The following article contains my memories supporting Scarborough FC, with some views and special occasions interspersed. Click on any of the images to enlarge them.
The Athletic Ground, later to be known as the McCain Stadium, was the first place I watched football as a toddler. I have watched hundreds of games there at all levels with hundreds of mates and nearly all my family. I even had the pleasure of playing on the pitch in a local cup final.
I was always destined to spend a lot of time down Seamer Road. My dad was brought up just a goal kick away in Edgehill Road and spent much of his youth down there watching, training and helping with ground maintenance in return for free tickets. He started taking me from a year old.
My brothers Paul and Nick also went to plenty of games up to the end, sometimes with my grandads and even with my Mum on a couple of occasions. She appeared there in 1970 as part of the half-time entertainment at the vital Northern Premier League decider against Macclesfield Town.
Over the
years, I watched regularly from every part of the ground. When I was still at
school, Boro were very much a non-league side, and it was customary to swap
ends at half time to stand behind the goal we were attacking. At this time, the
Seamer Road End was an open terrace with an area of grass at the back, where I
got involved in some impromptu games as a youngster.
The Shed and the terracing on either side remained pretty much unaltered until the ground's closure. The Edgehill Road End was a mixture of terracing and a grass slope with a small red corrugated cover at the rear, which offered a poor view if anyone stood in front.
The bank
continued round the corner to an area where freeloaders would watch a game over
the perimeter fence from the Hinderwell School fields. The Main Stand was a
raised wooden construction with facilities underneath, which held about 500
bench seats. Alongside this stood the clubhouse, with a thin terrace at the
front.
These surroundings provided me with many happy memories as a schoolkid, as Boro had a formidable cup side at the time. They could never quite crack it in the league, but the cup runs under the stewardship of Colin Appleton and Ken Houghton for one season were another matter.
My first time at Wembley was in April 1973. Boro beat Wigan Athletic 2-1 after extra time. The game was exactly fifty years to the day after the first ever game in the stadium, the famous 'White Horse FA Cup Final'. I went with my parents and grandparents on one of the four 'Football Special' trains, with Nick being Boro's youngest fan.
Boro’s team were composed of a sprinkling of locals with the rest of the side travelling from the northeast or the Hull area. As well as the FA Trophy wins at Wembley, the side put together some real shocks in the FA Cup. Several Football League sides left with nothing but a skip full of dirty kit, while eventual 1976 semi-finalists, Crystal Palace, scraped through in front of the Match of the Day cameras, after Preston had been dispatched in the snow.
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| A family affair. Wembley 73 |
The club erected makeshift high fencing from the local Zoo and Marineland to keep the Palace fans in order! Gates of over 8,000 saw the Palace game and an FA Trophy clash with that year's FA Cup giant killers, Wimbledon. They were one of many teams to suffer memorable defeats at the Athletic Ground.
Teams from all over the country visited Scarborough. Tooting and Mitcham United were defeated as Jeff Barmby nearly tore the net from its rigging with a ferocious free kick to win the game. This led to the Scarborough Evening News headline "It's toot, toot, Tooting and goodbye!" Loads more teams left empty-handed. I loved every minute of it.
That led to a classic Wembley final. Boro came from behind twice to beat Stafford Rangers 3-2 after extra time. The special train took us to Wembley Central, so we saw the 'beauty' of the High Street. There were plenty of shenanigans after the game as an officious young copper tried to stop us getting to the trains. He learned his lesson.
Another dramatic game followed in the 1977 final against Dagenham. The Daggers were one up with around six minutes to go, but were exhausted. They looked like hanging on until Jeff Barmby tortured them. Derek Abbey equalised before Harry 'A' Dunn slotted home a last-minute winner from the penalty spot.
The joy was dampened just five days later when Boro's superb twenty-one-year-old winger Tony Aveyard died following a clash of heads after a game against Boston United, the Monday after the final. RIP Tony.
There were even matches during the glory years against Italian sides in the Anglo-Italian Cup and Trophy. Gordon Banks guested for the club in one match, while the likes of Udinese, Parma, and Monza did battle with Boro under the floodlights.
The floodlights were paid for through generous donations, and when they were turned on during winter matches, a cheer went around the ground. They would later be passed on to Whitby Town after Boro had upgraded theirs. Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles played a friendly for Preston North End at the end of one season.
The club were one of the richest in non-league at the time and had even made an audacious bid to move Halifax Town, lock, stock and barrel to the coast, long before Milton Keynes had a similar notion. A new Main Stand was erected in 1979.
It was considered the height of fashion at the time, but in truth, a lot of the seats offered a poor view. Players had to change at the Rugby Club, two miles away and travel to and from the ground by minibus for the first few weeks of the season until the stand was fully fitted out. Crush barriers were also installed at the same time.
No changes were made to the ground as Boro somehow managed to squander their money as the team was dismantled, and crowds stayed away. It was the slow beginning of the maladministration that eventually would signal the end, twenty years later.
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| With my mum and my brothers after another Wembley homecoming. |
In 1986-87,
Neil Warnock joined the club as manager, signed virtually a new team, taking
the 50/1 outsiders to the title and became the first non-league team to be
automatically promoted into the Football League. The start of the first League
season saw the club receive much attention from the media. A magazine was
published by the Scarborough Evening News.
Promotion to the Football League signalled the need for drastic ground improvements to satisfy the ground grading authorities. Segregation and high fences were erected to accommodate away fans at the Edgehill Road End, along with new toilets. New press facilities and a police control room were also fitted in the Main Stand.
I went down to the ground the evening before the opening game against Wolverhampton Wanderers, and it looked picture perfect with the new modern goals and the pitch looking like a carpet. Twenty-four hours later, it resembled a very different scene.
The Wolves
fans tore down the perimeter fence and walked in for free while throwing the
vat holding the soup onto the pitch after hijacking the refreshment kiosk.
Because there were so many in the away end, some clambered onto the corrugated
roof and jumped up and down, buckling all the steelwork and thus forcing its
demolition after the game.
One decided to take a better view and climbed onto the Shed's roof. It didn't take his weight, and he fell through into the section of Boro fans below, who didn't give him the warmest welcome on landing, where the atmosphere was not for the faint-hearted or indeed the sober.
The game was
in danger of being abandoned until Wolves manager Graham Turner appealed to the
fans to calm down. It eventually finished 2-2 and was a great end-to-end game.
Stewart Mell scored Boro's first ever League goal while Ray McHale equalised
later with a stunning volley. Steve Bull scored for the visitors on his way to
breaking the club's goalscoring record.
The game hit the headlines, but for all the wrong reasons. It cost some their liberty for a few months. The Athletic Ground had seen its share of punch-ups at cup games in the past, but this time it terrified some of the locals and gave the anti-football lobby a feeding frenzy.
The
attendance that day was officially around 7,500, although the Wolves programme
listed it as 11,500 for some months. I know which figure I believed. Later that
season, high fences were also installed in front of the open terracing at the
Seamer Road End and around the corner to the Shed, which was made a
members-only area.
That first season in the League saw the club suffer on a few more occasions from crowd trouble. For the second season, they introduced a Membership Pass, which gave the holder access to The Shed, whereas non-members couldn't go in, leaving them open to the elements and affecting crowds.
Recently installed chairman, Geoffrey Richmond, increased admission charges with the promise of putting up a roof at the Seamer Road End, which was never delivered. That same season, 96 people lost their lives at Hillsborough in April 1989. It was devastating for football fans everywhere, and not least the bereaved families.
Richmond looked at the situation with many people on the periphery who had little knowledge of the game, who screamed for all-seater stadiums. He approached Scarborough Borough Council (SBC) with plans for an all-seater stadium for 4,000 at Dunslow Road on the outskirts of town by the A64.
It never happened, another broken promise along with the roof. He ostracised local businesses when Boro were to play the 2nd Leg of the League Cup tie against Chelsea as the feature match on "Midweek Sports Special" by covering all their advertisement around the pitch and replacing them with more lucrative donors with whom he did a separate deal.
Some of those affected sponsored the club for decades previously. They severed their deals, and some never returned. Richmond also had the idea of corporate boxes. They were portacabins placed in front of the clubhouse, thus alienating the regulars who stood there and had to change their lifetime habits and move elsewhere.
Boro were in the big time and in vogue with all clubs at the time, had their own 'Clubcall'. Dialler’s got up-to-date club information at a premium phone rate. The phone at the Post Office got some hammering for a while from the Seadog fraternity working there!
The 1990-91 season saw Boro finish one place and two points from the playoffs. Highlights were the wearing of the controversial Black Death kit and the introduction of Tommy Mooney.
Memorable games were the 2-2 home draw against York City after being two down, the Friday night game in horrendous conditions at home to Wrexham with a sub-seven hundred crowd and the 3-1 beating of Peterborough United. We went out of the League Cup to Rochdale and the FA Cup at home to Leek Town, both at the first hurdle.
I’m proud to say that I was one of many fans who protested against the way that Richmond was going about things. He got rid of the reserve and youth teams, thus missing out on the talent and future transfer fees for Geoff Horsfield and Jonathan Greening, to form the Scarborough Pirates Rugby League Club.
We went out of the League Cup to Southampton in the second round in 1991-92 after a breathtaking win against Preston North End. Wigan Athletic ended our FA Cup hopes in the first round at the McCain Stadium. The kit was awful as well, with Boro parading in red and white, strangely shaped boxes.
Some fans reacted to the 4-1 derby defeat at York City by breaking into the McStad to tear down the rugby posts and scoreboard before the game the following day. The team lasted just one season! Richmond sacked the Pirates boss Len Casey on New Year's Night, which was ironic as it was the same date he sacked hero, Neil Warnock, a few years earlier.
One of the major problems that undoubtedly blighted Scarborough FC over several years was that there were simply far too many complimentary tickets being handed out for home games. It was not unusual to see them being handed out or sold on the cheap in the pubs of Falsgrave pre match. Simply another case of poor management.
Richmond, meanwhile, put ridiculous and unfair pressure on the then-manager, Ray McHale, the following season by offering all fans who bought a season ticket a free one for the following season if Boro didn't reach the playoffs. "Razor" performed near miracles with his tight budget as Boro went on a great League Cup run, brushing aside Bradford City, Coventry City in an amazing game.
Boro were 2-0 down from the first leg still trailed with only fifteen minutes remaining. They somehow won 3-0 with a last-minute Lee Hirst goal, sending the Seadogs delirious. Boro eventually bowed out to a rare Nigel Winterburn goal against Arsenal on a fog-bound night on the coast, thanks to the assistance of mega-biased referee Keith Hackett.
I'd warned the Bantams fans as to what they were about to receive in their "City Gent" fanzine. Richmond told them I was talking rubbish, and we gave him a lovely welcome back when the clubs played a pre-season friendly. Simpson quickly sold the club to a locally based ‘businessman’, John Russell, whose first few months in charge were a disaster as he replaced Steve Wicks with Billy Ayre.
We did have a decent FA Cup run as we knocked out Chesterfield, Port Vale and then drew 0-0 with Watford, which saw the return of Tommy Mooney. The latter two Cup games were all ticket matches as the Seamer Road End was being made ready for the building of a brand-new East Stand. How little we knew!
Other highlights were winning 2-0 at Fulham and a two-legged League Cup tie with Middlesbrough after knocking out Hull City, in which we lost both games 4-1. Billy was a hero to many of us, but he wasn’t given the proper resources.
Russell had told us after being torn apart in a Yorkshire Cup game at Guiseley that he was signing two Czechs and things would change, and the fans were out of order for moaning. If only I'd realised he meant he'd be signing two cheques and bouncing ones at that!
Ray McHale was brought back once again from Guiseley, but he couldn't recreate his previous glories. Mitch Cook took over. Mitch had been a good servant as a player and a coach, but he was horrendous in his spell in charge. He took the team out for a ‘bonding’ session before the Plymouth away game. We lost 5-1. We also lost at Chester City, where it got so bad that Russell joined him on the bench to offer advice.
Despite all this, it was fun to be a Seadog, probably because of our gallows humour. A group of us would travel to games on minibuses, and each Saturday, Crusher would come round for me before we met the rest of the lads in the Commercial in Falsgrave for pre-match ales. Boro fans used the pubs in Falsgrave most of all, and the lunchtime atmosphere was always good.
Despite Russell's apparent inability to pick a manager, he was still relatively popular, partly because we thought he was crackers and partly because he changed the appearance of the McCain Stadium forever. In the space of sixteen months, virtually identical structures called the East and West Stands were erected, each accommodating around 1,400 seats.
They were very impressive, and Russell showed off plans for a continuation to replace the Shed, including new changing rooms and corporate facilities. He appointed Mick Wadsworth as manager, and the team played some great football.
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| My drawing of the Athletic Ground in the 80s |
In his second season, the manager signed some quality players, and Boro reached the playoffs before falling well short against Torquay United. It was a great couple of years to watch Boro. However, the money had run out after Russell's gamble failed.
Players were released and replaced with some poor substitutes. Top keeper Tony Elliott had to pack in with a bad back while his understudy, Kevin Martin, had a bad knee. Boro tried to get by with rookie loan keepers on the cheap but were found out. Russell tried to sell the club and comically introduced Anton Johnson, who had a very shady past at best.
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| Scarborough Evening News. 11th March 1999 |
Money from admission fees was allegedly being taken away in the boot of a car. Johnson disappeared after a while, and Russell rode back into town. He claimed at a fans' forum that he couldn't even afford to put jam on his toast. He made director and local businessman, Ken Ferrie, the chairman.
Many Boro fans were taken in and tried to raise money. Colin Addison came in and battled hard, and brought in some experienced pros, which nearly paid off. Sadly, it proved to be too little, too late as Carlisle's loanee keeper Jimmy Glass remarkably scored the goal which sent Boro through the relegation trap door as Russell and his wife popped the champagne corks in the Directors' Box before news broke.
Boro started the 1999-00 season back in the Conference. By now, I was based in London, so I only got back home three or four times a season, although my away game count increased. The following season, news broke that the club was skint.
Boro had shambolic spells under the ownership of Russell, Darryl Littlewood and then Brooks Mileson before the eccentric owner of Gretna FC managed to pass the club on to Malcolm Reynolds.
During that awful period, I attended a demoralising game ending in a 1-0 defeat to Dagenham & Redbridge. Times so hard that the programme was of the cheapest quality possible. The team ended the season in tenth place and went out in the 4th Qualifying Round of the FA Cup to Leigh RMI.
Reynolds was joined on the board by Ian Scobbie, while Philip Webster was appointed as Company Secretary. He brought in Russell Slade to replace caretaker and excellent youth coach Ian Kerr, who left to join Hartlepool United, who in turn had replaced former hero Neil Thompson.
Slade saved the team from relegation and the following season took the club on its greatest ever FA Cup run. Hinckley United were seen off in the 4th Qualifying Round, and next up were bottom-tier high-fliers Doncaster Rovers. Karl Rose scored the only goal with ten minutes left in front of the Match of the Day cameras and a crowd of 3,497.
This included many away fans who nearly wet themselves at half time when it was announced at half time that we would be running a minibus to the midweek away game at Leigh. Oooh, the embarrassment.
Just short of a thousand Boro fans made a racket. The return game saw as packed a Shed as I could ever remember. Crowds were in areas normally shut off. I can only conclude that every fan there had 72" waists, as the gate was given as 4,859. The winners already knew that they would be at home to Chelsea in the next round, meaning the result had a huge bearing on either club's future as both were struggling financially.
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| Celebrations in the Shed after the Southend win. |
A few minutes from the end, the tireless Jimmy Kelly chased down a ball near the corner flag and drove it across to where the indifferent Mark Quayle tapped home to start mass celebrations. I'd travelled up on the morning of the game and had to travel back through the night to go straight back to work.
I was cheered up by chairman Malcolm Reynolds telling Radio 5 listeners that this result would sort out the clubs' finances and keep us in business for years to come. Tickets were like gold dust, and Chairman Reynolds told everyone that this would help build the new ground and keep the club for a couple of years. Everyone rejoiced as it seemed all our troubles were over!
The Chelsea game brought Scarborough FC to the attention of the world. Even people at work in London wanted to talk about the game with me. The match was shown live on Sky with a lunchtime kick-off.
The cartoon above (click on it to see a larger version) was in the Mirror of the morning of the game and relates to the financial crisis at Leeds United. It made us all laugh in the West Riding pub that morning while breakfasting on Sammy Bairstow pies and beer. Those were the days!
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| The big day, or the night before |
The town was like it was on Boxing Day. There were a few shoppers, but all the pubs were packed out with people cheering the team on. Everyone wanted a ticket. The following home game saw a crowd of around 1,400. It highlighted more than anything the struggle that the club faced.
The Chelsea game itself was brilliant. Boro gave it their best shot, but John Terry was world-class and probably saved the multi-millionaires. Well, Mr Terry, with a little help from the referee, Barry Knight, who turned down a blatant handball that would have given Boro a penalty and a possible lucrative replay.
I remember so clearly Frank Lampard hitting the bar from about forty yards after a couple of minutes and fearing a real drubbing, but the lads were magnificent. The official gate was over five hundred more than the Southend game, yet there was far more room. A very memorable weekend. I ached at work the following Monday!
Slade’s players weren’t the most talented of Seadogs, but they battled for every minute on the pitch, which was massively appreciated by the loyal but suffering fans. The midfield duo of Gareth Stoker and Mark Patterson were real dogs of war!
It was a great day, as the whole run had been, with the whole town going cup crazy. I had an amazing weekend doing an interview for Radio 5 Live and TV while not in a very pristine condition! A week later, Boro defeated Forest Green Rovers at the McCain Stadium in front of just 1,200 fans. No statistic summed up the lethargy of the local support better.
Slade had gone by the end of the season to be replaced by player Nick Henry, who hung up his boots. It was obviously a cost-cutting move as rumours were doing the rounds that money was an issue again despite Reynolds' earlier announcement. There were still talks, but nothing concrete concerning the ground. Director and Insolvency Solicitor, Scobbie, was dealing with it!
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| A long time until Chelsea will be advertised as the next home game. |
I think our last really great day at home was the Boxing Day derby in 2004 with York City. I'd seen England capitulate in the Test Match in Cape Town before struggling down to the Commercial as I didn't feel too well. I'm glad I made the effort. All the lads were in, and I found the sad news about the Tsunami which had destroyed the area I'd been just a few weeks earlier.
Boro hammered City 5-1, who had a big following. It was up there with the 4-2 game back in December 1992. City were a comedy act at the back and even managed to have a man sent off for time wasting when 3-0 down. The very wet weather helped the game as Boro ran riot.
Henry was replaced by a player-manager, Neil Redfearn, with experienced coach Eric Winstanley as his assistant. To be honest, they were a disaster. Boro finished in the relegation places but were given a reprieve as Canvey Island resigned from the league and Altrincham were given an 18-point deduction for fielding an ineligible player.
However, the Conference were not convinced of the club's financial stability, and Scarborough ended up suffering the same fate as Northwich Victoria had the previous year by being relegated to the Conference North.
The club claimed that they had been treated unfairly and that Conference chief, John Moules, had a grudge against us because we'd successfully challenged a points deduction when Reynolds first took over. I previously liaised with Mr Moules, and he had nothing but sympathy for the fans of the club, so I consider the claims unfounded.
Reynolds had now stood aside for Scobbie to step in because of a health scare, which coincidentally materialised at the same time he was being disqualified from holding a position as a Company Director because of his malmanagement of Boro's financial position. The cracks were starting to appear.
Redfearn and Winstanley were offered much-reduced roles, which forced their hand as they resigned in the summer. They demanded compensation, but the club refused after offering them other roles. The club was utterly skint. It was claimed that all the Chelsea money went because the club once again entered Administration, and the money was eaten up by it.
The team started on minus ten points because of this, as well as an embargo being placed, which prevented the club from signing any new players after the start of the season, because of football debts, which in effect were unpaid wages and expenses. Rumours were doing the rounds that players had been unpaid on many occasions since relegation, and this confirmed it.
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| One of many false hopes offered to supporters. |
Some supporters had had enough and formed a supporter’s organisation, "Seadogs Trust", to try and eventually buy shares in the club so that supporters had an elected voice on the board to try and assist in finances and to keep an eye on what was going on, as all was obviously not right.
Patterson did his best with his threadbare squad, and they played some lovely football. He must have been at his wits' end as sometimes he was down to two instead of five subs, such was the embargo. He even came out of retirement with dodgy knees at the age of 41. The FA eventually agreed to lift the embargo in January 2007, but the Conference refused.
They were taking a severely hard line on clubs and were getting fed up with Boro's antics. Mel Stein was the league's lawyer who checked over footballing debts, and it just so happened that Redfearn and Winstanley paid him as their agent!
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| Programme from the final game at Seamer Road |
SBC came to a conditional agreement to transfer the covenant on the McCain Stadium when a new ground was completed, which secured that the land could only be used for sporting purposes. Rumours were flying around, and it was obvious not everything was right. Scobbie, who was not a popular man, told fans everything was well and lambasted us for doubting him.
The board then asked for the unconditional lifting of the covenant according to the SEN. At one point, the gas was turned off at the ground because of an unpaid bill. For a good account of the time, click here.
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| Leigh RMI April 2007 |
The team played Leigh RMI at the McCain Stadium on the 21st of April 2007 in their last home game of the season, needing a win in both that game and away to Hucknall the following week to avoid relegation. They drew 1-1, were relegated, and it proved to be the last ever game at the stadium.
Jimmy Beadle
was the scorer of the final Boro goal at Seamer Road. It was a sad end to a
venue that staged football, rugby league, floodlit cricket, greyhound racing,
union meetings and boxing among other things.
Meanwhile, in Devon, former Boro and Exeter City Chairman John Russell was jailed for twenty-one months for fraudulent trading while at City. He wasn't satisfied with becoming the first Chairman to relegate two different clubs from the League.
He had to
trade illegally as well. I didn't trust the man for most of his time at Boro.
The attendance figures were dubious at best. He told us his great-grandfather
played for the club, although nobody ever found any proof to back it up. He
changed the club's kit from all red to incorporate large measures of green and
white, as he said they were the club's original colours, when in fact we
started in white and navy.
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| Out of darkness... |
To read and remember the acts of John Russell, click here: The club failed to convince the SBC that its proposals would raise enough money to both pay off the debts and build a new ground. On Friday, 8th June, the FA in London said that it was a very strong possibility that by June 12th, Scarborough F.C. may well go out of business.
On Tuesday,
12th June, the club was given an eight-day 'stay of execution' following a
'change of heart' by their local Borough Council. Chairman Scobbie had produced
a plan for a new ground on land occupied by the George Pindar Community Sports
College, but SBC wanted business plans, which he didn't have.
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| We'll always have our memories. The fraudsters and incompetents will never steal those from us. |
On Wednesday, 20th June, Scarborough Football Club was wound up in the High Court, ending its 128-year run as a club with debts of £2.5 million. Scarborough Athletic were given a mandate to proceed by fans at a public meeting at the town's St Nicholas Hotel. They gained admission into the Northern Counties East League at the AGM on 25th June.
Ian Scobbie threatened to derail the bid to gain a place in the league by threatening to apply to enter his own club, despite knowing that the NCEL stated that if they received more than one application, then no Scarborough side would be admitted. Scobbie didn't deliver his application.
Many thanks
To all the players and fans who gave me so many memories, both good and bad. Special mention to the following players who gave me special memories, in no order, except Jeff Barmby, who was the greatest in my opinion!
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| Bionic Barmby His son Nick was very good, but not as good as Jeff. |
Derek Abbey, Steve Adams, Colin Appleton, Tony Aveyard, Billy Ayre, Jeff Barmby, Ian Bennyworth, Kevin Blackwell, Dave Bowman, Steve Brodie, Mark Calvert, Dave Chapman, Mitch Cook, Gerry Coyne, David D'Auria, Darren Davis, Steve Deere, Kenny Dennis, Richard Dixey, Gerry Donaghue, Harry Dunn, Harry "A" Dunn, Sean Dunphy (for comedy value), Tony Elliott, Bernie Fagan, Darren Foreman, Bert Garrow, Tommy Graham, Stuart Hamill, John Hanson, Martin Harris, Stuart Hicks, Dave Hilley, Gary Himsworth, Mark Hotte, Ken Houghton, Ian Ironside, Alan Kamara, Jimmy Kelly, Paul Kendall, Scott Kerr, Darren Knowles, Ashley Lyth, John MacDonald, Alex Marinkov, Sean Marshall, Bryan Magee, Ray McHale, Mick Matthews, Stewart Mell, Adie Meyer, Jamie Mitchell, Tommy Mooney, Shaun Murray, Kevin Nicholson, George Oghani, Pat Olney, Mark Patterson, Brendan Phillips, Ces Podd, David Pounder, Sean Rennison, Steve Richards, Andy Ritchie, Darren Roberts, Jason Rockett, Martin Russell, Matty Russell (you can't choose your parents), Neil Sellers, Chris Senior, Paul Sheppard, Dene Shields, Chris Short, Craig Short, Jimmy Shoulder, Mo Sillah, Dave Smith, Ian Smith, Ian Snodin, Dean Spink, Ted Smethurst, Gareth Stoker, Colin Sutherland, Neil Thompson, Mally Thompson, Simon Thompson, Tyrone Thompson, Leigh Walker, Phil Walker, Pete Walters, John Watson, Mark Wells, Jason White, Trenton Wiggan, Gareth Williams, Colin Williams, John Woodall, Andy Woods and Super Ben Worrall.
Thanks to all the fans I stood with at games, both home and away. Special greetings and thanks to everyone I travelled on the minibuses with over the years and drank with before and after games.
What I miss most
Pre-match drinks in the Commercial, Falsgrave, in its prime.
Arranging the minibus for the following week.
Just walking down to the ground knowing that generations of my family and friends had given so much to the club, only to have it taken away by incompetent, and in some cases, devious, and indeed, criminal people, who were looking after their personal wealth, and who then had the temerity to blame us fans. And some fell for it and continue to do so.
Standing in the Shed at the match. On its day, an atmosphere to match anywhere.
Being young!
RIP
Scarborough Football Club and The Athletic Ground
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