Rambling Dell reminiscing and poster says "bye" thread.

After two double scotches my eyesight deteriorates.

 

The chief reason I shall miss CBK is that his name, like Archers Road, olddellboy, Dell Boy, and one or two others I can't recall at the moment, is the link with our historical home as Saints fans. The whole of the Milton Road End at the Dell, for those too young to remember, was one of the strangest-shaped football stands in the country, but the Chocolate Boxes were the strangest part.

 

I have a little model of The Dell

 

Funnily enough, didn't CBK used to have Elliott Gould as his avatar? Not as Philip Marlowe, though - think it was of Trapper John from M*A*S*H*

 

The Dell was a quirky old ground. The strangest thing was the wooden stairway down from the changing rooms to the pitch and then the players would run on from the corner.

 

Many a happy time spent in the chocolate box. Have seen some outstanding matches from there not forgetting the outstanding players.
In truth I hope the chocolate box kid does not stay away. While I didn't always agree with some of his rhetoric he always managed to get some sort of response, even if it was not always complimentary.

 

He did .

 

Three pages dedicated to one grumpy grouch who stormed off to his room and slammed the door. He must be thrilled with himself.

 

And you just know he's reading this.

 

Just one page back. Elliott gets his mention

 

If this is how you get this much attention then perhaps we should all take it turns to say "Bye. I'm off"

 

I would, but it would be too, too cruel to you all.


Couldn't get your hopes up like that.

 

Would have loved to gone to the Dell when it looked like that

Real character unlike St Marys.

 

Yeah it was really great. If it rained you got soaked to the skin, it took you nearly an hour to get a drink at half time, the lavatories were primitive and stunk to high heaven and you queued for twenty minutes to use them. You couldn't wash your hands afterwards because there were no hand basins and if there had been some of the people desperately queuing for a piss would have used them for that instead. Hooligans used to move around the crowd causing all sorts of trouble. If you were stood on the terracing for a big game you were constantly being pushed and shoved and in some parts of the ground you could only see half the pitch. I stood at the back of the east stand terracing for my first game to see Saints play Arsenal where I could only see the Archers Road goal mouth and it was such a crap experience that I took a lot of persuading to attend another game. The good old days? You can keep them. I remember going to Crystal Palace where the facilities were so primitive the crowd didn't bother using them they just pissed where they stood on the terraces.

 

Was in family section and there was one female toilet....the queue helpfully went passed the open door of the Gents. What do men put in their pee to make it so much worse than a female loo? Rhetorical question. I had a pillar near me....behind which all the action seemed to happen. I did like the atmosphere, but give me SMS every time.

 

Someone gave me their ticket in the upper tier seating in the West Stand once near the Milton, Saints attacked the Archers in the first half and a bloody great pillar obscured my view of the goal...We scored four goals in the first half and I never saw one of them!, of course the inevitable happened, we failed to score a single goal in the second half!....

 

Trust me TLL, it was an uncomfortable experience and I'm amazed that there was never a serious case of crushing there.

 

Godders isn't exaggerating either.

 

So do I. But it's of the all-seated post-chocolate box era.

My 'nostalgia', if you can call it that, is for the nearly all-standing era, apart from the upper east and west stands. It was a time where you could be rained on at either end. Couldn't see if you were a kid and arrived after the wall positions were taken up. Had cold feet in winter. Daren't move from your spot because you'd never get it back. The blaring pre-match Tannoy, playing Motown half the time. Oh, and the smell of Vaseline and liniment wafting from John McGrath as he made his way out onto the pitch a minute or two after everyone else.