Five Games That Changed Me: MUDSA secretary Chas Banks MBE

TWO: LEICESTER CITY 1 UNITED 3

FA Cup final | Wembley | 25 May 1963

 

“I can remember my mum getting us up at five o’clock in the morning and going with my dad to Trafford Bar, which was a big bus station then. Lined up all the way along the old Chester Road were all these charas [charabancs], as we called them. Old coaches. We had this huge bag of sandwiches – spam sandwiches! We all had rosettes and all the blokes had crates of brown ale. There weren’t many motorways then, so it was a long drive. They were all smoking too, so god knows what that did to my lungs at 12 years of age! 

 

“I remember all the men taking the empty crates to the turnstiles, and not knowing why. I always remember it was Turnstile 42 and my ticket was a 10-bob note, which my dad slipped to the guy who lifted me over the turnstile. And that’s how I got in. Then on the terraces I found out what the wooden crates were for. I was stood on one, even though I was quite a tall boy, and all these rivers of urine starting flowing past me! I think Denis [Law] scored, and I can remember him doing this turn – he sort of swivelled on the spot and whacked it in the corner. Absolute genius. He was my hero – still is, really. I was a lot more aware of what was going on at the game by then. I remember Bobby playing on the left wing, and David Herd scored two. 

 

“They were all singing in the coach on the way home: ‘Aye, aye, aye, Charlton is better than Pele! Because Pele is a no-good bum and so is Eusebio!’ We got home at one in the morning! It seems like so long ago, it’s incredible. I’m old, I’m 73, but I’m not that bloody old! But it is like aeons ago, really. Were there other kids getting passed over the turnstiles? Yeah, every single one of them!”