Soccer Hooligans of 70 Years Ago (14 October 1977)

In my fairly recent article about 81-year-old Mr Cecil Hands, of Clifford Avenue, Bletchley, I deliberately abstained from any reference to the activity for which he is still remembered best of all by many old stagers.  This was his prowess on the soccer field.  He hung up his boots on his marriage in 1927, but a number of his contemporaries have assured me from time to time that he was the best inside forward any Bletchley club has ever had, either before or since.

This I can well believe.  Even old age cannot conceal what is sometimes called that “low centre of gravity” which stands players like Keegan and Macari in such good stead and, to use his own words to me, “I never knew which was my best foot.”

Unfortunately, he has not kept any records.  Just a few medals.  Such as two Winslow and District cup medals; a Berks and Bucks Junior Cup runners-up medal for 1925-26 while playing with Bletchley Sports (the precursor of Bletchley Town, now Milton Keynes City); a Bedford League medal while playing for Woburn along the Bert Cook(sic), also of Bletchley; and league and cup medals while playing for Bletchley Wednesday in the Luton and District Wednesday League.

He does not remember Bletchley Albion, the first local soccer club we know to have existed, but he does have very clear memories of soccer being played at Dropshort by Fenny Rovers; at St Martin’s Field by Fenny Stars; at Shenley Road by Bletchley St Mary’s; at The Cleve, near Stag Bridge; and, of course, at the Market Field and Albert Street by Bletchley Sports.

One of Cecil’s liveliest footballing memories is of the notorious match between Fenny Rovers and Newport Town at Newport in 1907-08, which I mentioned in this column about two years ago.  To recapitulate a little, the game had been in progress about 20 minutes when Frank Kilsby (who later played for Northampton Town) charged the Newport goalie, who retaliated by kicking Frank’s backside as Frank was walking away.  The referee sent the goalie off the field.  Newport’s supporters were incensed and after full-time was blown, with the score standing at 2-1 for the Rovers, they threw Kilsby and another forward named Vince into the river.

After that, some of the crowd made for the Ram Inn, where the Rovers were changing and waited for them to come out.  There was a rare old shindig when the Rovers came through the gate in a two-horse brake driven by Cecil’s father, John, with school-boy Cecil himself riding among the players in the back.

The team escaped from there at the gallop and continued through the town, hotly followed by a policeman on a bicycle.  But some Newport supporters who had taken a short cut intercepted the brake near the gasworks and the river.

“That was the worst bit,” says Cecil.  “We had rugs over our heads as they pelted us with lumps of coke, but my father, who was driving up front, had no such protection and was severely cut about the face.  He managed to keep going, however, and eventually pulled up at The Barge at Little Woolstone, where he was patched up by the landlady before we came home.”

Three of the crowd’s ringleaders were fined at a subsequent Newport court.

But by far the severest penalty was meted out by the Buckingham League itself.  Today’s Manchester United can thank their stars they are not in that league today.  For the league fined Newport Town so heavily that they either could not or would not pay and consequently ceased to exist.

Cecil retained his keen interest in soccer after he had finished playing.  He was Bletchley Sports’ first chairman on their re-formation after the war, subsequently making way for Mr Alfie Root.  A friend drives him to and from City’s games at Manor Fields, but when asked about their play he just shakes his head sadly.

He also attends Arsenal’s midweek floodlit matches.  He goes by train to Euston where his son, who is employed at the Guildhall, meets him and takes him by tube to Highbury.  He has no great opinion of “Supermac,” who he says has to have the ball sent to his left foot before he can do anything with it!

I am pleased he has been able to correct me on one point.  In one article I said I believed Mr Still’s “St Martin’s Grammar School” occupied what are now the Conservative Club premises before going to The Elmers, near St. Mary’s Church.  But Cecil tells me that the club’s premises were occupied by another educational establishment known locally as Holloway’s College.  Mr Still had the property close by which, much altered, is now occupied by Smith’s, the chemists, among others.  He has the best of reasons for knowing.  He went there himself.