My United Years

Doug Palmer`s first part of his personal reflections on many years following non-League football.

At age 14, I commenced a love affair that almost 60 years later is still going strong, albeit with some rough patches along the way, in fact my love is stronger now than it has ever been! .….. A love affair that at times consumed every moment of my day.

This `love` has taken me to hundreds of destinations around England and Wales and involved more than one partner!

My passion has been following non-League football, and the Southern League in particular.

It is only now that as I look back, I realise just how many grounds I have visited since my first visit to the Pilot Field, home of Hastings United.

In almost 60 years I have travelled to some beautiful grounds and some not so beautiful in the Southern League, the Northern Premier League, the United Counties as well as the National League and Football League.

My `love affair` started as season 1962/63 commenced. My hometown team, Hastings United, competing in the Southern League First Division, were embarking on a new chapter.

Since experiencing some epic FA Cup ties in the mid-1950s, against principally Swindon Town, Sheffield Wednesday and Norwich City, the club had spiraled into mediocrity.

The appointment of Ted Ballard was to change all that!

Up to that date I had no interest in local football, but Ballard’s son was to become a classmate at my school so along with several of my friends we began to go to the Pilot Field and like most young people wanted to support a winning team.

And United very soon became just that.

Playing in the Southern League First Division they began winning games and were soon well up near the top of the table and the dream of promotion was coming ever closer to reality.

For us youngsters the stars were wingers Gordon Burden and Alan Back and the dashing Terry Marshall at inside forward alongside former Hungarian Youth international Bela Olah and the rumbustious Joe White - five forwards in those days!

All was going well, with a seventeen-game unbeaten run up to Boxing Day.

That night the snow started to fall and over the next few days the whole country was blanketed in what seemed like six feet of snow, and the icy conditions prevailed until mid-March before clubs were able to resume playing matches. (This current Covid-19 pandemic was not the first time that calls were made to curtail the season).

Being 58 years ago my memory is not so good as to remember exactly where United stood at the resumption of play but what I do recall is that they were immediately required to play away games on successive nights at Hinckley Athletic and Nuneaton Borough – both of whom were serious promotion rivals.

At that time the only way to `get the result` was to look in the next morning`s papers, if indeed they did publish non-League results at all!

But my step father`s nephew was Joe White, United`s centre-forward, and he phoned the results through to our local pub and subsequently, on both evenings I was woken from my sleep to be told we had won on each occasion!

At the end of the season, Margate were crowned champions, Hinckley second and Hastings third and promotion to the Premier Division was assured.

The season 1963/64 was to be United`s most successful league campaign in their 38-year history, finishing in sixth place behind champions Yeovil Town.

Journeys were made to far-flung destinations such as Merthyr Tydfil, Cambridge City, Weymouth, Wisbech Town, Worcester City and Hereford United.

If my memory serves me right, it was this season that United beat Kettering Town 7-2 at the Pilot Field. I only mention this here because in much later years the Poppies were to become my `most hated` team. (To be fair to Kettering, their goalie broke his arm and was taken to hospital! And no subs in those days.)

The glory days were not to last! The following seasons were like the proverbial yo-yo as Hastings were relegated back to the First Division.

But once more bounced back, two years later, (1966/67) scoring 127 goals in the process only yet again to be relegated the following season scoring a paltry 33 goals!

The most exciting aspect of the mid-1960s was the signing of former England centre-forward Bobby Smith (pictured) who only three years earlier had been playing for Tottenham Hotspur in the First Division and was a member of their `double` winning team.

His arrival made the back pages of all the national newspapers and I was present at his first game for Hastings, away on a Monday evening to Ashford Town.

Over 3,000 fans and the press packed into their Essella Park ground and witnessed his arrival with a glancing headed goal in a 3-1 victory.

Sadly, his time at Hastings was mired in controversy as Smith continually failed to appear for training and he was finally sacked after less than a year at the club.

Over the next decade as I progressed from schoolboy to young adult, my involvement with the club became more intense, almost every day of the week I had some connection, either watching matches home and away or working on ground improvements or canvassing what seemed like every house in Hastings to drum up support for the club lottery - we managed to recruit 15000 members each paying one shilling (5p) a week.

For the season 1968/69, I even gave up my employment with the local council to work full time as a fundraiser for United.

When I bought my first car I no longer needed to travel to games on the supporters' coach (much to the relief of some of our elder supporters as we were rather noisy and dare I say it sang some `naughty` songs occupying the back seats of the coach).

I embarked on many long journeys with my two companions. I particularly remember driving to Hereford on a Bank Holiday Saturday where John Charles, the former Wales international legend, was playing…we lost 7-0 and then camped for a couple of nights in the Wye Valley before moving on to Cheltenham on the Monday…..again we lost.

Throughout the 1970s, fortunes continued to fluctuate with most seasons finishing mid-table. The early seventies (or was it late sixties) was most notable for the chairmanship of Jim Humphries, a notorious London `businessman` who brought Dave Underwood to the club as manager and some characters that were to go on to make their names elsewhere, most notably Ricky George and Billy Meadows as part of Hereford`s FA Cup giantkilling of Newcastle United in 1972.

By the 1980s, Hastings United were plying their trade in the Southern League South Division and it was at this time my job was responsible for my moving to Northamptonshire and onto the next stage of my football love affair. But not before a ten-year estrangement for my `love`.

Maybe it was meant to be. I departed Hastings in 1982 and my interest in my hometown club waned at the same time as the club was beset by financial woes and finally ceased to exist in 1985.

The current Hastings United playing in the Isthmian League are not a phoenix club but were Hastings Town which was another local club who took United`s place in the Southern League and 15 years later re-named themselves Hastings United.

Despite regular visits to my family in East Sussex, to this day I have never seen a match at the Pilot Field and have little or no affinity to the present club.