When Was Your First City Match and Who was Your First Idol?

[contrabombarde]

Away in Cambridge 1973 where I was working, a colleague took me to the match where we won 3-1, felt homesick and hooked ever since.

First idol? without a doubt, Peter Hatch.

 

[rightwing]

First match 1-1 v Bournemouth 1953. My first real idols came along in a batch in 1958......difficult to separate Gordon Dale, Ted Calland and George Hunter.

 

[ecfc2000]

Early 90s.
Danny Bailey.
High fives at the top of the grandstand steps before KO. He went on to have a cr*p game, which we lost. Was always my idol after that, oddly.

 

[tea stand]

1975 home to Northampton Town, it was 0-0. I remember it being 0-0 for a few reasons. Firstly, the next 3 games I went to all finished 0-0. Secondly, the goal drought ended on my 4th match when city beat Reading 4-1 with all 4 city goals coming in the first 20 mins. Lastly, City did score against Northampton but the ball bounce back out of the stanchion so quickly that the ref didn't give it.
I also went to my first game on my own, aged about 7, my dad passed me over the turnstile and went back down town to the bookies. I stood by the railings just in front of the Tea stand. My mum also didnt go but did knit me my first football scarf though it wasnt red and white. My mum being scottish and supported Dundee United and Celtic...and yes I stood at the front of the Tea Stand with a green and white scarf. A Dundee United scarf maybe but not Celtic. I didnt know any better at the time but soon found out the faux pas when i was soon surrounded by a group of young city ruffians.
Needless to say, I never wore the green and white scarf to city again.
As for heroes, Lammie Robertson and because I was an aspiring goalkeeper, Richard Key.

 

[Squeezebox]

I took an instant liking to Ray Pratt, so was honoured to meet and interview him for a Senior Reds’ meeting recently.
We never did change the dog’s name though.
[/QUOTE]
Lucky you didn't call the dog "Pratt"!!

 

[roger wellman]

Steve Flack?

Yes I forgot how long Flacky played for us (97 to 2006) so Sweenes still has a bit to go to surpass the legendary (dictionary def famous person) status of Steve Flack in terms of seasons played.

 

[Newton Abbot Red]

I don’t post very often on Exeweb but this thread caught my imagination. My first City game ( with my father ) was on 24th August 1957 versus Southend United . We lost 0-5, an appropriate prelude to a season of struggle in which we finished 24th in the final season of the old Division 3 South. Attendance 10,234! Interesting to compare the first 4 opponents of ‘57-58 ( Southend, Brentford, Brighton, Southampton) with a season later, ‘58-59 in Division 4 ( Walsall, Barrow, Darlington, Shrewsbury).
My father, a Liverpudlian, had taken a post as lecturer at Exeter Technical College in St David’s Hill in 1956.
He and I became City fans and I have been a loyal supporter ever since. Many great memories interspersed with some tough seasons. The club has made huge strides in recent years in every way and I am delighted to see that we are making a decent fist of League 1, even though I witnessed at first-hand this season’s debacle at Bolton Wanderers!
My all-time favourite player is, without a doubt, Alan Banks who was such a big part of our ‘63-64 promotion team. Banks was, of course, also a Liverpudlian and it was a big thrill to me when I got to chat to him for a few minutes at a sad event, the funeral of a fellow City fanatic and former neighbour of mine in Exwick, Ted Ashman.

Being a Grecian fan seems to make the world smaller - only this morning, my son Richard ( also a keen City fan who attended many matches in the North while working near Manchester) “WhatsApped” me from Hanoi in Vietnam. He had stepped out of his hotel on the first day of a holiday trip and came face-to-face with a chap in an Exeter City shirt! Extraordinary! On enquiry Richard learned that the chap was from Crediton!
A similar thing happened to both of us in Helsinki, Finland in 2007 when a West Indian playing in a cricket match ( mostly Indians involved, it appeared) removed his white shirt to reveal an Exeter City shirt underneath!!

 

[grecIAN Harris]

Where do you put Flacky? He’s legend stays for me but divides opinion.

He probably goes in a category with the likes of Danny Bailey............. Cult Hero.

 

[Stelios]

I’d forgotten an early idol for me was of course Martin ‘Buster’ Phillips. There was a real buzz when got the ball. It was exciting looking out for him on Match of the Day for Manchester City.

He came back with Argyle in 2001 and the Big Bank was giving him abuse all game. He set up a couple of goals and celebrated in front of the BB so that was the end of that!

We lost 2-3

 

[gilbertshoot]

October 7th 1979 vs Blackpool with some bloke called Kellow playing for them. I was 12 and sat in the OG with one of my dad's mates from work. Peter Hatch scored the winner. Kells soon came home and was my all time City hero. I quickly moved over to the Cowshed and remembered the old boy in the trenchcoat and porkpie hat who would call out scores from his transistor radio and occasionally bellow 'SHOOOT'. This was the legendary Gilbert and hence my pen name.