Here is is then Ron.
This tale may not be of interest to any who read my tales but if you have a hubby or partner who is football mad it may interest them.
My mother died in 1980 and my father was lost without her and used to watch his television
quite a lot even though sometimes he very often was not aware of what was on because he
had started suffering with epilepsy later on in life and although did not go into fits he would
stare into space as though he had fell off to sleep with his eyes wide open,
which can be one of the signs that an Epileptic person shows.
I never always got on with my mother and father like a good many more children with
their parents but I had respect for them. My father was a strict disciplinarian who brought his sergeant major attitude home with him from the army. He was a boy soldier who joined up in 1916. This used to show by him running his fingers over the windowsills to see if they had been dusted or if anything was out of place.
I used to get very angry about this and a story is in my book that is on my website of something that happened one day when my father went too far.
He always walked with a limp and I just took it as read that he was injured during WW1
but never talked about it. When I see John Thaw the actor who played "Morse" the detective
on TV he always reminds me of my father with the way he walks because he swung
his foot out in the same way.
Anyway to get back to the story.
This was an era when football pools were filled in religiously every week and sent off
and everyone had to be quiet when the results were read out over the radio for them to
be checked to see if they had won a large sum of money. I never understood it myself
but for many men it was the highlight of their week especially when TV became a must have.
It was just before Christmas 1981 when I had got my fathers groceries on the Saturday
and was taking them to him for the weekend.
As I walked in my father was cursing at the football match that was in progress on the TV.
I started putting things away when I heard him say "They play like a load of b****y fairies nowadays.
If they had played years ago the ball would have weighed a ton coming at them because it was all leather and we also had to wear big heavy leather boots to play in. Just look at that mardy git rubbing his leg as though he has been bulldozed."
I pricked up my ears at the WE in his statement and I said " Did you used to play football then Dad?"
He then told me that he played for Clapton Orient as a semi -professional.
I believe it was in 1946 when Clapton Orient became Leyton Orient.
He started to reminisce and told me that Monty Garland- Wells the famous Surrey cricketer was also an amateur soccer international.
Dad went on to tell me that he was playing in a cup-tie against Everton and unfortunately he
got into a tackle with Warney Cresswell who played for Everton. Warney being the biggest bloke of the two fell on top of my father who had his leg broken in two places which never healed properly.
That was the end of my fathers career as a footballer. He did say that Warney was one of the most decent chaps he ever met because he visited Dad in the hospital and took him some tobacco.
YES you could smoke in the hospital then way back in 1920s.
Dad said Warney was genuinely sorry for what happened.
This was in the days when big payouts were not heard of or over the top settlements.
They used to get £8 guineas for a cup match. Dad said he got his £8 guinea cup tie fee for the match but that was it. He was finished as a footballer.
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When looking back at Clapton Orient's record they had to be admired because
Clapton Orient became the first English Football League team to join up on masse during World War One. 41 Clapton Orient players and staff joined up to the 17th (Football) Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment following the outbreak of war. Their last game of the season was played on 24th April 1915.
The day saw them not only win a 2-nil victory over Leicester Fosse but afterwards all the players and staff took part in a final farewell parade around the Millfields Road pitch.
At the Battle of the Somme, in July 1916, thirteen Orient players were wounded.
Three were killed: William Jonas, George Scott and Richard McFadden.
Dad was too young then to be in the team. My father did not join Clapton Orient until after the war although he joined up as a boy soldier in 1916.
This is a letter below that I wrote to the Old Codgers in the Daily Mirror newspaper of that time just to verify Dads story about Monty Garland Welles and Warney Cresswell.
Strangely enough on that same day when talking to Dad I found out that his forefathers had
changed their name of Janssen to Johnson and my grandmothers surname was Ne'un.
She was my fathers mother. I had got to the age of 52 before I found this out. Mind you with all the foreign sounding names I was beginning to wonder what nationality I could class myself as.
I was glad that I got Dads story because he died of a Grand Mal fit in April 1982.
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When looking at Wiki about Clapton Orient and reading about Warney Cresswell this is quoted from it.
( One player recounted how his leg was broken following a collision with Cresswell, who appeared later at the hospital with a pouch of smoking tobacco, which at the time was probably considered more manly than flowers or a bag of grapes.)