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SWFC v Santos 1972


flyingpig

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Santos played SWFC in 1972 at Hillsborough but I can't remember the date I even went to the game and got into big trouble as me and some mates skipped school to go watch the match the ground was packed as the star attrraction was Pele, It had to be played on a week day afternoon because the UK was suffering strikes ('the winter of discontent') this meant power cuts so the Owls cound not play the original night fixture because the floodlights could not be used. Does anyone else have memories of this game and I'd love to know the actual date, Check out the pic of the great man gracing the hallowed turf.

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Guest The General

It was Wednesday 23rd Feb 1972, Bizarrely for a Wednesday the kick-off was 2.30...strange!

The General

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It was Wednesday 23rd Feb 1972, Bizarrely for a Wednesday the kick-off was 2.30...strange!

The General

This was due to the miners strikes and the energy crisis at the the time. The Government imposed a three day work week, rotating power cuts to resedential areas and NO floodlit football matches.

At school so many kids were planning to skip to go and see the game that the Headmaster closed the school for the day. The funny thing(in my eyes ) was that Sheffield United had a cup replay with West Ham the following week so all the Blades fans thought the same same would happen, but the Head refused. They were choked.

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Guest roystonowl

I was at school in Rotherham. As punishment for missing an afternoon's schooling I was told to write an essay about the match. I copied the match report out of the Star. My teacher gave it C+ !!!!!!!!!

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Guest jeyre60152

This was my first Wednesday game. I was bought tickets for my 8th birthday and went with my Dad and Grandad (both United fans). My school closed for the afternoon as well.We sat in the upper section of Leppings Lane, the only time I ever sat at Hillsborough. Whenever I went after that it was always standing either in the Kop or Leppings Lane end. Moved away from Sheffield in '81 and haven't seen a game there since, although I have been to away games around the country. I keep promising to take my 14 year old son to Hillsborough but not managed it yet.

So it was thanks to Pele that I became a Wednesdayite!!!!!!!!

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This was my first Wednesday game. I was bought tickets for my 8th birthday and went with my Dad and Grandad (both United fans). My school closed for the afternoon as well.We sat in the upper section of Leppings Lane, the only time I ever sat at Hillsborough. Whenever I went after that it was always standing either in the Kop or Leppings Lane end. Moved away from Sheffield in '81 and haven't seen a game there since, although I have been to away games around the country. I keep promising to take my 14 year old son to Hillsborough but not managed it yet.

So it was thanks to Pele that I became a Wednesdayite!!!!!!!!

Great story jeyre60152 must have upset your Dad you becoming a Wednesdayite!.

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As you say, all the kids were thinking about getting off school and to the match and the headmasters were warning against it.

I remember my dad saying to me, 'If I find out you've been to school and NOT been to see Pele, they'll be serious trouble'.

I went with my uncle Alan and stood on the Kop.

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Guest jeyre60152

Great story jeyre60152 must have upset your Dad you becoming a Wednesdayite!.

Not only my Dad but everyone else too. I am still the only one in the family. I tried to convince my 2 boys but neither of them have any links with Sheffield and unfortunately one doesn't care and one now supports Arsenal!!!!!

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Guest daveyboy66

I was in the Army at the time and should have gone back there after my weekend leave but stopped for the match. When i got home there were two regimental police seargents waiting for me. I got 7 days nick but it was worth it.

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I went to this match it was a day after my 9th birthday and all our class went from Norfolk school. Our teachers sister was Christine Owen who was with Brian Joicey at the time and she gave all our class a ticket. It was a great birthday present even though I was from the red side of the town.

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Guest statowl

Santos played SWFC in 1972 at Hillsborough but I can't remember the date I even went to the game and got into big trouble as me and some mates skipped school to go watch the match the ground was packed as the star attrraction was Pele, It had to be played on a week day afternoon because the UK was suffering strikes ('the winter of discontent') this meant power cuts so the Owls cound not play the original night fixture because the floodlights could not be used. Does anyone else have memories of this game and I'd love to know the actual date, Check out the pic of the great man gracing the hallowed turf.

Any idea where this picture was taken.

I realise it must be Hillsborough but I just don't recognise it as any angle I can think of at Hillsborough.

Andrew D

statowl

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Guest fredmciverslovechild

Any idea where this picture was taken.

I realise it must be Hillsborough but I just don't recognise it as any angle I can think of at Hillsborough.

Andrew D

statowl

It must have been taken from the left hand side of the Kop goal looking back towards the corner of Leppings Lane and the North Stand.

Oh and to answer a previous question we lost 2-0.

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Guest fredmciverslovechild

Cheers. Did Pele actually score for them?

Pele didn't score that day; I can't remember who did. But I can remember that one of their goals came when Grummitt dropped kicked the ball right at one of their players and it rebounded straight into the net.

There had also been a bit of controversy on Santos' tour to that point. A game against Santos was only a draw, crowd-wise, if Pele was playing and of course they knew it. A few days earlier Santos had played at Villa, if I remember right, and on that occasion, about ten minutes before kick off, Santos had threatened to withdraw Pele from the match if they weren't paid a shed load more. It was common or garden blackmail and, in the circumstances, Villa had no option but to cough up the extra dosh. But their "tactics" were well known before the game at S6 so the problem didn't arise.

It was actually a wee wee-poor game that afternoon. Fortunately I'd been at the game ten years earlier when Pele was in his prime, Wednesday were a decent team, and it was altogether a night to remember. You see the fancy penalties that some players take these days; well, Pele did that back in 1962.

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So Pele had played at Hillsborough previously? Who was that for?

Same team Santos had visited Hillsborough in 1962

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It was a cold day. We went to Ecclesfield Comp. As usual, in the common room jokes were played and this time we gave a mate a bar of laxative chocolate which he ate unknowingly in it's entirity. We were all going to the game anyway but at 11pm Oggy Jennings (Headmaster) called all the school into the main hall to announce the boilers had packed in. A muted cheer went up inside and a MASSIVE cheer outside. We all went to the game, the laxative kid was up and down them steps faster than a whores knickers. Pele was nothing special but I remember Tommy Craig sticking to Pele like glue for the last 5 minutes to get his shirt at the end. There were 45,000+ from what I can remember. It was the year of the Ted Heath winter of discontent.

A few weeks later we went to watch Bristol City beat Leeds United 1-0 at Elland Road in the FA cup, also an afternoon kick off. There were 49,000 there to see the dying Revie team, then managed by Jimmy Armfield I think, beaten by 2nd div Bristol. There wasn't much maaach-chen all tugether.. that day, but we were delighted. On the way back to the station some Bristol fans were ambushed by Leeds cowards with a hail of bricks, stones and bottles and one old bloke got a full housebrick on his head. And they wonder why nobody likes them.

My Dad went to Wednesday's previous meeting with Santos and said Pele took a penalty, one of his shimmies, where he dropped his shoulder, Ron Springett went the worng way and Pele rolled it into an empty net. I seem to recall that was 5-2, probably stand correcting.

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Guest fredmciverslovechild

My Dad went to Wednesday's previous meeting with Santos and said Pele took a penalty, one of his shimmies, where he dropped his shoulder, Ron Springett went the worng way and Pele rolled it into an empty net. I seem to recall that was 5-2, probably stand correcting.

The previous game was 4-2 to Santos with all the goals in the first half. Like I said, I went to that as well!

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Guest lennonman

I went to the Santos game i was about 11. Its interesting that a lot of schools closed for the day, ours didnt. i went to Prince Edwards on manor top and me and my mate had to go into the headmaster's office for permission to go. He said yes provided we were set some homework. Its always been something ive been proud of, i actually saw the great Pele play. Suppose its the same for everyone. The crowd was huge, which was unusual for Hillsborough in those days. Had to walk all the way back to Pond Street because it was impossible to get on a bus, a long way for a kid, i was knackered! Great memories on this thread.

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Guest TARTANDON

It was Wednesday 23rd Feb 1972, Bizarrely for a Wednesday the kick-off was 2.30...strange!

The General

I have the programme from this game and ticketstub, on the stub it gives ko time as 7-30

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I was at school in Rotherham. As punishment for missing an afternoon's schooling I was told to write an essay about the match. I copied the match report out of the Star. My teacher gave it C+ !!!!!!!!!

I can clearly remeber our headmaster standing up in assembly and saying

"No one will be taking time off school to go to Hillsborough to see Pele, and if they do I will cane them"

The day after the match he was faced with the prospect of caning several hundred of his students, so many that it would not be possible to carry his initial threat out so this became reduced to some lesser punishment. As I was not particularly into football and I didn't wag it to go to the match I was not directly involved so I cannot remember what the actual punishment for going to the match was.

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Guest BUXT0NGENT

The previous game was 4-2 to Santos with all the goals in the first half. Like I said, I went to that as well!

Correct. The first game came when Santos and Pele were both in their prime.

In the first game, Pele had been almost played out of the game, particularly by Swanny, and , had they not got the penalty, I don't think he would have scored. It was, however, a superb game and a credit to both sides.

The second game, in 1972, was completely different, and was purely a 'showboat' game. I said after travelling from Clowne in derbyshire to watch it that 'If that's friendly football,i've done'. It put me off watching football for a long while, and almost converted me into a Rugby League fan.

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Correct. The first game came when Santos and Pele were both in their prime.

In the first game, Pele had been almost played out of the game, particularly by Swanny, and , had they not got the penalty, I don't think he would have scored. It was, however, a superb game and a credit to both sides.

The second game, in 1972, was completely different, and was purely a 'showboat' game. I said after travelling from Clowne in derbyshire to watch it that 'If that's friendly football,i've done'. It put me off watching football for a long while, and almost converted me into a Rugby League fan.

I was at the match too, I was an apprentice centre lathe turner at Guest & Chrimes at the time, (where Rotherham United are having their new ground built shortly) I told the gaffer I had a doctor's appointment that must be kept, that allowed me to go to this midweek afternoon kick-off. I can't remember anything at all from the match so was really happy to read people's accounts in here, I'm still proud to be able to say I saw Pele that day.

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On 16/03/2007 at 08:59, flyingpig said:

 

post-240-1174035538.jpg

On 17/06/2007 at 11:22, fredmciverslovechild said:

It must have been taken from the left hand side of the Kop goal looking back towards the corner of Leppings Lane and the North Stand.

Oh and to answer a previous question we lost 2-0.

Correct FredMc.

Myself and my two mates from St. Paul's school, are either obscured by the referee, or just by his right elbow.

However, my memory of the "ricochet" goal, (just a few yards from where we were standing), was that it was a penalty area "hoof" clearance by Holsgrove, (or possibly Prophett).  What I do know for sure, is that it smacked the Santos player square on the kneecap, on the 18 yard line, looped back over eight or nine players, and dropped under the crossbar.  A complete freak of a goal.  I have absolutely no memory of the other goal, except that it was also at the Leppings Lane end.

It was my first time back at Hillsborough since my Dad had taken me three or four times in the mid/late sixties, (when I was far too young to appreciate it).  I remember him telling me to sit and watch the football, when all I wanted to do was run up and down the concrete stairs in the cantilever stand, (why doesn't anyone call it that anymore?).

I couldn't believe how small the stadium seemed, or how close the players were, compared to how I remembered, from when I was just six or seven.

Our headmaster, Mr. Fitzpatrick, had said at assembly that morning, that anyone who had a ticket, could have it checked and go to the match.  We were threatened with serious trouble if we just disappeared off to Hillsborough.  But that didn't stop us, or dozens of others in our year.  Apart from the following morning, our form teacher, (a grinning Mr. Lockwood), asking where we had been the previous afternoon, nothing happened!

Pretty sure we paid 25p on the gate to get in.  My Dad gave me some money that morning, but ONLY if the school were allowing people the afternoon off.  We used our school bus passes on several bus's that day.  Including routes which they weren't valid for.  But all the bus's were so packed, the conductors didn't pay much attention.

My Mum gave me a bit of a telling off, but my Dad told her not to worry about it - my older brother had been to the first Santos game, ten years earlier.

The following season (1972/73), beginning with a 3-0 victory over Fulham, on a beautiful sunshine & blue sky, Hillsborough, August, Saturday afternoon, was my first as a fully-fledged, blue-blooded Owl!

All downhill from there.  Or at least it seems like it, most of the time.

UTO!

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On 28/06/2007 at 23:58, zep said:

A few weeks later we went to watch Bristol City beat Leeds United 1-0 at Elland Road in the FA cup, also an afternoon kick off. There were 49,000 there to see the dying Revie team, then managed by Jimmy Armfield I think, beaten by 2nd div Bristol. There wasn't much maaach-chen all tugether.. that day, but we were delighted. On the way back to the station some Bristol fans were ambushed by Leeds cowards with a hail of bricks, stones and bottles and one old bloke got a full housebrick on his head. And they wonder why nobody likes them.

Sorry Zep,  Don Revie didn't leave Leeds for the England job until the summer of 1974.  After Leeds won the League title (in '74), and after Alf Ramsey had failed to get England qualified for the 1974 World Cup.

"Gertcha . . . . When the Poles knock England out the cup . . . . Gertcha"  (Chas 'n Dave).

Jimmy Armfield followed Brian Clough in September or October '74.  Taking them to the 1975 European Cup Final against Bayern Munich.

He was there four years, and was the last decent manager they had until Howard Wilkinson.

The official crowd for the Santos game was 40,000, but thousands got in for free, and it was usual practice to under-declare in those days, to minimise the tax liability.

I rremember The Star reporting that Santos left Hillsborough with a briefcase stuffed with £10,000 in cash.  That must be roughly the equivalent of around £2m today.

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