Being a Fan - Billericay and Exeter City

While QPR have resolutely remained my number one club, others have infiltrated my affections from the touchline without quite taking over the midfield. In the mid-1970s, my local side Billericay Town languished in the Essex Senior League: too good for the division but unable to escape because of inadequate facilities. Only when we won a set of floodlights could we advance to what was then the Athenian League.

Meanwhile, Town were also competing strongly in the national FA Vase tournament for the lowest tiers of the English football pyramid. In ’76 they reached the final, to be played at Wembley. Suddenly everyone was a Billericay supporter. The boys – and even some girls - at school were buzzing with excitement at the prospect of winning a trophy at the greatest stadium of all.

Dad and I bought tickets and joined one of the many buses hired for the trip around the North Circular. The ground was nowhere near full, with most sections unused. However, unlike my Milk Cup Final experience a decade later, we came away having witnessed the Billericay captain Arthur Coughlin receiving the gleaming trophy from FIFA’s then boss Sir Stanley Rous after a 1-0 victory against Stamford. There was also the less edifying sight of my first episode of football hooliganism in the coach park, but my first Wembley visit had been one to remember for positive reasons. A week afterwards, I joined the throng as the town turned out in their thousands for an open-top bus parade and Billericay bathed in the glowing rays of glory (above). 

They repeated the feat the following year (programme left), although Town required a replay at Forest’s County Ground (pupils were allowed the afternoon off school to travel if they had a ticket) after a 1-1 scoreline at Wembley. We missed out in ’78 but Dad and I completed the hat-trick a year hence, enjoying a comprehensive 4-1 drubbing of Almondsbury Greenway, including a rare Wembley hat-trick of his own for Town’s Doug Young.

I can’t pretend to have been stimulated by all this success into regular attendance at the little New Lodge. University intervened, then the world of work, and the momentum had been lost. I still stay alert for Billericay’s results and give a cheer on the occasions (four so far) they reached the heady heights of the FA Cup first round proper. Under the ownership of showy businessman Glenn Tamplin, Town upgraded the ground, won promotion to the Bananarama – sorry – Vanarama National League South. Could we (we!?) do a Salford or AFC Wimbledon and scale the non-League ladder in double-quick time? Tamplin's sudden decision to sell suggests not.

Between 1979 and 1982, while an undergraduate, I took the opportunity to follow

local Division Three outfit Exeter City. My charmed sense of timing was again to the fore as my university years coincided with a great FA Cup run and a home tie against the European champions.

Early in 1981, the Grecians earned home replays in both the fourth and fifth rounds, facing higher-ranked opposition. The best performance I witnessed in my three seasons down in Devon came in Exeter’s match against First Division Leicester City. Our prolific striker Tony Kellow scored a hat-trick in that game, which also featured a fellow Maths undergraduate (a year ahead of me) Ian Main in goal. Three weeks later, on another cold Wednesday evening, I again took my place on the cramped terraces within the venerable 1930s ‘Cow Shed’ stand, this time for the visit of Newcastle. More than 18,000 fans were shoehorned into the decrepit ground and the atmosphere was superb. The night air rang out with the Devon version of the Pompey chimes: “I-oh, City. City, I-Oh”. And what a result, too: 4-0 to City! There was a massed pitch invasion after the whistle and nobody batted an eyelid. I then hurried back through the residential streets to the Birks Halls TV room to enjoy the highlights on BBC1’s Sportsnight, this time with John Motson’s commentary.

The following October, Exeter were drawn against the mighty Liverpool in the two-legged second round of the League Cup. Unsurprisingly we were smashed 5-0 at Anfield but maybe we could nick a goal or two at home. I went early after tea, bought my ticket (probably about £1.50 with a student card) and programme (below) and ambled along to find an anticipated spot on the Big Bank terraces. Before reaching the turnstiles I could hear renditions of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. Clearly many Reds fans had made the trip down the M5 – or had they? No, St James’ was rammed with local glory-hunters waving Liverpool scarves, kids screaming in West Country accents for “Kenny, Kenny!” The official gate was 11,740 but it felt like many more.

I had no choice but to squeeze into the Shed, from which I watched as all those household names, from Grobbelaar, Hansen and Thompson to Dalglish, Rush and McDermott, humbled City 6-0. For all the disappointment at the scoreline, I could at least return to my room having seen the best team in Europe in their pomp. It wasn’t all glamour fixtures; the last ones I attended were against Walsall, Doncaster and Southend, each one as boring as one of Dr Coppell’s topology lectures. No matter: I have fond memories of those afternoons and evenings at St James’.

Sadly, Exeter never hauled themselves out of the third tier. On the contrary, unaffordable ground improvements and devastating debts led to the club into administration and out of the League altogether. Celebrity fans like Uri Geller and, allegedly, Michael Jackson, made no difference to our plight. Fortunately, Paul Tisdale’s twelve years as manager oversaw great improvements on the pitch, broadcasting receipts from Cup ties with Liverpool and Man United boosted the coffers and St James’ Park looks almost unrecognisable from the 1980s version, all-seater structures gleaming yet incongruous amidst the city’s backstreet terraces. That's got to be a Good Thing.