Mementos

Football memorabilia is big business. From replica kits and scarves, through signed shirts and footballs, all the way up to the actual medals and caps that the players received; football mementos can trade for thousands of pounds. The problem is that most of these have no personal relevance for those buying them unless, of course, they actually met the players involved. There is one exception to this: something tangible that can be kept as a personal memory and which says that "I was there" - the humble football programme.

I've always tended to go to the extra expense of buying the match programme. Mostly they are full of the manager's meaningless drivel (probably ghost-written), a few news features, a page on the day's opposition, some stats, the team list and an advert for the local Volkswagen dealership; but they are there: frozen in time and a reminder of an afternoon spent on the terraces and one which will stay with you much longer than the weak cup of tea and indigestible mystery-meat pie. A case in point was a programme I picked up on 30th April 1988 for the Newport County vs. Tranmere Rovers match. Why should a Forth Division match from 22 years ago suddenly come to my attention? Well, for no other reason than the fact I just found the programme in a box of junk.

As far as important fixtures go it really doesn't feature very highly. I have been to matches where major trophies were won or futures secured but this match was between a mid-table Tranmere and a Newport County side who were destined for relegation from the league and would have ceased trading altogether within a year. It was a sad end for a club who were founder members of the League's Third Division and who had even made it to the quarter-finals of the European Cup Winner's Cup on the back of a Welsh Cup victory. The only reason I went to this match was that I was living in Cardiff at the time and my flatmate noticed that Tranmere were playing and that I "used to live somewhere near that neck of the woods". So, we push started his old Vauxhall Viva and made our way over.

The match itself wasn't that memorable. Tranmere won 3-0 but they had little to play for with a comfortable mid-table position and the Newport players had only pride and the hope of an attractive transfer offer to play for. In fact, due to Newport's perilous financial position, they had had to sell or release most of their first team regulars and were left with mainly journeymen or young hopefuls with a chance of playing senior football and trying to impress passing scouts from more financially secure clubs. I'd like to think they would go on to greater and grander things. I've had a look up based on the team sheet on the programme and the results are mixed and sometimes surprising. I'm assuming this was the team fielded but there may have been changes.

I couldn't find any details on Kevin Hamer, Glynne Millett, Robbie Taylor, Sean Bennett, Norman Parselle or Anthony Hopkins - I would hope that they were successful in what ever they went on to. David Abruzzese would end up playing with Welsh sides Merthyr Tydfil and Barry Town as did Richard Jones after a spell with Hereford. Richard Thompson would play for a variety of part-timers before becoming the long time and reasonably successful manager of Yate Town. Captain Steve Tupling would have some success with Hartlepool before becoming a teacher in the North-East. Andy Thackeray would go on to regular football at Wrexham and Rochdale. Goalkeeper Paul Bradshaw was one of the more experienced players and was coming to the end of his career but had been a regular at Wolves in the late 70s and early 80s winning the League Cup with them. Darren Peacock was the one big success of this makeshift Newport side. He would move on to QPR where he was picked up by Kevin Keegan's Newcastle and became a regular central defender in his successful mid-90s side (yes - it surprised me that Keegan had defenders in that team).

This Tranmere side had only narrowly escaped a similar fate to Newport in the previous season - in fact I had been at Prenton Park when they scored a vital goal against Exeter to avoid dropping out of the league. The 1987/88 season had seen them hover in mid-table but they had gained quite a few friends nationally following the leagues centenary tournament at Wembley and had a cult following due to über-fans and college favourites Half Man Half Biscuit. The team sheet has quite a few familiar names in it: Eric Nixon, Dave Higgins, Mark McCarrick, Dave Martindale, Ronnie Moore, Steve Vickers, John Morrissey, Jimmy Harvey, Jim Steel, Ian Muir, Steve Mungall, Eddie Murray, Gary Williams. At least half those names seem very familiar and in the next few years they would climb to the top of what was, by then, called Division One with the backbone of that side and the addition of some handy international players in the form of John Aldridge (himself a former Newport player) and Pat Nevin.

Time moves on and Tranmere are currently mid-table in League One (the old Division Three) although maybe starting to pull things together despite their cash-strapped state. Newport County went bankrupt in 1989 and a phoenix club was founded in the lowly Hellenic league. They have gradually climbed their way through the leagues and are currently 4th in the Conference - two divisions below Tranmere. It's a long and slow climb back from bankruptcy but, if they keep progressing, the Newport vs. Tranmere match may be in the programme's fixture list again.