Manna from Heaven 

DAVID STOAKES continues his occasional retrospective look in the programme at the Notts of yesteryear.

Dave is a retired national newspaper journalist and a lifelong Pie.
If there is anything you would like him to write about let Keri at the Trust know.

In the fifties and early sixties the crowd at Meadow Lane bombarded the home goalkeeper with missiles when he came out for the start of the match. Notts normally kicked in towards Spion Kop.

The missiles in question were sweets and chocolates, and as a young boy at the time it was something I gave no particular thought to although I have memories of Gordon Bradley putting the airborne goodies in his baggy flat cap.

It was only the other day it struck me what an incredibly generous gesture this was by the fans.

For this still was the age of rationing and sugar was one of the things obtained with coupons.

A question on a TV quiz recently asked when sugar rationing ended.

The answer was 1955 so effectively the supporters were delivering something of real value.

Presumably the cap was emptied in the dressing room and the contents shared out among the team.
The practice continued into the sixties when objects with more sinister intent began to be hurled from the terraces.

In a similar vein it set me thinking about other things which you never see at football grounds today.

Very often there was a designated local charity of the week and at half time a team of men with a heavy grey army blanket would go right round the touchline as people threw coins into the half folded sheet.

And at full time there was the invasion of the home made trolleys as an army of kids scoured the terraces for discarded pop bottles.

There was money back at the corner shop on the discarded dandelion and burdock, sasparella and lemonade containers.

Braver young souls also ventured into the stands in pursuit of the bottles and they were agile enough to evade all attempts by the ferocious breed of steward Notts employed in those days.

Most of them seemed to be disgruntled demobbed drill sergeants still desperate for somebody to bully.

And of course there was Ivor Thirst on top of the old scoreboard ready to twirl his rattle if Notts scored a goal.

There was also the peculiar half time sight of a cavalcade of little blue invalid carriages revving up to trundle round the pitch to take up position either side of the goal Notts would be kicking towards in the second half.

I forget now which it was but every year one of the Guards regiments had a recuiting week in Nottingham and provided the musical entertainment at both Meadow Lane and Forest on two Saturdays.

How much their efforts affected attendance figures I don't know.

Sepia images then from what now seems like another age. And don't go throwing Smarties and Mars Bars at Pilkington.
You'll get chucked out.