Wigan Album
Aspull
15 Comments
Photo: DTease
Item #: 31682
This, ladies and gentlemen was once our Football cum Cricket cum Rugby cum Anything Else Pitch.
It’s covered with grass in this photo but when we played it was mostly dirt. The goal at the top was higher than the goal at the bottom and down the middle of the pitch ran a deep rigot. On rainy days the water ran down the rigot. from the top to the bottom like a tropical flash flood. Did we care? Of course not! To us it was Wembley on Cup Final Day or Old Trafford on Test Match Day. The game must go on?
Sadly, all this land as gone now. The top part went for a Primary School and the bottom part is covered with “Affordable Housing”.
The kids now play their football on the other side of Wigan Road, the pitch is flat and covered with grass, the kids have all the latest kit and I’m sure they enjoy their football, but they’ll never know the joy of testing a new pair of school shoes to destruction against a leather ball that weighed just short of a housebrick when dry and considerably more than a housebrick when wet.
They'll never have the pleasure of setting fire to the grass on the moor and watching the good ladies of Crawford Avenue dashing out to rescue their newly washed and pegged out laundry from the billowing cloud of black smoke, or the thrill of venturing into a hostile back garden to retrieve a mis-kicked ball.
Happy days, happy memories.
Apr 1999.
DTease, this photo brings back memories as you have noted, about 1946-49 all the sports, headmaster of Aspull Methodist School always played opposite to me and we had a good rapore going between us.I remember one time going after the ball we were going full tilt towards each other and I got to the ball first and mister Berry (James) twisted his ankle, he had a permanent slight limp ever since. He moved to Blackrod Sec Mod School as head master, about 1948, he built himself a house (bungalow) on Blackrod Brow right hand side going down I used to help him occasionally. Back to the field, it used to be a practice exercises 9war games ) with the local Home Guard they used to crawl along the field and across Haigh Road into some spoil heaps. The Aspull senior kids would crawl in among them and start to whooping and shouting. The Officer in charge was not pleased.
No diving, nor feigning injury, during those 'golden days', DTease; We'd ran until we were exhausted - and sometimes played until it was dark.
Nice to see the Ash and its curly branches, once again.
Special picture DTease, even better words! You painted my childhood. Sadly now a different planet.
Dtease, thanks for the memory, like you I played many a game of whatever on the "Back Moor" as it was known locally.. Do you remember setting fire to the dry grass and watching the whole field burn, my elder brother was spoken to by the local Bobby ( P C Charmers ) when the fire spread to the wooden fencing that ran down the rear of the houses. I'll bet there's not many people around who will remember that there was once a mineral line running along the fence line !.
Or the bridge under Haigh Road Walt? Where we used to go for a crafty, underage smoke away from meddling grown ups.
Those grass fires became a regular occurrence didn't they Walt? I remember on one occasion Haigh Rd had to be closed because there was so much smoke blowing over. Surprisingly, very little damage was ever done. Mind you, there wasn't much else there except grass to catch fire.
D'Tease,you have a knack of making memories come alive..and what better memories than childhood ones.
Come to think of it Dtease I was born in one of those houses, roughly centre picture number 39, that was in the early spring of 1947. As a five year old I sat on the crossbar of dads bike and acted as lookout whilst dad moved a bag of coal from the pit down the line, I had a long -long Gabardine Macintosh that covered the sack of coal dad had acquired from the NCB. We always had lovely warm fires through the winter months... oh such fond memories.
Walt, it was P.C. Chambers. For rugby fans, his daughter married Fred "
Punchy " Griffiths who played full-back for Wigan.
Finding enough coal to get through the winter months was always a problem in the 50s wasn’t it Walt? In fact, if it hadn’t been for my grandad’s concessionary coal my family would have had a really hard time. It was a never ending job during the winter just keeping the temperature indoors above freezing.
Grandad had a huge coal bunker in his back yard. It had a lid on the top where the coal went in and a hatch at the front where he could shovel the coal out. The trouble was, when the coal was getting low he didn’t have arms long enough to reach the coal at the back of the bunker. What he did have was small grandchildren and me being the smallest and knowing that I was always open to a little bribery, he would tempt me into the bunker with a shovel and an offer of choccie biscuits and a glass of pop.
I didn’t really mind doing it though, always willing to help that was me., or maybe I was just a bit green. It was some time before I began to wonder why my elder brothers always seemed to disappear when grandad was on the prowl looking for a volunteer.
Mike, I'm sure it was PC Chalmers or at least that was what us kids called him. He took my catapult off me, booked me several times for not doing as I was told when really all my mates and me were doing was nothing other than kicking a football around the avenue. I'm sure he hated kids, once when I asked Sergeant Hughes why, he said, "it looked good on the daily records". Later in life when I had a three year old son of my own the then local bobby, PC Oneaday as we called him, brought him home with a stern warning for me, "not to let him ride his bike on the pavement" he was three years old and just outside our front door !!! coppers those days had nothing better to do I guess. You are right about Fred Punchy Griffiths marrying his daughter Margaret, they eventually went to South Africa, Bobby Chalmers as well I think. As kids we would wait on Crawford Avenue for Fred's car to arrive just to see him, he was our hero !.
I knew a 'Spark' once, who'd stopped his clandestine coal-pilferer, in manner most foul: 'I wired-up the bunker with several thousand volts less the amps', I seem to recall him saying. He'd also backed Foinhaven on the day that it won the Grand National, so mayhem was no stranger to him. Notwithstanding that, he wore a tie at his work, was meticulous and capable of organising day trips, but I always suspected that there was a dark side about him. He also reminded me of a landlord, whom I also knew, and who had once turned-off his TV at the start of the Challenge Cup Final, before kicking-out everyone - the irregulars, with relish. Aye, two events which, in a funny sort of way, also remind me of another particular 'National' winner: Quare Times.
Walt. It WAS Chalmers
Mike, thanks for that, I thought I was right even though I'm now into my 70s I can still remember my childhood days on Crawford Avenue. Bobby Chalmers lived on Highfield Grove. The old police station was just to the left of The Running Horses Hotel on Back Bolton Road even if you were just walking across the moor he would come out and demand to know where we were going, he just never gave up !.
it looks like this foto was taken from Holly Rd .about a hundred yards up to the left on the foto was where the Aspull Legion bowling green and club was . in between the club and the next row of five or six houses [still standing ] was a cut through to St Marys Rd . The back moor was where Haigh FC played there home matches.