Backwords: When Town Were On The Right Lines
Mike Shaw says that the best way to get a seat on a bus after watching a well-attended football match is to run like the very devil in the opposite direction to that which you want to go.
There was one large advantage about living at Marsden when I was in my teens.
It had nothing to do with the attractions of the opposite sex which were paraded at Saturday night dances in the Mechanics’ Hall.
Nor am I talking about cuddling on the back row of the pictures while now and then glancing up at James Mason and Margaret Lockwood enjoying their necking sessions on The Electric Cinema’s silver screen.
No, it was quite simply that Marsden at that time happened to be on a Huddersfield Corporation through-route to Bradley.
And that meant I could hop on a trolley-bus and ride straight to the gates of the Town ground in Leeds Road.
No need to mess about changing buses in the middle of town on a busy Saturday afternoon.
All I had to do was sit back, pay my 3d fare and watch the bus filling up like a sardine tin by the time it reached Slaithwaite.
Then gaze out of the window with a sadistic smile at the unfortunate hordes left stranded in the queues as we sailed down the valley like a destroyer going full-steam ahead in the Atlantic sea lanes.
Three bells were sounded by the captain (sorry, I mean the conductor) as the signal that he had a full bus. And away we went on our swift, silent way.
I’ve known me just manage to squeeze aboard a bus at the Olive Branch on the outskirts of Marsden and be sped straight through without stopping until we arrived in the middle of Huddersfield.
In under three quarters of an hour I was able to skip off the trolley outside the Town ground, with loads of time to find my favourite spot on the terrace side.
When I began supporting Town as a wartime schoolboy there was no such soccer rush every other Saturday, of course.
The crowds then were pretty sparse, with Town playing in the League North and guests such as the silver-haired Raich Carter teaming up with talented veterans like Ken Willingham and youngsters such as Albert Bateman and Jimmy Glazzard.
But the same sense of eager anticipation and adventure I felt in the days of makeshift wartime soccer stayed with me as the post-war football boom gathered pace.
When peace put the sport back on an even keel it was as if almost every man and boy for miles around wanted to get into the ground when Town were at home.
With crowds of well over 20,000 it became increasingly vital for me to catch an early bus to make sure of being in the ground before kick-off.
If getting to Leeds Road was a mad rush, getting back home was a veritable stampede.
It sounds Double Dutch, but the best way of getting on a Marsden-bound bus was to run like the very devil in the opposite direction.
So about quarter to five there was the sight of scores of fans from up the valley -- young and not so young -- haring along the road towards Bradley like the Colne Valley Beagles chasing a non-existent prey.
The objective, of course, was to beat the queues outside the Town ground by getting on half a mile before there when the buses still had some empty seats.
Crazy it may have been. But at least it worked. And it meant we were home in time for tea at half past five instead of trailing in way after six among the weary stragglers.
Not only that. We’d had 90 minutes of First Division football for our money -- and soccer hooliganism wasn’t even thought of. Things will never be the same again.
