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The other place was the pub just over Caerphilly mountain. We'd all be in a Ford Cortina or similar and as we were getting close, wind down the passenger window and ask a passing female pedestrian ".. excuse me please, can you tell me how far is The Black C*ck Inn ? Laughed our simple heads off every time !
As a kid I had a violent and deeply unpleasant father who had driven my mother out of the home - and a contact of hers subsequently got in touch with me on the quiet and at a time that I was losing interest in going down the City. For a season or two I faked going to home games on a Saturday, visited her and read the pink on the way home to get my alibi straight.
On the subject of timings of the Echo, The Late Extra was a rehash of yesterday’s news, The Late City reported things that had happened up to dinner time but the one I’d hang around the paper shop for in the summer was The City Final. Peter Maunder, the newsagent in Carlisle St would harangue me to take a Late City, not a bit of it, that City Final had the later cricket scores, maybe even up to tea, none of your City Final lunchtime scoreboard The little trick that newsagents would play would to be put the Late Extras on top hoping it wasn’t noticed that the later editions were tucked underneath, bloody shysters eh
Grimwades? ..must have heard that second hand!
When Glamorgan we’re going for the Championship in 1969, all of our home matches were televised live, but, without the Echo’s scores, it was impossible to find out what was happening until we got the next day’s paper - I had to make do with the Late City edition that was delivered to our house around the time we got back from school.
I ran a Sunday morning team in the Civil Service League and remember playing against them. I don't recall Peter playing but Bob Humphreys definitely did and was a very friendly bloke. I met him a few times years later when I was with Inter Cardiff and he was doing features and he was still the same. Sad that he was taken so young - I always wondered if it was a legacy of standing at a smokey bar in the Malsters, Whitchurch on his way home every night.
Grahame Lloyd also came to a few games and I bought a copy of his book 'C'mon City' one week when he brought a pile along to sell.
I sometimes played in the relaxed environs of the Civil Service Sunday League and a day after the more testing games I would play on a Saturday (and after having a skinful on Saturday night). Such was the paucity of opposition on one particular Sunday that our team of just seven men beat a full side of Indian chaps who were representing a government establishment of some description. I played up front on my own and scored a hat-trick whilst they scored a solitary goal.
I can remember us beating Middlesex in a really exciting finish at Swansea - we almost missed the train to Fishguard for a family holiday in Ireland because my mum and dad insisted we stay and watch the end of the game (I wasn’t complaining!). That holiday meant we missed the even more exciting win over Essex a few days later which went right down to the last ball and then the title winning game with Worcestershire - all I’ve seen of both games was the last ball.