1p. Short Changed never

In the early 1970's my Dad took me to my first proper football league match.

I was 8 years old and really into the game in a big way.

The nearest team was Scunthorpe United, at that time very much habitual dwellers of the lowest league. We would drive the 8 miles or so from home and park in the brand spanking new shopping precinct before walking up Doncaster Road to the football ground.

The experience although thrilling to my younger self was also quite frightening. Inside the dour sheet metal clad structure that was The Old Showground was the antique style terracing with the only respite from a crowd surge and crush being the metal rails which were at my head height. My Dad told me that if I felt in danger I should just bob down and stay in front of the barrier.

I did, I admit, spend a few times ducking and diving in this manner as any odd noise or sounds of aggravation in the tightly packed masses behind me invoked a sense of panic. To keep things in proportion the typical Scunthorpe home attendance was probably not much more than a couple of thousand souls.

What I liked best about the Saturday afternoons out with my Dad was the shop in the football ground. Shop is a generous description as it was nothing more than a kiosk with a lift up hatch and located just inside the Donny Road entrance.

From there I bought a match programme but made sure that I had some pocket money to purchase other bits and pieces of memorabilia. Although there to support my local team I was actually a Liverpool fan. There was a strong association between Scunthorpe United and Liverpool FC in that era with the recent transfer to Anfield of Kevin Keegan and Ray Clemence who both went on to stellar careers and honours for club and country. Two prized items acquired from the shop were a vinyl pennant in Liverpool colours and a colour photograph of the first team squad.

I can still to this day recall the regular matchday line-up with Clemence, Lawler, Lindsay, Smith, Lloyd, Hughes, Heighway, Callaghan, Thompson, Toshack and Keegan.

One name that has poignancy is that of Peter Thompson as just over this Christmas period there was the sad news of his passing at age 76. It is strange even in my own senior years to read about the death of former sporting heroes and it certainly gives a feeling of your own mortality- four score years and ten and all that.

I did identify with the guy although tenuously as our names were the same with the exception of mine missing the P in the surname.

That was, however, enough of a common link for me and I assumed his role and persona in playground kickabouts, those wide ranging and seemingly endless matches on the local recreation ground with coats as goalposts or just propelling an empty tin can down the street.

As a player he was a speedy left winger and figured highly in Shankly's Liverpool Revolution which saw the Merseysiders starting to achieve what was expected of them after some fairly bleak years which saw scant League rewards ( Winners in 1964 and 1966) and just a first overall victory in 1965 FA Cup. It is hard now to comprehend that in the early 1960's Liverpool had only just returned to the top flight of football.

Thompson was a signing in 1963 from Preston North End for £37000 which in todays money is just over half a million pounds.

Although of prolific appearances for club and over a relatively injury free decade or so he was only selected some 16 times for the England national team.

This did include naming in the 1966 and 1970 World Cup Squads but his style and contribution was never exploited by Sir Alf Ramsey who did not favour wingers in his gameplay. Perhaps Thompson was too ahead of his time to benefit the National team who might have achieved more than the 1966 pinnacle of achievement to date with him in action on a more regular basis.

He left Liverpool in 1974 after a serious knee problem but continued to play for Bolton Wanderers for a further four seasons which saw them return to the old First Division. Life after football in the 1970's was more precarious than it is for the millionaires of the current game. A few of Thompson's contemporaries went into management, horse racing, general business but his retirement from the sport was rather unconventional in the coastal caravan park leisure sector.

This was followed the running of hotels in the Lake District and North Yorkshire.

His was a typical journeymans career.

There was no glamour or lucrative sponsorships but a steadfast dedication to the game.