Come On You Old Fogies

[Suomi Saint]

This was very true. There was a guy on the turnstiles at the Milton Road entrance to the east stand who used his knee to stop the turnstile making a full turn and so stopping it clicking another person in. He would always give you a smile and a cheery word to try and take your mind off what he was doing. He must have made a fortune as well as risking countless lives as under the east would have far more in there than the count told. I don't know how many were on this fiddle but he was probably not alone. My dad told me to force the thing round to make sure the club got the money and not him. I think it used to hurt his knee if you pushed the turnstyle really hard!

I don't know about the gatemen being on the fiddle, but I do remember my dad lifting me over the turnstiles occasionally with their permission. I guess he must have tipped them, but the entrance fee was really low for nippers in those days - probably 6 old pence - so the tip couldn't have been that much. I used to sit on the wall at the front of the West Stand, and when I got bigger I took an old stool to stand on. Fell off it a few times when Ron nodded one in.

[ottery st mary]

Watneys Ales....Them were the days..

 

Brown and Mild

 

or Brown split

 

or Boilermaker..........Cheers.

 

COYS:)

 

Be honest posters......Who was on the old Babychams?

[Window Cleaner]

I guess that's about the mid-to-late sixties? Power station's still there and the strip looks about right.

 

yep we discussed that photo a couple of years back think it was 1966 but could be wrong.

[lifeintheslowlane]

Let's lay this b*****ks about gatemen being on the fiddle letting in two kids in for the price of one...how would that work as a fiddle??

 

It wasn't a fiddle, this was "accepted practice" when I was a kid. We used to stand under the East Stand and there was a single entry price of 2/6d. There wasn't a price for kids it was a flat 2/6d so when my dad and his mate took us kids to a game (and that was every home game) they would ask "OK to squeeze two kids in for one?"...the gateman would nod and me and my mate would squeeze through with one click of the turnstile. The 2/6p was paid for the single click of the gate.

 

Now I know the gateman who was done for this practice at the Archers and he is as true and honest a man as you'd wish to meet. He made nothing from this and lost a great deal (thankfully not his day job)...for maybe naively continuing an unofficial Saints tradition.