Leonard reflects …
So we asked for your stories of your time as a Blues Fan. Leonard Edgington has sent us the following. I helps to show that BCFC has always been a family club.
Fulham semi-final at Hillsborough.
I earned 4 semi-final game tickets by selling over two hundred Blues bingo tickets as a pools agent. I had relatives, friends all helping to sell the tickets every week. Saturday morning arrived and we got packed up with rattles, hats and scarves. The food and drink was also prepared, so off we went. The journey was a happy one already planning for a Wembley Cup Final appearance. We were also making sure we all knew the words of the songs we we going to sing. Of course we were not contemplating any problems, we were a happy bunch. 🙂
At the stadium !!!
We arrived early to avoid queues at turnstiles I discovered to my horror I had not got any tickets (which were on kitchen table when we got home). It is at this point a mobile phone with camera would have been very useful as my wife could have taken a snapshot of the tickets and posted them onto me. Anyway I went to Hillsborough ticket office to plead and explain the situation. I managed to get them to phone Blues pools agents office (thankfully it was open) and they were assured I was genuine after speaking to Joe Bradford.
They re-issued the tickets but as the tickets were for away supporters, they had to issue tickets for the main stand where they had space, and it was seating, which had uninterrupted views much to our delight. The sight of Joe Gallagher equalising was a heart-stopping moment and one that will remain with me.
It meant the journey home was a bit deflated but confident we would be marching on to Wembley after the replay. During the week I personally thanked Joe, after collecting the Maine Road replay tickets.
Of course that’s another story which is forever etched in the memory of sorrow. 🙁
There have been some, exciting games with eventful moments, over 57 years, mainly at away games. These though will form another story 🙂
KRO Leonard
Remember we want to hear all of your stories so if you fancy writing a blog or an article then all you need to do is send them through to Craig.courtney@tiltontalk.com and we will get them published
A great story. Thanks for sharing Leonard