Normanton Lad

10 hours ago, Brailsford Ram said:

 

Hinton, having shaken off his hamstring injury, returned to the side in place of Hennessey. Colin Viljoen was absent for Ipswich and their manager, Bobby Robson, sprang a surprise by switching right-back Mick Mills to centre forward with Hammond replacing him in defence.

Disappointingly, despite the fine victory over Leicester and the looming push for the title, the BBG attendance fell to below 27k, the lowest of the season to date. Clough was disappointed by the drop in the gate but as we have said before, the times were hard economically and the three cup ties against Arsenal had taken a toll from supporters’ pockets.

On a hard bouncy surface Derby had the better of the opening exchanges but it was clear that Ipswich had come with a packed defence in an attempt to stifle the Rams’ attack, which had so impressed against the Foxes.

With just 15 minutes gone, a long clearance from Boulton bounced over two defenders, allowing the alert Hector to run past both of them before blasting a sublime volley past ‘keeper David Best for his second goal in consecutive games. But Hinton, who was clearly struggling with an injury, had to leave the field to be replaced by Jim Walker.

Ipswich often had eight men behind the ball as they struggled to contain Derby but the Rams seemed reluctant to throw too many players forward for fear of being caught out by a breakaway. However, McFarland was superbly marshalling the rearguard and Boulton was rarely troubled.

In the end it was the result that mattered and although supporters would have preferred a more exciting contest, the majority were happy enough with another two points. The state of the BBG playing surface hadn’t helped but again Derby had coped with it better than the opposition. The same evening Leeds had only drawn at Leicester. The Rams had moved to within three points of Manchester City and had a game in hand over the leaders.

One of the features of this season had been the consistently high performance of Belper born Ron Webster. His reliability had already become legendary at the BBG as had his sheer professionalism and it was a joy to supporters to see him become an integral part of a great side. To date he had only missed three League games that season.

Thanks to his extraordinary positional sense and firm tackling, wingers rarely got the better of him although for some strange reason he always seemed to have difficulty in containing David Wagstaffe of Wolves. Webster may not have been blessed with great height but he was competent enough in the air and although wingbacks as such hadn’t really been invented by that time, he could be effective when surging down the right flank. In fact his fine headed goal against Manchester City in the 3-1 home win was a contender for goal of the season.

Webster had joined the Rams in June 1960, making his debut on the right side of midfield towards the end of the 1961-62 season. He continued to perform superbly in that role for another six years and it wasn’t until midway through 1967-68 that , Clough and Taylor’s first season at Derby, that he eventually switched to full-back, a position he continued to fill with distinction until he tried his luck in the USA in 1976. By then he had made 535 appearances for Derby in all competitions including five as substitute, a total exceeded only by Kevin Hector.

Around 1965 or 1966 I read something about Spurs trying to sign Webster. That's when he was a right half.

Just looking at that Ipswich team reminded me of how Derby ended up being a kind of elephant's graveyard for a few years around 1980. Whymark played a couple of games for us but I can't remember them. We also had players like Mick Coop and John Richards who were well over the hill. 

I was on the Popside almost level with Charlie George when he scored his famous goal against Real Madrid and I can’t still remember the stunned silence before the cheering started. His goal in the return leg was even better. The best Derby goal I saw was in a reserve game in the late 1970s. It was a volley from a corner at the Normanton End and a bit further out than the goal in the link below. 

It was even better than that goal. The scorer was Steve Ketteridge. It’s a pity there weren’t many there to witness it. When Grealish scored a similar goal a few years ago I asked someone who’d played a handful of games in the Premier Division - not for Derby - if he had ever scored a goal like that and he replied not in a game but he’d scored many like that during training. Perhaps he was right but I spent a lot of time at Sinfin Lane in the 1960s watching training and  practice games and I can't remember any spectacular goals. Maybe standards have improved.
 

26 minutes ago, 1of4 said:

Ironside was first broadcast in 1967.

He probably means Perry Mason which also starred Raymond Burr. I think a lot of people today would have trouble following the Perry Mason plots and court cases. I think the average TV watcher must have been smarter then. The contrast between California today and California portrayed in Perry Mason is startling. In the 1950s and early 1960s everyone wanted to go there. Today they are trying to get out.

This debate always goes like this :

Old person : Things were better then.

Young Person (who wasn't born then) : No, you are wrong. You just think things were better but they weren't really.

In other words, old people are stupid and deluded.

One of the few improvements I can think of is personal hygiene. We didn't shower much in those days. 

I don't think most people today could understand what it felt like for the normal working man in 1971. If one of those men had been in a coma since 1971 - just imagine he'd been a spectator hit on he noggin by a Hinton thunderbolt  - and he woke up today then he would refuse to believe he was in the same country or universe.  Even for some of us boiled frogs the changes seem mind boggling. 

Although all the success in the early 1970s was great I was still a bit nostalgic for the Tim Ward days when you could watch a game without the excessive crowds and queues. You also didn't have so much hooliganism. 

Here's one for the older posters : Richard Wattis. He always played Mr Officious. 

28 minutes ago, ketteringram said:

If you like some sort of proof about things that happened in the past, do you believe anything?

Not much. Most of the things I used to believe I no longer believe. Many of the things I have been told in my life are lies or exaggerations. I don't accept much of what I see on the news as objective and fair. I think most people are too trusting.

I don't even trust my own memories. We all have memories of games where a player did this or that and then we look at the historical record and we find that player wasn't even playing in that game. I saw something like that in a comment about the famous England - Hungary game at Wembley where a poster said all the English players were useless apart from Johnny Haynes. He gave the impression that he was at the game, but Haynes wasn't even in the team. 

We lie to others and ourselves all the time. If you were completely honest nobody would have anything to do with you.

This site says “the flames were so intense they could be seen from a hundred miles away”. How do they know this? Many of the things we are told are probably exaggerations or lies so I don’t like accepting claims without some sort of proof.

The link mentions German planes using the flames to guide them towards Coventry. I don’t doubt that you would see Coventry burning from a plane a long way away, but my witness said he watched it from his house at night. If it was at night then he is not talking about the smoke. You would see that for many miles. He must have been talking about the light from the flames.

Coventry burning

Given the curvature of the Earth is it possible to see sky above a point a 100 or even 50 miles away?

58 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

No need to review Bud. My joke was along the lines that Hitler had more joy one night in Coventry than the Rams have had over many number of years. Some will find it funny, some won’t. Some might perhaps find it offensive, particularly if they had a friend or relative affected by the bombing. Let me say now I am not mocking anyone who died 80 years ago in Coventry. I am not inhuman. In fact I feel really sorry for anyone who has had to live the last 80 years in Coventry.

I don't know if that is funny or not. I don't find much funny nowadays, but your post has reminded me of something I was told years ago. I used to work with a guy in the early 1970s who said that during the war he could see Coventry burning from Derby. He wasn't the type to make things up but I found that hard to believe.  I wonder if someone a bit smarter than me can say if that was possible.

Mushrooms. Until recently I didn't know about the three stage of cooking them. I never got to stage 3.

How to cook mushrooms

I have a black tie from 1969. Fortunately, I don't have to get it out too often. I've got a pair of shoes from about 1987. Until a few years ago I had a t-shirt bought around 1980 that seemed to be made of something indestructible. My wife got sick of looking at it and she chucked it out. Most of my clothes have not been worn for at least 20 years so I should get rid of them. 

Very few things are genuinely funny. The laughter generated by comedians or TV shows is all faked or forced. Social conformity is why you laugh. You want to fit in with others in the audience.

If you listen to some old live comedy show from the 1940s or 1950s on something like Radio 4 Extra you wonder why on earth they are laughing. That's because you are socially distant from them. There is no peer pressure and you listen objectively. You are the child who sees the Emperor has no clothes.

You people who say this or that is hilarious are kidding yourselves.

5 hours ago, Marriott Ram99 said:

Sterling from this squad and that's probably it. 

I was interested in what they thought of the game in other countries and I saw this comment about Sterling on a French site :

Court partout comme un canard sans tête.  

Perfect. He does run like a duck, albeit a very fast one.

I watched the 1966 game again the other day and the standard of football was fairly poor. Only Moore, Charlton and Ball from the 1966 final team would get into this England team. Perhaps Banks as well.

On 25/01/2021 at 20:14, Richard Dastard Lee said:

I went to that game at Bury as well, there was more away fans than home fans and both sets of supporters changed ends at half time, we walked down one side of the pitch and they walked down the other side!

Football games are a great way to organise your memories. I have no idea what I did on any day in January 1969 apart from the 25th when, like you, I was in Bury to watch the Rams.

Only two memories remain from that day. I can remember waiting for a bus, I think, after the game near the Bury ground when a bus full of rival fans went by. There was a bit of light hearted booing but nothing unpleasant. The second memory was of standing in the corridor of a train listing to the conversation of some men who'd got seats. One of them was reading a paper and he exclaimed with astonishment that Swindon had scored 11 or something like that. His friends all started laughing when he realised that he had misread Swinton the rugby league team.

I don't know why pointless memories like that have stuck in my mind while everything useful has long been forgotten.

On 20/12/2020 at 08:06, Mucker1884 said:

If I was anywhere near capable, I'd like to think I could have written that... word for word! 

Watched it last night, and couldn't agree more.  It's "not our thing" usually, and we only watched it because we thought we should finally watch a film that wasn't more than 10 years old!  ? 

A very enjoyable watch, in an uncomfortable kind of way!  

Kinkladze/10

I think The Joker was worth watching. The acting was very good. It was dark and it portrayed him as very disturbed but some of the abnormal things going on in his life were only hinted at. His weirdness was understated. Despite all the bleakness I found myself laughing more than I do with most films. The anarchy was a bit prophetic. I'd give it 6/10.

The 1960s show The Fugitive has been great viewing.

For me a good show means interesting things happening to interesting people. The shows filmed in colour really look great. They don’t have the washed out colours you see in most 1970s rubbish show like The Professionals. The Fugitive has more class than the stuff you see today. In yesterday’s episode you had a scene where a lady had employed the fugitive to do some work around the house in exchange for a bed downstairs on her couch. At two o’clock in the morning the lady comes downstairs in her dressing gown – all buttoned up and respectable looking – and sees him looking out of the window at the rain. They talk a bit about the rain and then she says "Do you want me to leave?". He says "No". Then the scene cuts to the next day. All we get is a hint that something happened between them. If that scene was shot now, in this supposedly less sexist era, we would have a lot of female nudity and a load of rough sex.

Women viewers really like the main character. I was talking about this to my wife and she mentioned some of the things that attract women to him. He is modest and shy. He is a great listener. He rarely talks about himself. He never talks about sport or politics. He is intelligent. He is generous. He always does his best to help people even when it is at great risk to himself. He manages to look clean and smart even though he spends a lot of time living like a tramp and hiding in bushes.

I don’t know whether to regard him as an impossible paragon or whether he should be adopted as a role model by men still looking to find a partner.

44 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

You are talking rubbish surely, the post war period was pure joy? It's the magical era that 70-80 year olds always refer back too, which just coincidentally was also their childhood. I imagine it was even better for the rich, long glorious summers exploring the countryside around Father's estate. 

I don't regard the 1970s as "post war" and I don't regard it as a "magical era" but things in general seemed better then. Perhaps I am "talking rubbish" because I'm talking from experience rather than accepting the official line which is that the 1970s was a dark period in our history when the country was mainly populated by racists and sexists.

13 hours ago, Mostyn6 said:

There were a lot of condemned buildings/slums all around working class towns and cities in the 70s. The Telegraph bygones section regularly run pieces and publish pictures. I find it fascinating as i grew up on the then new estate replacing demolished slums in Stockbrook area. My dad grew up in the area too so used to hear stories. 
 

I binged watched Ripper though and don’t believe anyone lived in some of the buildings they showed. How amazing were some of the cars though? 

I don’t think all those houses around Stockbrook Street should have been pulled down. You say they were slums and they were condemned but those houses were no different from the houses on Stockbrook Street that were not knocked down. I had a friend who lived on Stockbrook Street – his house is still there – and inside it was a warm and comfortable house.

The only problem with the terraced houses was that some of them had outside toilets and no bathrooms but I think you could get a grant to put in a proper bathroom. Last year I was in a pub in Surrey which was opposite some tiny terraced cottages that were much smaller than any of the houses in the Stockbrook Street area. A local told me that in the 1960s the people who lived in those cottages were so poor they used to sit on their doorsteps "shelling peas" for a little extra money. He might have said selling peas but whatever he said he meant they were poor. Today you could not buy one of those cottages for £600,000. If the local council had their way those houses would have been destroyed.

In the early 1970s anyone who had a job could afford a house. I can remember seeing a house for sale in Wilmorton for £500. This was around 1979. There may have been a special reason why that house was so cheap but an average wage would be enough to get a mortgage on most houses in Derby in the 1970s. There were so many houses in Derby that anyone who wanted to own a house could have one.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people on the lower IQ range – probably about 15% of the population – who are not capable of buying and holding on to their own house. Maybe they don’t have jobs or maybe they are too disorganised to arrange a mortgage. Perhaps they would lose their jobs or they would forget to keep up the mortgage payments. These people need to be looked after by the community. The council will always need to provide accommodation for these people. By the way, I am not saying that all people who live in council housing are like that.

Instead of improving the existing houses and renting them to council tenants they decided to demolish the houses and build new ones. The council would argue that the existing stock did not match the higher council standards but the real reason would probably be found by reading about people like John Paulson and T. Dan Smith.

I’ve just watched the first episode of the Yorkshire Ripper programme and I have been struck by how shabby and run down everything looks in the film from 1974. Maybe Chapeltown was much worse than most parts of the country but to me it seems that they are deliberately making the country look worse than it was. The only part of Leeds I knew then was Roundhay and that was a very nice area. Perhaps Chapeltown was a complete dump. I worked with some men from Chapeltown and they were on good money for that time and if it was so bad there I don’t know why they didn’t move out.

To me 1974 seems like yesterday and I think Derby and most places looked smarter in 1974 than they do today. Perhaps I am paranoid but most TV content today seems to have an ulterior motive. We are given the story or the advert and at the same time we being sent messages about how we should think about history and politics.

The rule seems to be the further away from your neighbours you are the better you will get on. I think it is unreasonable to expect people to be reasonable.

Whatever nonsense my neighbours get up to I try to keep smiling and I keep on good terms with them. I've had neighbours who have taken thousands off the value of my property with their silly extensions and I've had neighbours who have tried to grab part of my garden, but I never fell out with them. Anger and worry can destroy your physical and mental health. I view these bad neighbours just like I would a wolf or a rat who acts according to its nature. They can't help themselves. If they have been selfish or mad people all their lives nothing you do will change them.

If you need a peace and quiet buy somewhere in the countryside even if it is a one room hovel. I've lived in the countryside and for me nothing can beat living somewhere where the only noise you hear at night is owls hooting.

2 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

 

Thanks @TigerTeddfor your rebuttals to these, but they are representative of comments that will likely keep surfacing throughout what I hope will be an ongoing thread, so I'll add my two-penneth too.

There's a movement called Effective Altruism (or EA), whose aim is how to do the most good with what you have. They have three core priorities which are:

1. relieving extreme global poverty
2. fighting for nonhuman animal rights
3. working to prevent existential risk

but it's number 3 that is their highest priority. If Humans become extinct, then we can no longer do any good, Conversely, the more Humans there are, the more potential good we are able to do in the Universe. Earlier this year I helped publish a book called The Precipice by Toby Ord, one of the founders of EA, and Toby's dedication reads:

 

 

The problem with Effective Altruism is unexpected consequences. The three core priorities seem contradictory to me. For example, money has poured into India and Pakistan to reduce poverty but the extra wealth has also been spent on weapons which increase the existential risk. Also when you reduce poverty you increase meat eating which does nothing for animal rights. I think the best policy is to keep your own house in order and to stop interfering in the lives of others. We don't know what is best for other people. I am not saying we should be selfish. It is just that by trying to help others we sometimes cause more problems than if we had done nothing.