March 3rd, 2012 by Electric Monk
“Down Our Street
There are married men and ladies fair
Dancing mad in the midnight air
And there’s several jawbones missing, where?
Down our street.”
So goes the chorus to a famous old song, but never were those words more apt to describe the street where I lived in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, during the early, formative years of my life. C-on-M as it is commonly known to Mancs, lies just about a mile to the south east of the city centre. These days, when you pass through the area, it bears little resemblance at all to the place where I spent my childhood, and the early part of my adolescence.
Chorlton-upon-Medlock was quite a notorious area in the 1940s and 1950s, and I certainly witnessed things during my childhood that I would hate for any child to see today. It was a harsh existence for families, and for people as individuals. Prostitutes plied their trade freely, both day and night, and they were not too fussy where they entertained their clients. Mostly it was in the back alleyways between the rows of terraced houses. During the evenings they would congregate in groups on street corners, soliciting for clients. The evenings would see drunks roaming the area, and physical violence was often perpetrated by, and upon, these people. An area with such notoriety attracted a wide range of people, from those that we termed ‘money people’, to the ‘down and outs’.
To say that weekends were lively back then would be an understatement. For all the area’s poverty, the pubs in Chorlton-upon-Medlock were always full at weekends, at lunchtimes, and during the evenings. Pubs licensing hours meant they would open from 11am till 3pm, and then again from 5.30pm till 10.30pm; Sunday hours were from noon till 2pm, and 7pm till 10.30pm. Problems arose after closing time when people were full of ale. It is no exaggeration to say that on a Saturday evening it was commonplace to see two or three fist-fights outside a pub at the same time, and afterwards, especially during the summer months, an impromptu midnight concert would evolve in the streets, with many of the adults who were full of ale, doing their “turn.”
The families tended to be large with anything between 4 and 10 kids being the norm. The poverty didn’t seem to affect us as kids – why should it? We were all in the same boat – chained by the fact that we were the children, and grandchildren of immigrants, and that carried a stigma. We were looked down upon. So the families who lived in those inner city areas would close ranks whenever ‘outsiders’ became involved.
When I look back at those times, I can get very emotional, especially when I think of all the mothers (my own included) who were blessed with such stoicism, fortitude, and strength, in the way that they brought up their kids in such draconian conditions. Their lot was a harsh one, and the sacrifices which those mothers made to ensure the well being of their children, will always be with me.
For us kids, we attended our local secondary modern school, and if truth is known, being the areas that they were in, not too much was expected of us academically. Most of our fathers were nothing more than labourers, dustmen, navies, brickie’s mates, timber carriers, shit house cleaners for the local council, or even ‘tatters’ (rag-and-bone-men). The expectation from the majority of the schoolteachers that taught us in those days was that we would follow our fathers in life. Fortunately, for a lot of us, our mothers rammed the education thing down our throat, and though it was at times a pain in the arse because we wanted to be doing other things (mainly being outside playing football or cricket) for some of us we saw the wisdom and benefit of their goading.
Some of us each year – but not many, managed to pass the 11 Plus exam and were able to go on to Grammar School. Mothers were so proud, and happy to see their kids resplendent in their new uniforms for all to see – a step up in the world. Fathers were not so happy because of the extra costs involved. Sadly, our Mums did not realize the change in our lives that was forced upon us. Kids in Grammar Schools were fair game for the street urchins we were – and whenever these poor unfortunate children had passed through our neighbourhoods on their way to, or from, school, a kicking was the order of the day. When any of us crossed over (as I did), suddenly we were on the other side, and became ‘one of them’. In my own case, once I went to Grammar School, I don’t think that there was a day that passed that I didn’t have to fight for my title either going or coming from school.
But notwithstanding all that is written above (and I could go on for hours) there was so many happy times despite the poverty. The one thing that glued all the local male kids together was football and cricket. We just loved to be outside playing one of those games. Any kind of ball and there was a game – normally it was a tennis ball, and it was amazing just how many gifted young players of both sports came out of those inner city areas and had careers in professional sport. We’d play on all kinds of surfaces, and for all the hours that we could. Our skills were honed in those years and on those many different kinds of surfaces. So much so, that the control of a ball became second nature to us. I wince today when I see highly paid footballers who cannot ‘kill’ a ball, or so called world class batsmen who have no idea how to read a spin bowler and remain ‘wooden legged’ within the crease.
The games in the school yards were always competitive and where football was concerned, it was always City against United. No matter how hard I try to pick the back pocket of my memory though – I can’t remember there ever being enough City fans to make up their team. It is no exaggeration that the ratio of Reds fans to Blues in those days, was roughly 4 or 5/1. It’s why I laugh today when I hear the nonsense about the majority of United’s fans coming from outside of the city boundaries.
Playing those games in schoolyards, in back-streets, on crofts, we would all imagine that we were our favourite player – Tommy Taylor, Johnny Berry, Duncan Edwards etc etc We all longed to see them in the flesh. Many kids in my school were lucky in that their dads could afford to take them to a first team match at Old Trafford. Football was cheap back in those days. An adult could pay two shillings (10 pence) to stand on the terraces, whereas a junior entry would cost just seven pence (two and a half pence). The thrill of attending your very first senior game stays with you all of your life. Match day became part of your life. From the moment that you woke up on Saturday morning only one thing concentrated your mind. What time were you going to leave for Old Trafford.
Back then the game was a game for the working classes, and it was affordable. Saturday was always the day of the week that you looked forward to. Saturday meant football and vice-versa. We took the game for granted in those days, it was all ours back then as there was no form of corporate hospitality, no media saturation, just a stadium full of raucous United fans. Manchester United was the release for both adult and child alike from the week’s drudgery, and for those few hours people forgot their worries and their hardships. They gave us an appreciation that goes beyond mere trophies. They gave us the passion and the pride. The team tied us to its umbilical cord, and that cord, once tied, never comes undone. It’s there until we go to our graves. It’s the team that drives us on, and inspires us to hold on to an ideal that has been handed down to us through generations. It’s the way that they play the game that ultimately counts most -win, lose, or draw.
Over the last 60 years I have seen United as a club, change so much. I’ve ploughed the depths, and risen to the stars, and have been so lucky to witness so many great players performing in our red shirt. I’ve been lucky to see the two best managers in the world produce some of the finest teams you could ever wish to see. And I was really lucky to be able to watch the player who forever in my eyes, will be termed as the greatest football player to have ever put a boot on ….. Duncan.
It saddens me today to see the way that the club is run. There used to be such an affinity between the club and the fan. Yes, we’ll follow the team and support them through thick and thin, but the ordinary fan is now slowly being cleansed from the stadium. Prices have risen so much that families now find it hard to justify spending so much money taking their kids to a game. Large numbers of corps root fans have given up their season tickets, but you reap what you sow. The raucous, vibrant, fanatic who supported and screamed for United through the lean times, is now no longer needed. The club has become so big and so powerful, as the Glazer’s corporate juggernaut bulldozes its way forward. Football wasn’t meant to be like that.
I’m so pleased that I have lived in the era’s that I have – particularly the earlier years. These days I fear for the future of the game. Someday, the Premiership financial bubble will burst, and United will once again see days of mediocrity. I probably won’t be around, but who will the likes of the Premiership, Gill, the Glazers, (although they may well be long gone) look to, to pull them out of the shit then?
Yes, I loved those Saturday match days in the early years. The excitement, the anticipation, the expectation, and the thrill of seeing my heroes – the ‘Babes’ – and all for the princely sum of just Seven Old Pence! Those bloated, ignorant, fuckers in their corporate seats, no matter how much they spend, will never beat that!
