{"id":219,"date":"2014-09-09T17:45:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T16:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heathermckinlay.com\/?p=219"},"modified":"2020-06-09T17:46:26","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T16:46:26","slug":"looby-loos-little-trip-charlton-v-chelsea-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heathermckinlay.com\/looby-loos-little-trip-charlton-v-chelsea-1977\/","title":{"rendered":"Looby Loo&#8217;s Little Trip: Charlton v Chelsea 1977"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-background has-white-color has-bright-red-background-color\"><em>Heather McKinlay writes about a match she vividly remembers missing, back when football was not generally considered to be the beautiful game. First published in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.votvonline.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Voice of The Valley<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saturday afternoon, late March 1977 in our little council house in Belvedere; Charlton hadn\u2019t had a home match for ages. I picked up a recent programme to check the next fixtures.&nbsp; Two big games at The Valley \u2013 Good Friday v Millwall and Easter Monday v Chelsea. Those were going to be fun \u2013sure to be loads of goals. Then I shuddered.&nbsp; What were those dates again?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I mulled things over until tea-time: Mum\u2019s Saturday special spread of salad with boiled potatoes and corned beef.&nbsp; I ladled out some Piccalilli, and waited for a quiet moment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYou know that school trip I\u2019m meant to be going on to Brighton&#8230;well, do I really have to go?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s all booked now, isn\u2019t it?\u201d said Mum, \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter? There\u2019s nothing wrong, is there?&nbsp; John &#8211; you don\u2019t think she\u2019s being bullied, do you?\u201d Dad was obliviously tucking in to a salad-cream-covered boiled potato, but Mum dragged him into the conversation. \u201cYou\u2019re not, are you, Heather?\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWell, no, of course not,\u201d I said.&nbsp; There was a long pause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the football, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Dad joined in at last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYes, Dad.&nbsp; I really don\u2019t want to miss the Chelsea match on Easter Monday.&nbsp; I\u2019ve only just realised it clashes.&nbsp; So is it OK if I don\u2019t go on the school trip?\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mum glowered across the table at her husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWell, it\u2019s all paid for now, Heather, I think you\u2019ll just have to go,\u201d Dad said quietly, staring at the potato on his fork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mum really didn\u2019t understand, but she had won the day. \u201cFootball, indeed! And to think I was worried about you! It\u2019s a Good News Society trip, isn\u2019t it? A bit of religious education and some time by the seaside will be much better for you than going to yet another football match.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Good News Society was a kind of school version of the scouts and guides, run by a stalwart Christian chemistry teacher, who clearly enjoyed living up to his name of Mr Gooden.&nbsp; He really should have taught RE rather than giving us instruction on how to blow things up.&nbsp; The trip away would be crammed full of treasure hunts, quizzes, fancy dress and other wholesome activities that he dreamt up to keep a bunch of 12 to 14 year old boys and girls amused.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I stood on the East Terrace on Good Friday and watched us beat Millwall 3-2 (yes, really), I was still smarting that I would not be there for the Monday match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We were staying on camp beds in some scout or church hall or hut somewhere a few miles outside Brighton.&nbsp; We weren\u2019t allowed to bring radios.&nbsp; There was no TV.&nbsp; There wasn\u2019t even a payphone, and this was long before mobiles had been invented. So on Easter Monday evening I had no way of finding out the outcome of the very important event going on a few miles away in South East London.&nbsp; I slept restlessly that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next morning, we were split into fancily-dressed teams, driven by minibus into the centre of Brighton and given the freedom to roam the streets on another jolly jape. I was wearing a bright red circular skirt, red and white stripy socks, a white polyester blouse with puffy sleeves (all my own clothes) and topped off with a yellow wool wig and two sticky-out pigtails from the props box.&nbsp; To complete the look, I had smothered my eyelashes in black mascara and painted two big red blobs of lipstick on my cheeks.&nbsp; I was in Andy Pandy\u2019s team and I had to be his ragdoll sidekick, Looby Loo.&nbsp; I was grateful that I\u2019d avoided being a flowerpot man, as then I would have looked really stupid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We were on a treasure hunt, and Andy Pandy was hesitating about how to organise the team. I quickly volunteered to seek out one of the items, a pink souvenir of Brighton, and dashed off towards the first newsagent\u2019s I could find.&nbsp; The souvenir could wait \u2013 I needed to find out last night\u2019s score. I didn\u2019t get very far inside the door.&nbsp; Screaming out at me from the rack of papers came the front page headlines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cChelsea set Valley ablaze after Flanagan fires Charlton to victory\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cChelsea mob rampage after 4-0 defeat\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBattle of the Valley\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looby Loo gasped.&nbsp; We had beaten Chelsea 4-0! Looby Loo did a little jig for joy on the spot. Mike Flanagan had scored a hat-trick! Then Looby Loo frowned. She\u2019d missed it all because of this stupid school trip!&nbsp; Oh, and Chelsea hooligans, smarting at the humiliating defeat, or just after any excuse, had built bonfires on the terraces, smashed up the turnstiles, and even tried to burn down The Valley Club, the little prefabricated social club on the corner of the ground.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looby Loo queued up at the till.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYes dear?\u201d said the grey-haired assistant, preoccupied with changing the till roll, as I placed a heap of newspapers on her counter.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll take all these, please.&nbsp; How much is that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She thumbed through the papers, still not looking up.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s 92p. It\u2019s terrible, all this football violence, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I carefully counted the change out of my purse &#8211; a week\u2019s pocket money well-spent.&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cI wish I\u2019d been there.&nbsp; I can\u2019t believe I missed it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The elderly shop assistant lifted her head and gazed straight into Looby Loo\u2019s eyes.&nbsp; \u201cWell, blow me down.&nbsp; Is that how you hooligans disguise yourselves?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I spotted something pink with Brighton on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll take this stick of rock too, please.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s another 5p. Now don\u2019t go hitting anyone over the head with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Armed with my treasure hunt booty and stack of papers, I left the shop and the bewildered assistant behind, and headed for the nearest bench to read every word of the front and back page reports. 4-0!&nbsp; My prayers at bedtime, an obligatory part of the routine on this Good News Society trip, had indeed been answered, despite their rather alternative and irreverent football-focus.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heather McKinlay writes about a match she vividly remembers missing, back when football was not generally considered to be the beautiful game. First published in Voice of The Valley. Saturday afternoon, late March 1977 in our little council house in Belvedere; Charlton hadn\u2019t had a home match for ages. I picked up a recent programme &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/heathermckinlay.com\/looby-loos-little-trip-charlton-v-chelsea-1977\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Looby Loo&#8217;s Little Trip: Charlton v Chelsea 1977&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sbb_scratchpad_field":""},"categories":[1,2,6],"tags":[20,19,18],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Looby Loo&#039;s Little Trip: Charlton v Chelsea 1977 - Heather McKinlay<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Short football memoir about missing Charlton v Chelsea in 1977, back in the days before football became the beautiful game.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/heathermckinlay.com\/looby-loos-little-trip-charlton-v-chelsea-1977\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Looby Loo&#039;s Little Trip: Charlton v Chelsea 1977 - 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