I don’t think a picture is always worth a thousand words, but this week I saw one worth twice as many. The photograph was taken 70 years ago and features six women in their 20s who I have never met and almost certainly never will. Yet the connection I have with them is real. You see, they support the same football team as I do: West Bromwich Albion. And I can’t help but use the present tense, even though they’re almost certainly no longer with us. I use that f-word, football, advisedly too, because I know the very sight of it is enough for some readers to read no further. Please stick with me, those of you who just don’t get it, because this is especially for you.
It’s incredibly difficult to explain loyalty to – indeed love for – a particular football club to someone who has no club of their own demanding their devotion. To be honest, I’ve lately been struggling to explain it to myself. My team’s been in freefall for a good five years, on and off the pitch. The club is owned by someone a long way away who wants to sell it but can’t find anyone to pay the price he wants. And if he can’t get his money back by selling, there’s no knowing what he could and might do. Don’t get me wrong, I still cared – a lot – but I had never cared less.
Then I saw this photograph and it all came flooding back. It was on a wall in a small room in the house of a friend in Warwickshire. My mate Dean’s late mum, Betty, is second on the left. They’re on a terrace at St James’ Park, Newcastle United’s ground, where Gateshead AFC were playing my and Betty’s team, West Brom. This was the fourth round of the FA Cup in February 1952. The sight of these be-scarfed women a long way from home on a winter’s afternoon in the middle of the last century felt like an injection from Dr Football straight into my veins. I remembered how much I cared, how much I had to care, kind of in honour of those fans who came before me. It’s just 22 daft men kicking a ball about, is what the don’t-get-its say. But that’s almost the last thing it’s about.
The match itself was scheduled for Saturday, 2 February but, due to snow, was postponed. At some stage Betty and her posse helped clear the pitch to get the game on. The photo, we think, is from a newspaper article praising their efforts. Newcastle was a long way from West Bromwich by charabanc in 1952 so, in gratitude for their efforts, Betty, her husband and presumably many others were put up by locals until the game could be played on Wednesday, 6 February. Photographs suggest St James’ Park was packed, which is fascinating because early that morning King George VI died, his passing announced by the BBC at 11.15am.
I won’t mention the score because the score, in the context of visceral, familial football fandom, century in, century out, doesn’t matter. What matters is that Betty and her like made that journey in the name of her club, and Newcastle and Gateshead fans made them welcome in the name of their clubs. And the match went on. And then the charabancs inched their way home.
West Brom are now owned by someone in China and Newcastle United are owned by Saudis. Gateshead AFC folded in 1973, making way for a Gateshead United to bear the name until it folded in 1977, at which point Gateshead FC took up the baton. Whoever or whatever thinks they own our clubs, they kid themselves. They’re merely custodians, be they good ones or bad ones. The souls of the clubs are for ever ours.
In memory of Elizabeth (Betty) Walton, 1929-1998.
• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
