Tag Archives: Football

Phil Kelsey: Free Time, Yarmouth Football

When Yarmouth played West Wight they used to have a couple of hundred, they come down from Freshwater.  They used to have to pay to go in then if it was a cup tie.  I can remember Dad was always on the gate. He was on the committee.  When he finished work he used to go up there marking it out.   But oh yes, there used to be some grand scraps between Yarmouth and West Wight.

Football at the Rec pre WWII

Football at the Rec pre WWII

The older school kids used to go up there during the winter once a week. We just used the whole pitch, plodding up and down. Anybody who had a football was well in.  You’d see two or three go up after school kicking about, shooting in goal, you know, one in goal, and having a tussle. I mean you never see them now. These days, of course there’s not so many children of that age in the town as there used to be.
Phil Kelsey b 1920

Phil Kelsey: Yarmouth School

Going to school of course was only a quick nip down the road for me, from Mill Terrace.  I remember how we used to play football there.  On a Monday as soon as one or two got there, two of us would pick a team of what was there, then we’d start and as each one come into the school they went to one team, and the next one went to the other team.  It finished up with quite a number of players on each side. In the top half, the old toilet was one goal. Phil Kelsey b 1920 

Yarmouth School 2013

Yarmouth School 2013

Phil Kelsey: Trips and Treats – football matches

The trouble with going to Southampton was, if I remember rightly, the boats packed up early and you couldn’t get out of the ground and catch the train in time to get down for the last boat.
It was quite easy to go to Portsmouth because you could get on the train down here, right through to Ryde, over to Portsmouth and walk up to Fratton Park.  We used to do that nearly always on the Bank Holiday.
One the Bank Holiday it was Grimsby Town and they had Tweedy, I can remember him playing in goal, and Glover, the centre forward.  Of course Pompey in those days had the outside right Harris, the nippy little outside right. Phil Kelsey b 1920

Carol Corbett : Early Days

The recreation field was where I learnt to ride my first bicycle.  I can remember my dad taking me up there and saying, ‘Right, now go off!’  – and me falling off several times.  It was always full of children playing and Saturday was football matches with lots of people watching and lots of noise.   Carol Corbett nee Cotton b 1946

Football at the Rec.1950s

Football at the Rec.1950s

Phil Kelsey: School days and football

Going to school of course was only a quick nip down the road for me, from Mill Terrace. I remember how we used to play football there. On a Monday as soon as one or two got there, two of us would pick a team of what was there, then we’d start and as each one come into the school they went to one team, and the next one went to the other team. It finished up with quite a number of players on each side. In the top half, the old toilet was one goal. Phil Kelsey b 1920