Lovely article about Sproey ......................

[Mr Carter]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/jul/30/guardianbookoffootball1

 

Written by Frank Keating of The Guardian who has recently passed away well worth a read.

[ginginator]

Agreed Mr Carter, good read, like the last paragraph.

[ginginator]

He passed away today read his cricket stuff before, RIP Mr Frank Keating.

[CambridgeDon]

Fantastic read. The bit about the leather ball, the screw-lid bucket, and the dubbin is one of the best. God bless him.

[Edge81]

Sounds like old Roy hated Vale!!! haha

[mandywoody]

great read come and watch me in the next round mr taylor :D

[Aussie Rules]

Doing things differently back in Roy's time :D

 

His uncle chortles when I pass on the tactic. "With any luck Spurs might be in for a culture shock: out of their stockbroker houses and warm, snug luxury coach, straight into that cold room. There are omens too this week from that Blackpool match. It has rained all week and our rain can chill the marrow."

 

"It chilled Blackpool. We'd spent days drying out the pitch with coal sacks, wringing them with mangles, even shovelling water off, then forking and rolling so it looked quite reasonable till you trod on it and you'd sink in well over the tops of your boots. Might be like that this Saturday.

 

Then we'd soaked the leather ball in water for 24 hours - filling one of those screw-lid buckets with warm water and screwing the ball down into it for a day. After lunch on Saturday out it comes, dry off the surface water and give it a coat of dubbin so it looked all right. But it weighed more than a cannonball. Then for the kick-in we gave Blackpool a few old balls, dry and light and pumped up like balloons. After that they could hardly kick the match ball off the deck.

 

Love it . A time when if you didn't turn out to play you were either dead or dying :D

[Lornelounger]

I wonder if he ever regretted not going to that game afterwards given that Phil set up the first goal with a long ball forward, and scored the second? There must have been a bit of a media clamour to speak to Roy afterwards too. Shame he couldn't bring himself to come back to the club again - what a servant.

[JohnJames]

If you ever played with a casey at school you know exaxtly what he means. When it was cold the things used to break your toes