[Devongone]

It was only good Sunday League, but when I played behind a very good defence indeed, when we were under pressure we almost never lumped the ball upfield, because we had a footballing, 5'9" centre forward. We tried to break quickly sometimes when it looked on, but we played a bit of keep-ball too. I threw the ball out from goal to find a man ......... the last thing they wanted from me was get it down the other end so their keeper could hit it straight back at us ..... with a man advantage you should always have someone free to pass to (but that's a "should", some players could find a way to get marked on the top of Mam Tor).

[bluepooch]

Who did you play with Dev ? I played with BD Sports for a short while until my promising career was cut short in its prime .Early/Mid eighties .

[spireitematt]

Who did you play with Dev ? I played with BD Sports for a short while until my promising career was cut short in its prime .Early/Mid eighties .

Injury? or did you discover beer?

[Devongone]

BD Sports weren't bad (in my day!).

Saturday's, I mostly played with Sheepbridge (Hope Valley, Sutton & Skeg, Chesterfield League, we moved round), but also had a season with Old Whittington in the Sutton and SkegbyPrem and the Glassworks in a strange enjoyable season. I turned down a couple of offers to go part-time pro' to stay playing with my friends.

Sunday's we had a superb defence with the Magpies (Cock & Magpie pub), we finished 4th in Div 1 behind Queens Hotel, Brampton and Grassmoor Boot and Shoe all who had teams of players mostly paid for playing on Saturdays. We got a win and a draw against all three of them ........ and lost to several sides far worse than us! But ours was an accidentally excellent defence - a good set of players just came together! Scouts from Burnley, West Brom, Notts County!!!! and a couple of others came to watch me. None of 'em liked me! Phil Tingay was playing for Park Rangers at the same time - they were mid-table, excellent footballing side, no killer instinct! Phil was older than me, but we played in the same cricket team and he was better than me at that by a long way ...... but I was a pretty excellent slip fielder.

I slipped a disc playing centre back aged about 25 and it took me about 10 years to get fit enough to even play cricket!

[bluepooch]

ACL injury and in those days there was no coming back from it .I have thirty two surgery stitches to show for it and nowadays its keyhole ! .
BD Sports were mainly in Div 2 during my short spell .I remember Queens Hotel (Mosboro ?) always being at the top of Div 1 .I also had a season with Holmewood Saturday team in the Sutton and Skeg Prem,that was probably the highest level I got to .

[spireitematt]

ACL injury and in those days there was no coming back from it .I have thirty two surgery stitches to show for it and nowadays its keyhole ! .
BD Sports were mainly in Div 2 during my short spell .I remember Queens Hotel (Mosboro ?) always being at the top of Div 1 .I also had a season with Holmewood Saturday team  in the Sutton and Skeg Prem,that was probably the highest level I got to .

ACL is pretty serious and still an injury which is difficult to come back from. A lot of tennis players get it and footballers.

[Devongone]

Holmewood were hard! I remember going to play their Sunday team expecting a tough match, but it turned out easy because their two best players had been locked up overnight by the police on Saturday and weren't released in time! Nice lads. But then our Saturday team's boast was that they had been banned from every night club in Sheffield for fighting ..... hmmmm!

Pooch, your ACL sounds a bit like my disc. They weren't really interested at the hospital because I wasn't a pro'. They did everything they could to put me off an operation. Ricky Heppolette had the same injury playing for Chesterfield at around the same time and was training in six weeks. My back still goes forty years later.

We were the first team to beat Queens Hotel when they came into the Chesterfield Sunday league. They were asked to leave the Sheffield League, because the other teams didn't like rushing all the way to a crappy pitch in Eckington and getting hammered of a Sunday morning. We beat them 2-1 at our ground and drew 2-2 at theirs with a last minute goal I'd probably have stopped on a decent pitch. (The centre of their goalmouth had a huge dip in it, a deflected shot lobbed up and over me and because I was going backwards into a hole I couldn't take off as normal to get it over the bar ....) They still won the league, partly because we also beat all their rivals for them! (To be fair in the match at Queens I did stop a penalty and I made the best save I think I ever made about ten minutes from the end when they were all over us!)

[bluepooch]

I was looked after in the Holmewood team ,thats where I'm from so I knew them .The ones I watched as a kid were the ones with the reputation such as Lenny Carter ,Mick Saville and Dabber but Holmewood had some talented footballers also over the years.They just didnt apply themselves as well as they should ,10 pints on a Saturday night before the game might not have helped.
The injury op was an experiment performed by Mr Ennis , the surgeon at the Royal and I was the guinea pig.I think they tied the ligament up with a piece of gristle .

[Devongone]

Christ, Lenny Carter and Micky Savile were completely notorious ........ was it Dabber Blair? But Lenny and Mick were very good players, who would give 100% every game (if they'd brought 100% with them!)

I think when we played the Sunday team Lenny played and helped run it maybe, but the players who got locked up were the Deakin brothers? One was called Rat? And they were quick up front. Tried to get the ball in behind your defence to run onto .........

Mr Ennis was very nice. Saw him at least twice. He kept telling me that the operation I'd need was risky and it would massively increase the likelihood of slipped discs elsewhere in my back. He didn't refuse to operate but he did talk at length about the inadvisability of active sport! Your op' sounds horrific. Did they get the gristle from a tin of Fray Bentos?

Micky Savile and Lenny Carter. Carter and Savile, it was a double act like Morecambe and Wise. Raves from the grave! What was the pub called in Holmewood, just something boring like the Holmewood Hotel? I reckon after trying to kick us all over the park they used to invite us back for a drink at The Pig .........which wasn't its actual name at all.

[bluepooch]

David Deakin ,otherwise known as Dabber was the eldest of the two ,Phillip (Rat) died a few years ago but I think Dabber is still knocking around.
I was brought up 5 doors from the Holmewood Hotel otherwise known affectionately as The Pig .It was a good grounding .
I was in hospital 10 days recovering with the worst pain I have ever had .Mr Ennis kept bringing groups of suits round to view his handywork on my knee.