Cine films of football grounds 1979-1981

[bobbybottler]

http://footballgroundguide.ipbhost.com/ ... opic=13962

Should bring back a few memories, especially of the vacated grounds eg Eastville, Somerfield, Plough Lane.

Meadowbank brought back some memories of my youth, great big athletics stadium with no more than 300 hardly souls in it.

[bobbybottler]

I thought I'd have got at least a sympathy reply to this one.

[LUX]

hardy souls btw.

I thought about starting a thread about How many ex League grounds have you visited, but didn't.

FTR I've been to the ex grounds of Reading , Boro, Sunderland, Millwall, Oxford, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield (1-7 ), Arsenal.

[bobbybottler]

Thanks Lux.

[Wax Jacket]

excellent stuff bobby - must've missed it first time around!

[Magnus]

Love the sombre soundtrack over the top.

Some real gems in there. RIP

[Barry the bird boggler]

Nearly all these grounds look and feel so much better than today's plastic boxes, such a shame we couldn't retain them.

I remember well the away terrace at Plymouth and the flower beds at Eastville! And Chelsea's ground in this period was just brilliant.

[Negative_Jeff]

hardy souls btw.

I thought about starting a thread about How many ex League grounds have you visited, but didn't.

FTR I've been to the ex grounds of Reading , Boro, Sunderland, Millwall, Oxford, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield (1-7 ), Arsenal.

Add Brighton Cardiff Coventry Hull Rotherham Saints and Colchester.
The trips to the Old Den, Plymouth and Eastville were hairy to say the least, nowhere to hide!

[handbags_harris]

Funny you should mention the Old Den NJ, I was looking at Googlemap last night to try and picture where the old place was. Seems as though it was right on the end of Cold Blow Lane, and looking at streetview of the area it seems as though your comment "nowhere to hide" rings true. I don't know what the place was like 20 years ago but if it's anything like the surrounding area now then I can imagine the running battles across the field that was the old New Cross Stadium next door and down the streets.

[Svlad Cjelli]

hardy souls btw.

I thought about starting a thread about How many ex League grounds have you visited, but didn't.

FTR I've been to the ex grounds of Reading , Boro, Sunderland, Millwall, Oxford, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield (1-7 ), Arsenal.

Add Brighton Cardiff Coventry Hull Rotherham Saints and Colchester.
The trips to the Old Den, Plymouth and Eastville were hairy to say the least, nowhere to hide!

For me, subtract Sunderland, Hull and Rotherham, but add Walsall, Huddersfield, Northampton and Darlington (the nicest of the lot!)

[Vision]

hardy souls btw.

I thought about starting a thread about How many ex League grounds have you visited, but didn't.

FTR I've been to the ex grounds of Reading , Boro, Sunderland, Millwall, Oxford, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield (1-7 ), Arsenal.

Add Brighton Cardiff Coventry Hull Rotherham Saints and Colchester.
The trips to the Old Den, Plymouth and Eastville were hairy to say the least, nowhere to hide!

For me, subtract Sunderland, Hull and Rotherham, but add Walsall, Huddersfield, Northampton and Darlington (the nicest of the lot!)

Add Stoke's old ground to that. For my money comfortably the most intimidating ground I ever visited.

[handbags_harris]

Add Stoke's old ground to that. For my money comfortably the most intimidating ground I ever visited.

This. Went there twice in the 90's, 2-0 defeat 1993 and 1-0 win 1995, both times a scary place for 10/12 year old to go.

[General B]

Add Stoke's old ground to that. For my money comfortably the most intimidating ground I ever visited.

I went there sometime in the early 90s and it's the only time I've seen a doris throwing punches at a football match. It was the same game when the police and stewards bravely ran off as the Stoke fans attacked the away end. Pooooot.

Nice find by the OP by the way.

[Terminal Boardom]

Quality spot BB. These old films bring back loads of memories. So HH wants to know what Cold Blow Lane was like? I will quote from the brilliant book"Football Grounds of Britain" by Simon Inglis:

The Den - The Lion's Den - on Cold Blow Lane. Never did a name or an address express the character of a ground more accurately. When future generations ask "Was The Den really so different?" the mists of time must never cloud the truth. The Den was special. It was rough, tough, proud and prickly, warm and wild all at the same time.

Going there on a Tuesday night, the mist rolling off the Thames, sub-standard streetlighting all contributed to a most eerie atmosphere. You could image Jack the Ripper skulking in the shadows. It is the most intimidating football ground that I have ever been to and I completed the 92 back in 1991.

[Ark Royal]

Eastville was a big, old, dark, rambling dump of a place and I never enjoyed my visits there. Always seemed to have the threat of impending violence; and the East Terrace at The Valley was fu cking HUGE.

[frimmers3]

with regard to the "den"...in "recent " years,when spurs were relegated to the old division 2(and deservedly) the clarion call went out at the "lane" not to "bottle" the game down at cold blow lane..i did not: was it scary? yes..in those back lanes and alleys....but it was nothing compared with the sheer hatred and vitriol that elland road served up to visitors....

[Ark Royal]

Excellent blog with loads of links related to the 92 and other ground-hopping stuff:

http://pieandmushypeas.blogspot.com/

[Bowman's Quiver]

Wonderful. Nostalgic. Eerie. Sad.

All emotions heightened because for the most part the grounds are deserted adding to the sense of decay and abandonment, which in many cases they have been both literally and in our consciousness. Watching the footage of some of those places feels like stepping out of a time machine.

It must be very hard for people of a certain age to begin to imagine what some of these places were really like. I don't mean the intimidation aspect but rather the link these grounds had with the golden age of the game (1930's-70's). Far better than the pantomime we have to endure these days.

Special mention to the Valley. I went there as a 16 year old one cold, wet Tuesday night in 1980 (the first time we'd played Charlton in nearly 50 years) and the impression of the east terrace still sticks in my mind. It was massive and reckoned to hold up to 50,000 people. I doubt there more than 50 souls dotted around that evening. Even then I remember thinking it was a death trap!

[Terminal Boardom]

It just goes to show how sanitised the game has become. Out of town, off the shelf stadia are the norm these days. There is a distinct lack of originality these days and one ego-bowl looks very much like another. Things like open air toilets are very much a thing of the past.

[Nick Shorey my Lord!]

Special mention to the Valley. I went there as a 16 year old one cold, wet Tuesday night in 1980 (the first time we'd played Charlton in nearly 50 years) and the impression of the east terrace still sticks in my mind. It was massive and reckoned to hold up to 50,000 people. I doubt there more than 50 souls dotted around that evening. Even then I remember thinking it was a death trap!

Just watched that and my reaction was sweet Jesus. When were they filling that up regularly? It just seems unusually large for the a club the size of Charlton (in todays standards).