 1965/66 team photo), would seven years later lift the FA Cup Trophy for the
2nd Division Sunderland team - who had beaten Arsenal in the
Semi-Final, and then Leeds United in the famous 1973 Final.
David Wallace continued to follow Sunderland home and away until marriage, children and then working overseas meant less time to watch his heroes. In the meantime, he would also follow the fortunes of the other sides from the North East. “I saw Newcastle win the Fairs Cup, Middlesbrough winning promotion to the old 3rd Division when Jack Charlton was their manager, and even Darlington getting promoted as well. So I have seen four North East teams win something, and I don’t suppose many people will be able to say that!” Up to now, David has seen Sunderland play in 76 different stadiums.
David was nearly 18 years old when he took his picture of “Sunderland Supporters @ Arsenal” in 1966. He continued to work for the very same engineering company whose foreman gave him time out to watch Sunderland play. In fact, he would stay there for 46 years - and ended up as the managing director “and worked all over the world”. By the way, along with the photograph in Avenell Road (which is a copy, as David still owns the original print), I did pick up a copy of Sunderland’s classic pocked-sized match day programme on eBay. It was, of course, for the home match versus Arsenal that was played just a few days before David and fellow members of the Sunderland Supporters Association took Coach No.1 to London on April 23rd 1966.
Alan Dein, 15th September 2020
With many thanks to David Wallace
Pleas keep checking in with graphic designer Matt Caldwell's '1/-' Instagram site for updates about our forthcoming book on the Revolution in design of Football Programmes 1965-1985
https://www.instagram.com/1_shilling/?hl=en
