Tag: football

The Week That Was – 8th April 1979

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

Record of the week: The Members – Offshore Banking Business
Highest Entry: Wings – Goodnight Tonight – 25

3rd Mar 2022 – The Members were knocking out classic singles and Offshore Banking Business was even surpassed by its b-side Solitary Confinement. The lyrics summed up what I assumed was in store for me as an English teenager in the forthcoming decade. I didn’t know it at the time but I spent all of the eighties avoiding it to some degree.

Coincidentally, The Members vocalist Nicky Tesco passed away this week. One day all my idols will be dead. As you, as I.

I’m sure some folks remember and enjoy the Wings tune. I have no recollection though.

8th April 1979
Would be able to stay up to watch That’s Life but it’s not on
95p
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – That’s Life was actually a good introduction to the cruelties and absurdity of being alive. It was funny but in a typically dry English way. I used to enjoy the Last of the Summer Wine which was on Sunday nights too I think. Though I ended up so fucking annoyed at the miserable characters in that show even though they did overcome their weekly dramatic obstacles. But why were these shows on a Sunday night, priming people for the misery and absurdity of a working week!? So typically English. Is it any wonder we are fucking miserable people!

I didn’t get everything that was featured on That’s Life but knew that it was funny. I would laugh along with my mum even if I didn’t understand why something was funny. My mum influenced me quite a bit as she enjoyed absurd humour such as Spike Milligan, Michael Bentine and Monty Python etc Even kids’ programs were pretty out there, influenced by the drugs, excesses and changes of the sixites, not that I knew it at the time. The Americanisation of kids’ TV is disappointing.

I remember my grandmother as being quite Victorian, though it would have been her parents that lived during that time. By contrast, my mother seemed to be a fifties and sixties girl, growing out of the post-war grind. It was only when I was in my twenties or thirties that she told me that my dad was her second husband! It wasn’t something that she hid from me but she didn’t think it was that an important thing to tell me.

On one hand, I can understand her thinking, though I’m curious now. At the time she told me I only asked her a few questions and didn’t investigate further and of course, now it’s too late to ask. I wonder if there are things I don’t think are important for Hayden to know that might surprise him in the future when and if he finds them out?

9th April 1979
I was buttering up my bedroom wall today – looks fab
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – My guess is I didn’t quite know the meaning of buttering up unless the meaning has changed a little in my short life. I think at this stage I was still just putting up posters and pictures cut out of the music magazines and papers that I was collecting through my mother’s benevolence.

10th April 1979
Got a new pair of trainers. And I got two pads now.
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – The ongoing fucked feet saga. I still haven’t gone to get them checked again. Not that I’ve been waiting since 1979.

11th April 1979
Matthew’s coming down
Went on common
European Cup Semi-Final (1st Leg)
Forest 3-3 Cologne
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – Pre the mega money-spinning sponsorship of football I don’t recall ever seeing European football matches on TV, not even highlights. The scores just appeared occasionally on the news and in the papers, which I would sometimes check out my grandparents’ stash. They got the Guardian and the Observer delivered to our oversized letterbox that sat snugly in the privet hedge by the gate along with the morning milk, twice-weekly bakery goods and the mail.

It’s difficult for people to comprehend these days just how difficult information was to come by. There’s a reason Encyclopedia sets were a popular door-to-door sales item though the one we had we had to sell so that we could live. Food was more important than knowledge at that stage. We were never destitute but it always felt like it wouldn’t take much to push us in that direction.

12th April 1979
1. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes
2. Squeeze – Cool For Cats
3. Racey – Some Girls
4. Village People – In The Navy
5. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive
2p 10p

13th April 1979
Jean came today
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – Jean was my mum’s school friend. A hard-drinking, hard-smoking lady who always wore too much perfume to hide the fact she might’ve been enjoying whiskey breakfasts. I think it was on a visit to her house back in Carlisle that I stole my first cigarettes from her many packets and took that first step into bad boy teenage smoking rebellion. I don’t remember much about any of the visits, her coming to us or us going back up North. She and mum were always off to the pub. These times were my mum’s only holiday time in the year.

14th April 1979
Do bricks
Norwich 0-1 Ipswich
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – I wasn’t a Liverpool fan but did much prefer Ray Clemence to Peter Shilton. I hated Peter Shilton’s hair!

The Week That Was – 18th March 1979

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Record of the week: Car 67 – Headlight
Highest Entry: Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes – 27

28th Dec 2021 – I think I checked out the Car 67 song again back when I initially wrote this entry and now, can’t remember a damn thing about it. Art Garfunkel though – ugh. These were the times of realising that popular music was quickly becoming something I hated. I don’t hear this song anywhere in popular culture these days either so perhaps it has been justly forgotten.

18th March 1979
Clocks forward
Boring day
Really
Most days are now
2p 1p

19th March 1979
Same as yesterday
2p

28th Dec 2021 – It’s a shame I couldn’t find anything to write about, or thought that was worth writing about at the time. It was definitely an effort to try to put anything down here every down and there would be long periods when that became normal. I don’t think I have any diaries between 1986 and 1994. I seem to be fairly regularly making 3p per day – making my mum a cup of tea and something else, maybe washing up, though I can clearly view the sink and often still have dreams in this kitchen I don’t recollect ever washing up!

20th March 1979
Got new pair of shoes, wedged
2p 1p

28th Dec 2021 – I was probably costing my mum a fortune with my dodgy feet. These ‘wedged’ shoes would’ve also made me more conscious of standing out from everyone else. It felt like a negative for me and I didn’t appreciate at the time that I was receiving help from others. I found my life to be a hell that everyone wished on me. A lack of self-esteem. I can’t really identify where I developed this from. Perhaps from not having a father figure around? I did often wonder how different my life would have been if my father had been alive for my childhood.

21st March 1979
European Cup Quarter Final (2nd Leg)
Barcelona 1-0 Ipswich
Colehill P-P Cranborne
2p 1p

28th Dec 2021 – There were three middle schools in the catchment area for Queen Elizabeths (High School) in Wimborne. I was at St. Michaels (up the hill in Colehill), Allenbourne was down in the town and Cranborne covered all the rest of the countryside to the north. My house was along one of the catchment borders, or thereabouts. A bit further north and I would have been going to Cranborne too. The bus route is etched in my memory and it always weirded me out that we drove a long way down one road to pick up a couple of kids and then the driver had to reverse into a side track and drive on back again. It felt like it added so much extra time to the journey but it was really only a few minutes.

Throughout this school year and the next, I developed a habit of getting up earlier and earlier, even before the TV programs started in the morning at 6am. If it was too early for TV I would find something on the radio. I would eat biscuits for breakfast with a cup of tea. I encouraged my mum to buy more and more different types of biscuits and I would eat two of each, lining them up in the order of least tasty to delicious. I would take a bite and suck in a mouthful of tea and feel the biscuit crumble in my mouth dispersing its taste within. On and on…if I ran out of tea before biscuits I would make another cup.

22nd March 1979
1. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive
2. Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army
3. Lene Lovich – Lucky Numbers
4. Sex Pistols – Something Else
5. The Real Thing – Can You Feel The Force?
2p 2p

Sid Vicious had died in Early February and there was still money to be made.

28th Dec 2021 – Seeing Sex Pistols videos on TV was thrilling as all hell to me. Who were these crazy people? There was nothing I could identify with from my beautiful green countryside surrounds. I thought Sid Vicious came from another planet. More and more I wanted to be like that. To shock, upset and offend. This would develop much more strongly in the next school year, got me in a stack of trouble and ultimately confused me and made me bitter. It was a lot of fun at the time, a way to express myself and I soon discovered how boring and straight most people are.

At this stage though, I was just beginning to dive in. I was still teetering on the edge of being a good student and being a rebellious one. It’s fantastic to recognise these exact same traits in some of the kids I teach now. I try my best to encourage them but, fuck, I know exactly what I was like at their age and wouldn’t listen to anyone – especially teachers!

23rd March 1979
Rev.’s got more boring since a couple of weeks ago
2p 2p

28th Dec 2021 – Rev. must have been Religious Education but what the hell did the word Rev. actually mean? I wonder if subjects are still called this?

24th March 1979
Liverpool 2-0 Ipswich
10p

28th Dec 2021 – 10p – I was a money-making machine! It wouldn’t last.

The Week That Was – 4th March 1979

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Record of the Week: Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army G. Harrison – Blow Away
Highest Entry: Thin Lizzy – Waiting for an Alibi – 25

29th Nov 2021 – I don’t remember this George Harrison song – wait, I’m gonna listen…..weird. I don’t recognise this at all! Thin Lizzy on the other hand is ingrained in my psyche. A stone-cold classic.

4th March 1979
Not feeling very well!

5th March 1979
Didn’t go to school today
2p 2p 1p

29th Nov 2021 – For someone who was sick enough not to go to school, it seems I was well enough to earn a few pence doing chores.

6th March 1979
Same as yesterday

29th Nov 2021 – The poor kid was sickly again. I don’t know why. Was I just a dirty kid picking up infections from every other dirty kid? I could never stop picking my nose no matter how much my mum told me I should. At least by this age, I had stopped wiping my old snot on the back of the sofa for someone else to find and clean.

7th March 1979
European Cup (1st Leg)
Ipswich 2-1 Barcelona
Go to school
2p

29th Nov 2021 – Whilst Ipswich struggled in the league, we were giving it our best shot in Europe. I only ever attended a couple of football matches in the UK and I think I was too young to notice any violence in the air at the stadiums. It became obvious on TV and over the next few years as rival fan attacks got more brutal and bloody. One countermeasure taken was to make stadiums all seated and it still looks weird to me to watch every sitting down at a football match.

Another I notice is how small the stadiums appear and how close the fans are to the pitch. It makes everything look quite quaint. My only other experience of watching football was at the Sydney Olympics and it felt like everything was so far away, the players looked like ants.

When I started attending occasional AFL games in Sydney there was no air of violence, no separation of supporters and tons of kids with their parents. There was plenty of good-natured cajoling and any angry scenes were soon forgotten. It was always a lot of fun. I seem to have a bad run with paying through the nose to attend games though. It was very rare that my team won, even if they were doing well that season. So I made a point not to go to any games again so as not to jinx my team.

8th March 1979
1. Bee Gees – Tragedy
2 . Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army
3. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive
4. Lene Lovich – Lucky Numbers
5. The Real Thing – Can You Feel The Force
2p

9th March 1979
Got a new bus driver
On bus of course?
Only for that day though
Shaun Marchit
2p 2p 1p

29th Nov 2021 – I remember the bus to middle school being quite a nice air-conditioned coach. The fourth-year kids always got the back seats and had the best fun. It would be a couple more years ’til I graduated to the king of the bus. Our bus driver doesn’t stand out in my memory perhaps because of the legend of our high school bus driver who was a champion never to be forgotten.

Who the hell is Shaun Marchit? Or was I trying to tell myself something? Was it the bus driver’s name? Doubtful. It must have been relevant at the time for me to write in my diary but alas, it’s gone now.

10th March 1979
FA Cup 6th Round
X Ipswich 0-1 Liverpool
Top: Liverpool
2p 1p

29th Nov 2021 – Fucking Liverpool! I admired Liverpool cos they were always winning. So, obviously, I hated them too.

The Week That Was – 21st January 1979

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Highest Entry – Blondie – 6

18th Oct 2021 – It seems to be around this time that I was really starting to pay more attention to the charts and leaning further away from pop and disco tunes and towards louder raunchier music.

21st January 1979
Horray no school tomorrow
WO

22nd January 1979
Boring day
WHAT

23rd January 1979
Great, school bus didn’t come so I ain’t going to school

18th Oct 2021 – Already sarcastic, aged 11. Just looking at these words, they could be read as positive – ie – Awesome, no school! But I know that is not what I meant. The school bus didn’t come but I was still up and ready and waiting for it when I could’ve been sleeping in or getting up to whatever other nonsense I usually did on free mornings.

24th January 1979
School today
BLURP
Leeds 2-2 Soton (League Cup semi-final 2nd leg)

18th Oct 2021 – I’m pretty sure these were times when I could tell you all about football teams, players, scores etc even those I didn’t really follow. I think this was the time of Allan Clarke (Leeds) and Mick Channon (Southampton)?

25th January 1979
(1) Hit me with your rhythm stick, hit me, hit me
ID and the Blockheads
(6)
Once I had a love and it was a gas, soon found out had a heart of glass
Blondie

18th Oct 2021 – I loved that this Ian Dury song was number one, after 1978’s What a Waste was a favourite. Somehow I convinced my mum to buy me this single and I was thrilled that the b-side title was “There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards”, finding it very daring to have what was then considered a swear word in the name.

Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’ wasn’t my favourite song from Parallel Lines, which would have been one of the first albums I owned, again, after convincing my mum to buy for me. Anything that featured Debbie Harry and saw the chance of seeing her beautiful image on TV again was wholly supported by my imagination, which had already run wild after seeing the video for ‘Presence Dear’ where I was certain she was talking directly to me from the screen.

I dreamt that she was waiting for me by a particular tree in the woods and hurried that morning to go and meet her. I waited and waited, trying to feel her presence, almost ecstatic and a tingling in my pants that I was only just learning about.

I limped home ever so disappointed as my youthful hard-on waned in my tight pants but I didn’t give up hope.

26th January 1979
Got a new magazine called Superpop
HEYYY!

27th January 1979
Ipswich 0-0 Orient
Hey Nerds!
Rly
Tes

18th Oct 2021 – There are many codes in my diaries that I was sure I would remember the meaning of because they were ‘really important.’ A couple I’m still able to work out and I also left deciphering clues elsewhere in the pages but this entry I don’t know.

The Week That Was – 14th January 1979

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

14th January 1979
Going to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind

14th Oct 2021 – This would have been at the Tivoli in town (Wimborne Minster) and a very special event for an 11-year-old living out in the sticks. The movie really provoked my imagination – not so much about the alien visitors but how crazy the humans became. This and the War of the Worlds soundtrack really got me going, thinking about space and the universe though it wasn’t long until what was happening on earth overrode everything.

15th January 1979
Cleaning out the stream
Forgot
Don’t know

14th Oct 2021 – The woods opposite my house were a few children’s playground though for me it became a big part of my imagination and life. I familiarised myself with every corner, nook and cranny of the woods, sometimes even expanding over into overgrown backyards that backed onto it. It was divided up into several sections depending on clearings, paths, tracks and type of trees. There were three main entrances and a stream ran through the middle in a miniature valley (a ditch!).

When walking my grandparents’ dog – a job I mostly enjoyed – I would navigate through the grassy entrance to the woods, through the small paths amongst the bracken, to the main clearing where another path formed into a big circle you could walk, run or ride a bike around and beyond this down into the ditch where the stream was attempting to flow from right to left as I approached it. With the melting snow feeding it there was lots of water and so much debris would be picked up and block progress so that it flooded over the sides onto the banks and paths. I made it my mission to clear it, a little bit every day. I thought myself the owner of this stream and woe betide anyone who tried to reverse my hard work and block it again.

It took me many weeks to clear through halfway and later in the year, as seasons changed, there would be fresh challenges ahead. In my wellington boots, I kicked at the bottom of the stream to clear rocks away, pulled at entangled bushes on the bank, removed fallen branches until one day, about three-quarters of the way through I came to a small bend and beyond was the next objective to clear. The banks were steeper here and the tree cover dense so it was impossible to see the bottom. I bravely took a step forward feeling confident I would find the safety of the stream bed.

Alas, I was too careless and, as my foot plunged deeper, the icy water flowed over the top of my left boot and filled it full of water. Fuck! Stupid stream! I got out, emptied my boot and trudged home, cold and damp footed.

I went back of course but opted to start at the other end of the stream and work my way back to the cavernous depth that brought me despair. Having done this however, I found that the stream could only be accessed so far until it was blocked by a big hedge – and what was over that hedge made me extremely curious for further investigations.

16th January 1979
Same as yesterday
Forgot
Don’t know

14th Oct 2021 – I called my friend, Jason White, who lived on a farm down the end of the lane that ran alongside our house. You had to walk through his farm to get to the bottom of the field where Horton Tower was and where we used to climb up the crumbling brickwork inside to get to the windows from where you could also jump out. This was a teenage tradition for everyone locally and some kids even made it up to the second level but I was never brave enough to try.

Anyway, I called him…..actually, I probably didn’t even call him, I would’ve gone to his house and seen if he wanted to ‘come out to play’? I was proud of my stream cleaning success and wanted to show him. When we got there though he didn’t seem impressed at all which was disappointing. He was, however, curious about what was on the other side of that hedge.

Egging each other on, we climbed up a tree and along a branch that hung over into this forbidden territory. We dropped down onto a path that seemed to curve round in either direction. Whilst the path looked well enough used, the overgrowth on either side was so high it was difficult to predict what was around each corner. As I was thinking about this, Jason began to tell stories of the owner laying animal traps and walking around with a shotgun ready to shoot people who trespassed there. So it was in trepidation we snooped around as far as we could until we scared ourselves too much and jumped over/through another hedge and into an adjoining field.

Curiosity was well piqued by now and I ventured back a few more times, both alone or with a friend, until one day the owner walked right to us and asked what I was doing. I mumbled about just wondering and wandering what this area was and he told me to get out the way I came and not to come back. I don’t think I ever did.

There seemed to be nothing of interest in this enclosed wooded area, which, of course, made it even more tempting to investigate further but the threatening look of the owner was enough to keep me away.

I returned to the woods many years later and whilst some parts are the same, others have either changed or they no longer fit with memories. I’ll always be tempted to go back and look again (even though it’s on the other side of the world) but I’ve learned that memories are sometimes better left to themselves.

17th January 1979
Found out that ID and the Blockheads isn’t No. 1

14th Oct 2021 – Although I have no diary for 1978 I can see that music was taking on a more important role in my life throughout 1979. From football and cars at the beginning of the year to the charts and punk rock by the end. Critical times and enough to drive my mother mad.

18th January 1979
Painted WODs today
Painted them white
Interesting this article isn’t it!

14th Oct 2021 – Wall of Death? Wheels of Death? What’s the ‘s’ on the end? It seems I was also conscious of writing this diary for a reason, talking to a future self.

19th January 1979
Given new set book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
BLURP

14th Oct 2021 – I struggled with reading books during these years, especially if they were school-assigned books. Who wants to read what they’re told!? I do believe I did complete reading this book though. Something about a lion, a witch and a wardrobe, I bet!

20th January 1979
Finished some homework
Ipswich 3-1 Wolves
HEYY!

14th Oct 2021 – Weird that I would comment on finishing homework. I guess I was proud of this achievement.

The Week That Was – 7th January 1979

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

12th Oct 2021 – Each page of this diary had a small write-up on some important or legendary footballer and re-reading a lot of these names was a trip. Just seeing the name would remind me of the teams I was familiar with them playing for. Players were brutal and ugly in those days, playing on muddy and messy pitches. The sport was highly revered but was without the crazy amount of money that sponsorships and advertising brought once the Premier League began – which is also around the time I lost interest – though there are other reasons involved for that too.

7th January 1979
Granny beat me at Happy Days
But I beat her in Trumps

12th Oct 2021 – Trumps or Top Trumps was really popular around this time, a card-collecting game where you chose your best stat hoping to beat your opponents. Topics may be types of car or military vehicles. Unsurprisingly there is a website for Top Trumps, so possibly it is even popular now for any child who doesn’t have a phone. And come to think of it, many mobile phone games employ similar systems of scoring as TT too.

For Happy Days I had to go search and finding this picture I’m guessing this is what I was playing with my Granny. She was always Granny, never Gran or Grandma. I can’t imagine it but I hope playing this (and winning) gave her some affection for her grandson. The board doesn’t trigger any memories but the jukebox counting design feels familiar. Look at all the American words I was already subjecting myself to. Nerd, cruising, drag. After exposure to Grease last year I was getting to be all about the leather jacket.

8th January 1979
I am able to watch Danger UXB because there’s no school tomorrow
HEEYYYY!

12th Oct 2021 – Again, a quick image search triggers memories of this show. Otherwise, I’m lost. I was particularly anxious at times during this show as the soldiers would race against time to disarm bombs. Hard to imagine how they got so much mileage out this premise. 13 episodes and that was it – something I always liked about many UK TV shows. Concise and well written.

9th January 1979
Return to school postponed
WO!

12th Oct 2021 – Still improving my American language skills, I hadn’t yet learned how to spell Woah!

10th January 1979
Ipswich 3-2 Carlisle
HEYY!

12th Oct 2021 – WOAH and HEY are my attempts at being the coolest cat in deepest Dorset. There was no one to impress except my own maturing ego.

11th January 1979
Still no school and I ain’t going tomorrow cause it’ll be stupid

12th January 1979
A boring day
Nothing to say
It rhymes It rhymes

12th Oct 2021 – Here I am, already on my poetic journey. I must’ve been bored with the snow already.

13th January 1979
Previous scores 5-2, 6-1
Ipswich P-P Villa
Blurp!

12th Oct 2021 – At this point, football and Ipswich were my primary concern. Something that would change somewhat during the course of this year.

Letts Association Football Diary 1979 – 30th December 1978

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

This Association Football Diary 1979 Belongs to
Shaun “Concorde” Hemsley
Forest Cottage
Holtwood
Wimborne
Dorset

Pussycat??

19th Jul 2021 – Gordon McQueen, Terry Yorath, Liam Brady – these names! Memories of Match of the Day on Saturday nights and the one on Sunday afternoons on ITV….what was that one called – the one with Brian…..damn, what was his name!?

So, in search of this name I came across this sad piece of information:

My first team was Ipswich Town (and Italy – purely for the reason that they wore blue and their names began with I!) and they did amazingly well in the late 70s and early 80s, so much so that manager Bobby Robson got the job of managing the England team. Trevor Whymark was my favourite player and when Paul Mariner joined they were a great upfront duo.

I took a very similar picture of Mariner to the hairdresser and told him to make my hair the same. Of course I didn’t understand that it wasn’t possible and was severely disappointed with the results. The same hairdresser balked at dying my hair blue a couple of years later so I figured out how to do it myself.

Childhood heroes dying are more a shock than sad really. When I calculate his age to 68 I then calculate that’s just 14 years away for me. I want to outlive all my heroes!

Anyway – The Big Match was what it was called, and hosted by Brian Moore. I always preferred Match of the Day anyway really but not really sure why.

I’m not sure if I crowned myself ‘Concorde’ or if I was given that nickname by others. I was in the second year of middle school, at St Michaels, Colehill. I was the fastest runner for my age in the school (over short distances).

Why I wrote ‘Pussycat??’ I have no recollection.

The address is where my mum and I moved to in October 1976, just before my 9th birthday, after the long hot summer in Devon, where we lived for only six months. Forest Cottage was where my grandparents lived and my mum now became their carer and I went through my formative teenage years.

I note that our phone number was ‘Witchampton 203’ originally – when there were so few phones that we only required a three digit number.

This is what the house looks like these days – the house itself pretty unchanged. My bedroom was at the top left and my mum used to sleep on the landing, which I found strange and impressive. There was a bigger bedroom on the right (both windows) but I always felt uneasy in there as the floor sloped away and creaked as if it would break.

“Our’ room – my mum and I – was the extension on the left. I would play here until I was 13 or so when I retreated more permanently to my bedroom. I think the original house was a couple of hundred years old.

Until about the age of 13 or 14 I would take a football over into this field, usually when there were no horses in it, and play football with myself, often scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup Final of my dreams. I would also often have to retire injured with twisted ankles in the horseshoe divots in the ground. It wasn’t quite Wembley.

At the fence between our house and this field I would often spy on horse riding girls who would come and groom their animals, inspired by their horsey faces, porcelain skin and thigh hugging britches.