Aston Villa: Memory Lane | Page 105 | Vital Football

Aston Villa: Memory Lane

JP Healy said:
We lived in Frederick Road,next to the Bakery. Mom worked at the Bakery,literally next door. Dad took great delight telling all and sundry that Mom was always late for work. God knows how we won the war. Myself,sister Carol and brother Chris all learned to walk in Aston Park. Dads local was the Guild which he told us was known as the rat pan. In the mid fifties,we fell into a fortune and moved to Balsall Heath. So we missed out on attending the Sacred Heart school.
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He may well have known it as the Rat Pan, but it was the Upper Grounds Hotel in Trinity Road that I and my Dad knew as the Rat Pan, interesting link attached.

the ratpan trinity rd aston | Birmingham History Forum
birminghamhistory.co.uk › ... › Pubs
 
seanie ward said:
thanks lads, me dad made me go to brooklyn tech for another year of schooling,one of the lads there i think was called allsop ,he lived in handsworth, he got me playing for the boys brigade handsworth i played cf and they called me the doog, was i proud or what,but they got to the cup final at villa park and of course i missed out, because i never went to the classes. 2of the lads were gary pendry and the other was caldicott i think he played for the aston boys i ended up playing for the mighty florida from the holte in my mid 30s, i played for loads of teams for the love of it and not for money take care seanie
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I also went to Brooklyn Tech, on day release from Kynochs at Witton where I did my toolmaking apprenticeship.
Waste of five years that was, I only did a couple of years in tool rooms before packing the lot in.
 
yes i was often in the rat pan( upper grounds hotel) dick the barman tried to rob me a few times. i think he new i was underage we lived in the posh area little oaks road, a great house, but since then i became a journeyman,all over the place, i had my own pitch (minding the cars in prestbury road) i would get about 11shillings and still went to the match under the turnstile i would treat myself to a shilling jam roll and eat it on the way home guess you could say i was learning the tricks of the trade, how to survive,take care
 
Just reading in the transfer window about our worst keepers and thought of Jimmy Cumbes - from what I can remember he was always a calamity waiting to happen.
He often wore a cap for games as was common for many keepers at that time. I can't remember seeing a keeper wearing a cap for ages - am I imagining things?
 
Claret & Blue Blood said:
Just reading in the transfer window about our worst keepers and thought of Jimmy Cumbes - from what I can remember he was always a calamity waiting to happen.
He often wore a cap for games as was common for many keepers at that time. I can't remember seeing a keeper wearing a cap for ages - am I imagining things?
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Cumbes wasn't terrible, good enough for old second division (and quite a handy seam-bowler for Worcestershire apparently). Replaced by crazy Budgie and subsequently the great Jimmy Rimmer. Caps were much more common place in those days because the sun would get in the 'keepers eyes. The newer, bigger, taller stadiums tend to keep the sun out of their eyes now. I do remember Bosnich having one a few times - the match at Old Trafford when we drew 1-1 springs to mind....
 
hi lads i was writing this one last nite but it vanished off the screen, my old mate
joey archer, out of the bottom end of whitehead road and me were standing outside the guild collecting a penny for the guy ,joey was only small so he was sitting down dressed as the guy, this big fellow came out ,i said a penny for the guy, and he gave joey such a kick and said., thats not a guy, so much for enterprise,
sadly joe passed away 4 or 5 years ago and he was as fit as a fiddle, seanie
 
seanie ward said:
yes i was often in the rat pan( upper grounds hotel) dick the barman tried to rob me a few times. i think he new i was underage we lived in the posh area little oaks road, a great house, but since then i became a journeyman,all over the place, i had my own pitch (minding the cars in prestbury road) i would get about 11shillings and still went to the match under the turnstile i would treat myself to a shilling jam roll and eat it on the way home guess you could say i was learning the tricks of the trade, how to survive,take care
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Got to smile seanie re minding the cars, I posted exactly the same thing about two years ago. My pitch was where we lived in Wenlock Road, and yes it was a lucrative sideline for a young kid. Just like you I used to wait until the pitch was full and then off to the game under the turnstiles. We had a big family by the name of the Wellburns just up the road, and I was always scrapping with them over the pitch boundry, and knicking each others customers.
We became good friends as we all got older and a couple of them became regular companions on away trips all over the country.
Great times.
 
it just came to me, you lived off witton road, my old hunting ground, i spent part of my misspent youth in the snooker hall. me and a schoolmate, chrissy murray ( he lived in nelson road) we could get a game over in 15 mins one sixpence in the meter, when i never went to college i was in freds cafe on the 5 in a line machines, or down in atlas,s,cafe, a few of the lads from lodge road used to come in including snotty nosed ozzie., they were great old days ,i remember fred, one day asked me to put a bet on for him, it was santa claus in the derby,and i used to fetch the messages for him, he said, put a pound on for me , well i thought long and hard about keeping the pound, and it came home at 20 to 1, my life changed after that for the good, seanie,.everyone called me john in them days, i dont mind wont im called.
 
Haha. Not just Chris Herd to be fair, there's been a number of them. Jordan Lyden was another, and Kienan Davis is the latest. Young kids who obviously don't have what it takes to make it from a young age and yet the club keeps throwing contracts at them.

Not the players fault in fairness but does irritate me. If Vassilev isn't sold in the summer add him to the list. Never gonna be a top half prem player so why keep giving him money?
 
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