Derbyshire Blue

[Derbyshire Blue]

I'm a 54 year old living across the Rhein from Germany in a suburb of Basel, Switzerland called Huningue which is actually in France.

I was born in Queens Park Hospital in the summer of 57. My first visit to Ewood came after pestering my Grandad to take me along after repeatedly seeing a match ticket every other week on his mantelpiece. It would have been 1965 I'm sure we played Leeds, I wore my Grandads scarf we sat in the Nuttal Street Stand, remember looking across at the crowd on the Riverside terracing under the floodlights, but most of all I remember Grandad buying me 2oz of cough candy at the little corner shop that used to be at the bottom of Livsey Branch Road on Bolton Road.

By 1968 I was doing the Darwen End 1st half Blackburn End 2nd half routine, I lived for Saturday's and all those happy away days in the 3rd Division, all the excitement of making my way to Foundry Hill when it always seemed to be dark to catch the coach to exotic destinations like Watford and Lincoln, going on the League Liner to Peterborough and the players drinking with the fans on the way home in the onboard discotheque. The derby days against Rochdale, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Blackpool, Preston and that lot from down the road.

All those 2nd Division play off games, being sat in the middle of all the Palace fans at Selhurst Park in 89 with tears rolling down my face and the ex wife telling me not to let them see your upset...upset! I could have bloody throttled her.

I flew back from Israel in 1990 to watch the defeats by Swindon, Going to all those games season 91-92 especially the weekend in Torquay for the must win game at Plymouth, that night at the Baseball Ground then having to cut my holiday short to fly back from Rhodes to be at Wembley.

I managed to buy a Anfield ticket after a phone call on the morning of the game from some scouser we got to know from our trips to Cream in Liverpool, ended up sat in the Old Main Stand right behind Dalglish and the joy and tears at the final whistle followed by the drive back to Blackburn and the party that followed in the Woodlands with the players and Uncle Jack who ended up behind the bar...Happy Days

Edited December 10, 2011 by Derbyshire Blue