Welcome to my Website
A fantastic 2011/2012 season for the Ryhope Clubs - Click Here
New website of local team photo's - Click Here.
As I was born in 1945 you will appreciate that my playing days in local football in the Sunderland and Seaham areas are long long gone. However back in 2008, while clearing the attic, I came across information from those days which brought back some great memories. I played in, and against, some really good teams and came across some great players and personalities.
I'd been wondering what to do, if anything, with this information. As I'm retired and have a bit of spare time, especially since I don’t play much golf these days, I decided in late 2008, for a bit of fun, to develop a web site for my family and friends.
Players from the 1960's, 70's and 80's may find some of it of interest. Obviously, as I mainly kept information relating to myself, I can well understand it could be quite boring to a lot of people. Never the less thanks for dropping in and I hope, at least, it has triggered off some of your own great football memories from the distant past.
I was lucky enough to play in some really good teams like Ryhope YC, which later became Ryhope CA and now Sunderland RCA, Seaham Red Star and the Silksworth RAOB (Buffs) team that won the League and Cup in the 1975/76 season. Great memories and some great dressing rooms. There are always characters in every dressing room and the humour can be second to none. When you retire from the game it is often the dressing room atmosphere that you miss the most.
Talking of dressing rooms none was better than that of the Ryhope Poplars (Pops) team, which played in the Hetton CIU League on Saturday mornings, and I played for back in the '60s. We got off to a poor start in the 1966/67 season and after we had just lost a game, it was suggested that we should start doing some mid week training. Someone else said 'and how will that help', and in a flash Frankie Gilmore replied 'because it'll make us play bad faster'. The whole dressing room just errupted. Absolutely priceless. I still laugh whenever I think of it.
Given time I hope to give my thoughts on some of the many players and personalities I admired. If I haven't mentioned you, and you know me, be patient I hope to get round to you. Bear in mind that my memory, although quite good, is not as good as it was. In any case if you have any memories, even if it's to remind me of an open goal I missed (and unfortunately I still remember my 3 worst misses), please click here to e-mail me. It would be great to hear from you.
As a lot of my memories are from well over 40 years ago I may have my wires crossed occasionally. There are still question marks against some of my early seasons and I am still trying to contact people I have been associated with to help me verify or correct my recollections. Until I'm totally sure these are right I will keep certain pages 'under construction'.
