Outlook
Sid’s long love with football
COLNE man Sid Parkinson has experienced many of the highs and the lows of life in the football world in over half-a-century in the game. As physiotherapist to
Colne Dynamoes, he achieved instant fame two years ago when his name was chanted by the club’s fans at Wembley Stadium when he ran on to the field to treat an injured player during the club’s FA Vase triumph over Yorkshire side Emley. Yet he can recall the days
ANDREW SPENCER meets a man whose life has been spent on and about the foot ball field and who has seen everything from the hallowed turf of Wembley to the cow patted playing fields of Barnoldswick!
when the most important item of equipment to make sure a game could go ahead on a Saturday afternoon was not a football — but a shovel to remove the cow- pats left by a local farmer’s stock which would have been grazing on the pitch during the morning! Septuagenarian Sid, of
the pitch and get it fit to play on. We marked the pitch out with saw dust, cleared the pitch with a brush and shovel and left our clothes under a hedge at the side of the pitch. After the game, we washed ourselves in a s t r e am a f t e r the game,” he recalled.
Barrowford Road, Colne, well remembers that great day in April, 1988, when the Dynamoes lifted the Vase under the Twin Towers in front of a crowd of 15,146.
dressing room, which was the one which the England team uses, before the kick-off, remembered the greats such as Tom Finney, Stanley Matthews and Tommy Lawton who had changed there in the past and said to myself: ‘Bloody hell, Sid, what are you doing here?,” he said the other day.
“ I went into our
weekend which I will never forget and the crowd made so much noise th a t it sounded like there were 90,000 people in the ground rather than 15,000.”
“But that was a great
a far cry from Sid’s early days in football in Barnolds- wick, where he helped to run a team connected to the now-closed St James’s Church in the 1930s.
The Wembley outing was
on a pitch on Green- berfield Lane and the first thing we had to do was get the cows off
“We used to play
no doubt be frowned on by the footballing authorities today when even at the lowest level, changing rooms and a hot shower afterwards are taken for granted, but Sid’s memories will be echoed by many players of yesteryear. After serving in the RAF
Such basic facilities would
than once when in his fifties — when he was granted a testimonial match which, he says, he still chokes up about when he thinks about it.
thought my connec tions wi th football were over and I would have to spend Satur day afternoons shop ping with my wife. The first time I went, I hated it,” said Sid.
“When I retired, I
during the last war, Sid was working at Rolls-Royce when he was asked to reju venate the works football team, which was one of the leading sides in the area at the time, and took them into the Second Division of the now-defunct Lancashire Combination when neigh bours Barnoldswick Town dropped out. He never dreamed then
life was about to open. The next Saturday morning, he received a telephone call from Dynamoes manger Graham White asking him if he could take charge of the reserve side for their game at Blackpool. “I dearly wanted to go,
But a new chapter in Sid’s
but told Graham I had no equipment as I had left it
with Rolls-Royce. He told me that would not be a problem — so I went, and I have been with the club ever since. I helped with the reserves until Tommy Mason retired as first team physiotherapist and then took over from him. It has been a great decade for the club with one success fol lowing another and the trip to Wembley was undoubt-
Sid puts his skills to work
edly the highlight,” he said. Sid, who had stood on the
Wembley terraces while in the RAF at Hendon for wartime internationals and sp e edw ay m e e t in g s , remembered running on to the hallowed Wembley turf to treat the injured Steve Whitehead with the crowd chanting “Sid! Sid! Sid!” and the electronic score- boards at either end of the
stadium showing a carica ture of a man running across the screens. “Football has given me
many happy memories and if I had my time over again, I would probably live my life the same,” said Sid, who will be spending the sum mer following his other sporting love — Colne Cricket Club, where he attends most home games. □
JiESitgn jfumtturEldb.
that around 30 years later, he would be connected with another local club in the same league who were des tined to appear at the famous Wembley Stadium. One of Sid’s responsibili
NEW SPRING AND SUMMER DESIGNS
ties was the weekly works sweep to raise funds and the club signed two play ers as professionals, but then internal disagreements within the company led to the break-up of the sweep and, eventually, the team split up. Rolls-Royce continued to
TIMES HA VE CHANGED BUT OUR HIGH STANDARDS ARE MAINTAINED
FACTORY PRICES
play football at a lower level, however, and Sid was connected with the club until he retired in 1979, often as a one-man band — he acted as substitute more
In JUNE’S Outlook we’ll be introduc ing you so some more amazing people, stepping inside another local home, looking at way’s to enjoy summer, touring a local church that’s 850 years old and visiting the marvellous Pen- dle Heritage Centre. PLUS much, much more
* NEW SAFER FOAM * NEW FIRE RETARDENT FABRICS * EXCLUSIVE
1990’s DESIGNS * NEW CURTAIN AND WALLCOVERING SERVICE *
Furniture to enhance your own home
DURING SALE Late Night
Wednesday and Friday 6 p.m. till 8 p.m.
that will cost you hundreds more at Retail shops
EX-SHOWROOM MODELS Always available A T REDUCED PRICES UNIT 11, RIVERSIDE MILL, GREENFIELD
Saturday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. ROAD, COLNE. Telephone: 864242 .. « \
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