Time flies, so we bring you Part 3 of the Wingsaurus with the entries for F to H originally published in WIE 40 and WIE 41 back in 2013. Remember, it’s our intention to include a significant update in our first issue back as and when the football resumes and we’re able to attend games again at PVR. So, please send your contributions to us at wie_fanzine@yahoo.co.uk (or via the Contact page on our website).

F

Fanzines – Of course you have one in your hands; well, virtually, kind of. ‘On a Wing and a Prayer’ was a predecessor to WIE as was Flying High.

Steve Finnan – “You should see what he can do in training” Graham Hobbins used to say. Was sold to be part of Barry Fry’s 50-man squad at Birmingham. He promptly went on holiday, got alcohol poisoning and missed pre-season. Dropped down to Notts County where he shone as a right back. Joined Keegan’s Fulham revolution. All set to move to Man City but last-minute interest from Liverpool saw him trade Craven Cottage for Anfield. Picked up a Champions League winner’s medal in 2005 despite being subbed at half time with the Scousers 3-0 down.

Fisher Athletic – Were one of Welling’s biggest rivals in the eighties. A trip to Salters Lane was always taken with a degree of trepidation due to the locals you would encounter at the ground, and also making your way to, and home from the ground. It was wise to keep one eye on the game and another on the lookout for things like bottles and other objects falling from the sky. They were just as bad on the pitch with probably some of the hardest (and that’s putting it politely) players that the Wings played against; Dave Mehmet, Barry Little, Paul Collins and the Shinners brothers. When the Shinners brothers ran out on to the pitch birds fell silent and people in nearby houses drew their curtains.

Five hundred and one – Bingo! Everyone’s a winner when playing guess the PVR crowd…

(Fallen) Floodlights – Mini tornado blew one over and the rest were condemned. Itmeant early kick-offs and one win and three defeats from four ‘home’ games at Ponces Park/Stonebridge Road which effectively cost us play-off place.

Flying High – Some of you may remember this as the fore runner to WIE. Anyway I think we all realised that, although it was our first delve into the fanzine world, some of the content was probably a bit near the mark and might have upset a few people. Anyway when the owner calls you at home on a Sunday night threatening all sorts it is safe to say that there wouldn’t be any more issues!!

Andy Ford – Worked wonders at Gravesend and Northfleet before a rather harsh sacking; Brief stint as assistant to Westley at Stevenage; Appointed as Neil Smith’s successor; brought Phil Handford back to save the club from relegation. Predictably quit over lack of budget and made to look rather silly when Jamie Day took largely the same squad from the lower reaches to the fringes of the play-offs inside six months.

Barry Fry – Has taken more than of his fair share of Wings players over the years. Abbo, Finnan, Barnes, Hanlon, Braham-Barrett. Was the star turn at club’s Sportsman’s evening when he stood on chair, whacked his head on the low ceiling before turning the air blue for 90 minutes.

G

Ghost goal – Ah, yes. This was the glorious occasion of, having missed him scoring the winner against Cheltenham, the News Shopper wheeled Sam Appiah back out on to the PVR pitch long after the final whistle for a photo of him ‘scoring’ the winning goal. Priceless.

Gillingham – Only league club to succumb to the mighty Wings. 0-0 draw at Priestfield followed by 1-0 victory courtesy of Mark Hone’s header in front of the club’s largest home crowd of 4,020.

Gumbi – Every club has its famous supporters although thankfully nobody like that fool at Pompey! One of my abiding memories was of an old chap who stood down the front at the road end. He was there for years and had no teeth so hence was christened “Gumbi”  One time the ball went out of play behind the goal and was booted back on to the pitch – unfortunately it hit our old friend on the back of the head and he toppled over like a parrot falling off his perch! I heard a story he had emigrated with family or perhaps he just became too old to attend PVR any longer. RIP “Gumbi” – gone but not forgotten.

Guy Earl of Warwick – The pub right next door to PVR. Has had more landlords than we’ve had hot dinners. Also a source of tension between club and fans over the years with club believing that fans should drink in the Wings Bar however bad the beer was.

H

Kevin Hales – “I’m no quitter”. Except that he was. Ran away not long after sealing our relegation from the Conference. Remembered for his reactive substitutions. Needed the fans to tell him Paul Wilkerson was available to save us from his mate, Andy Harris. Should have risen up through the leagues as a youth team coach.

Halifax – Conference champions thrashed 6-2 at PVR on the final day of the season thanks to a Mark Hynes hat-trick. No wonder we swapped him for Dazzlin’ a few months later!

Phil Handford – Barney Rubble lookalike, playmaker (i.e. set-piece taker) in the late 80s/early 90s glory years. Remembered for his free kick against Bath. Later returned to PVR as assistant to both Pennock and Ford.

Richie Hanlon – Goalscoring midfielder who made his name during 1997/98 campaign. Another to join Barry Fry, he returned on loan for the start of the ill-fated 1999/00 season when he was played wide right by the tactical master Hales but still managed to be top of the club’s scoring charts despite being recalled in December.

Hednesford – Opening game 2-1 loss at PVR. Final game at their place needing to better Forest Greens’ result or three goals better if the same result. One up through Rivs, second disallowed when offside on-loan Steve Barnes tapped in on goal line. Missed penalty, red card for Ruthers and hit bar. Kettering subbed their keeper, Forest Green scored twice late on and we were relegated. Quiet afternoon really.

HMRC – Is paying them compulsory?

Hobbins – Without Syd, Graham, Barrie, Barry and Pam there would be no Welling United. They created the ultimate family-owned club even living at PVR during the club’s early tenure of the ground. Graham’s untimely death was a shock and things were a struggle off the pitch until they sold up to Mark Goldberg. Brothers Barrie and Graham were cruelly depicted as Laurel and Hardy in early editions of WIE. Good job we’ve grown out of that.

Hoof – Which has been the standard defensive tactic for all Welling defenders since the late 1980s. Particular specialists include Paul Copley, Wayne Brown, Russell Edwards and Anthony Acheampong. And we love them all.

Andy Hopping – Goalkeeper who started the home match with Bath in January 1995 with a broken collarbone. At 4-0 down within half an hour he was subbed. Nice one, Kev…

Duncan Horton – Made his name passing the ball back to Paul Barron before leaving for Uncle Barry’s Barnet, then Wycombe Wanderers before returning to PVR for a second stint. Hard as nails defender, best remembered at WIE Towers for kicking Clive Walker six foot in the air and taking his booking. Walker didn’t go near the ball for the rest of the game.

 

As any self-respecting reader of WIE knows, it is very much the fanzine’s wont to be slightly behind the curve on most footballing issues. And we aren’t going to change that now.

In celebration of the return of live football with the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 kicking off again last weekend in Germany, we bring you the following article from WIE 7 published in November 1993…

A Weekend in the Life of a Sad Footie Fan

It’s all a bit difficult to explain. I was supposed to be attending a wedding 40 miles north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne but, showing the accuracy of a Neil Clemmence pass, I found myself unexpectedly and unerringly in Munich. And, with the timing of a Nigel Ransom tackle, I discovered that I had missed the Munich Beer Festival by a day. Such is life.

I was the guest of a good friend of mine named Sarah who had foolishly sent me a letter including that immortal line, “You are welcome to visit me if you get time”, little realising that the Wings superb defeat at Enfield in the FA Cup was giving me a convenient series of football-free Saturdays. So, I took her up on her offer and found myself in deepest Bavaria much to my, and her surprise.

My timing turned out to be just a little worse than I had anticipated (we are talking, perhaps, Bryan Robson rather than Nigel Ransom here) in that poor Sarah had just found herself a new German boyfriend, and the last thing her fledgling relationship required was a crazy Englishman demanding food, beer and football (but not necessarily in that order). Apparently, Germans don’t tend to have platonic friends of the opposite sex (a sweeping generalisation if ever I heard one, but it’s apparently true), so my presence in Sarah’s flat for a week left her with a lot of explaining to do. Still, that wasn’t my problem so, happily ignoring the damage I was inflicting on her love-life, I settled down to the serious business of working out how and where I was spending my Saturday afternoon.

Before leaving England, I had checked the German footy results and discovered that Bayern had played at home the previous weekend. From my huge footy experience, I guessed that it was more likely that they would be away the following week, so the big question was “Is there another team in Munich?” Time to hit the reference books. And there it was. A quarter of a page of Simon Inglis’ “Football Grounds of Europe” alluded to the existence of TSU 1860 München, who used to be the big team in Munich before Bayern moved into the Olympic Stadium and started recruiting players such as Gerd Muller, Franz Beckenbauer and Sepp Maier. Indeed 1860 had almost tasted European glory when they lost the 1965 European Cup Winners Cup final to West Ham United (so, they obviously couldn’t be any good). But now they had fallen on hard times and, according to Inglis, were stalking about in one of the ten regional third divisions having been relegated due to financial problems.

So, I was all set for a German 3^rd division game. Hmm, what fun I thought. Gateshead in February has nothing on this. By a complete coincidence, and with astounding helpfulness, I was mooching around a record shop in Manchester on the day before I left for Munich and discovered a fanzine called “Elfmeter”, which described itself as “a British look at German football”. Fortunately, it was in English, and even more fortunately, it just happened to be the end of season round-up issue, including league tables and a review of the season. From this I discovered that the great 1860 had won their 3^rd division championship – Obleriga – and thus had qualified for the end of season play-offs, which they had also won and had thus got themselves back in the big time as members of the Bundesliga division two. Things were looking up.

So, back in Germany, my mission (if I was prepared to accept it) was to find the ground, check to see if a game was on and, most importantly, discover the kick-off time. All this to be done whilst employing my particular fluent and excellent German. The extent of which was to be able to say, “Two beers, please”.

Due to the extreme haste with which my visit had been planned, Sarah had been unable to book any time off work, which left me free to wander about all day. Hence, I found myself outside 1860’s ground and discovered to my delight that they were indeed at home on the Saturday with a match against St. Pauli of Hamburg, and the kick-off time was a reassuring 3pm. After a quick wander around outside the ground, I found what I was looking for, namely an open gate and the opportunity to have a look around inside the ground. I was half expecting to find the traditional European ground, with the unnecessary and irritating athletics track lengthening the view and those mysterious adverts for “Arcelik”. I was also half expecting to be shouted at by an angry German groundsman. But I was pleased to discover that not only was there no groundsman, but that the ground could almost have been English, with terraces at both ends and stands running along each side and no track anywhere in sight. The capacity was about 30,000, which must have been painfully empty in their 3^rd division days. I could quite happily watch football here, I thought.

Meanwhile there was still the problem of Sarah and her new boyfriend, Harry. They had reached the stage of almost not quite talking to each other, but not quite. It turned out that Harry was a big fan of 1860 and, indeed, was a bit of a football nut, possessing a season ticket and being a moody bastard on a Saturday night whenever 1860 lost. Sound familiar? We eventually met on the Thursday before the game and, after a certain degree of suspicion on Harry’s part and a few beers, the evening began to take off. Harry’s English was very good (of course), but even so I had taken the precaution of bringing with me the back page of the Birmingham Sports Argus with all the league tables, so that I could explain Welling’s relative position to the Arsenals and Manchester Uniteds of this world. He wasn’t impressed! Sarah just sat around and got bored before Harry became tired of speaking English after we had made some vague arrangements for the Saturday. I settled back to get quietly drunk on some excellent beer.

Matchday in Germany is pretty similar to that in England. I missed the German equivalent of Bob Wilson on Football Focus, because Sarah didn’t know it was on, but we got picked up by Harry at midday and deposited at his mate Mike’s house, bearing a healthy armful of beer. The plan was to drink lots of beer at Mike’s house and then go to the match. Well, I couldn’t see any flaw in that plan, so willingly joined in. Mike turned out to be a German Chelsea supporter, who had a total hatred for all things Tottenham Hotspur. I decided not to bother attempting to convince him of the error of his ways (I was a guest, after all), but instead became a willing pupil for the essential German football phrases. “Auf die Lowen”, was the toast for each new beer, which means “Up the Lions”, the nickname of 1860. I pondered briefly over whether 1860 should immediately twin themselves with Millwall (for they already have the necessary grudge against West Ham, as mentioned earlier), but my thoughts were more concerned with the fact that Lowenbrau translates as “lion beer”, which is obviously far too naff a name to ever consider buying the stuff again, no matter how nice it is.

So, to the match. Harry, Sarah and I had tickets for the terrace behind the goal, whereas the others at the impromptu pre-match party were in the main stand. Tickets were about £5 to stand, which is pretty good I reckon.

The first thing I noticed about the crowd was that the replica shirt has yet to reach Germany. I was wearing my Welling away top which was a good choice, as 1860 play in blue and white, whilst red is the colour of the hated Bayern. Fans tend to wear scarves, have their blue and white painted faces and the meaner looking members of the crowd have patches all over their denim jackets (a style which left England in the 1970s, I think, along with white butcher’s coats).

The attendance was about 25,000 with two or three thousand having travelled from Hamburg. The atmosphere was fairly muted though. Harry explained that this was because 1860 and St. Pauli were in fact twinned, a situation not found in England. Both clubs are regarded as being the smaller team in their respective city (1860 to Bayern and St. Pauli to Hamburg SV (of Kevin Keegan fame)), but their support tends to be more fervent and concentrated within the city itself, whereas Bayern supporters could come from all over Germany. A similar situation exists in Manchester where City are the Manchester club, whereas the disgusting United fans get bused in from the likes of Hampshire and Cumbria, having abandoned their own local sides. So, being twinned the clubs and fans actually quite like each other and a chant from the St. Pauli fans would be met by applause from the 1860 end, rather than that sustained continental whistling. Harry was telling me that during the previous year’s promotion play-offs, 1860 had to play in Hamburg and the St. Pauli fans had turned up in force to cheer them on. Weird, eh? Still, I was more than impressed when an announcement was broadcast over the tannoy saying that the 1860 fans were to meet their St. Pauli counterparts in a beer garden in the City Centre for a big piss up after the match and everyone was welcome.

The football itself? It seemed to be played at about half speed (the words “lawn chess” came to mind). All the players were comfortable controlling and passing the ball and, indeed, seemed to treat it as something to be treasured rather than something to be leathered, Les Berry-like up the pitch or out of the ground. Unfortunately, the referee wanted to be a bit of a star and was continually blowing up for mysterious technical offences that I never quite spotted. He in fact succeeded in ruining the game by sending off a St. Pauli player for no particular reason in the first half, and with 1860 holding a 1-0 lead they decide to sit on it rather than be adventurous and positive (much like us against Stafford and Altrincham this season).

The last ten minutes livened up with St. Pauli throwing a few men forward, and 1860 breaking away to hit the post, but the verdict over the post-match beers back in Mike’s flat (1860 won 1-0) was that it had been 1860’s worst performance of the season. Still, the two points kept them in second place behind Bochum, and well on course for a second successive promotion.

So, that was it. We stayed drinking for a couple more hours. Bayern had won, so the day hadn’t been perfect, and Sarah had lost her footballing virginity and even confessed to having enjoyed it, despite her earlier fears of being horribly beaten up by rampaging soccer hooligans. I chatted with a few more people, all of whom spoke ridiculously good English, and the result of one conversation with Uwe was that I am now the proud possessor of a German football encyclopaedia (which bizarrely includes an entry for Jim Leighton) and for which I cannot express enough thanks.

But I will express some thanks, mainly for Sarah, for allowing me to wreck her love-life. To Harry, Mike, Uwe, sundry girlfriends and British Airways for that particularly delightful breakfast on the flight home.

Tim

It’s time for Part 2 of the Wingsaurus with the entries for C to E originally published in WIE 40 and WIE 41 back in 2013. Remember, it’s our intention to include a significant update in our first issue back as and when the football resumes and we’re able to attend games again at PVR. So, please send your contributions to us at wie_fanzine@yahoo.co.uk (or via the Contact page on our website).

C

Cambridge United – One down in 70 seconds; two behind inside three minutes and 3-0 after 20 was the disappointing end to another FA Cup run. The home side’s celebrations got them on ‘They Think It’s All Over’. The pitch invader knocking off the copper’s helmet (fnar, fnar).

Ceefax – Much missed – After that dull 1-1 draw with Slough drops us one place from 11th to 12th what could be better than getting home to find that we are no longer skulking around at the bottom of page one of Ceefax but are now top of page 2! There were disasters too – they had us drawing 1-1 away at Barrow, with ‘LT’ showing for latest score; then it suddenly refreshed and went from 1-1 to 1-6 FT, game over.

Geoff Chapple – Woking manager who hated Welling, once comparing the PVR pitch to Hackney Marshes after we’d had the temerity to hold them to a 1-1 draw. How we laughed when a hole appeared in the Kingfield pitch during a game later that season. Took over at Kingstonian and immediately showed what a hypocrite he was by signing four of our players, including Wayne Brown and Danny Smith.

Charlton Athletic – Darlings of Bexley Council who send their 1st team to kick off each new season at PVR.

Chewbacca – Who could possibly forget a few seasons ago when a rather strange character appeared at PVR dressed as the Star Wars character resplendent in a new Wings home shirt. During a break in play for an injury he ran onto the pitch and stuck in a decent cross to the far post. He was asked to leave the ground and was last seen walking towards Bexleyheath and almost certain death. Whoever you were mate – WIE salutes you!

CIC – Much-vaunted cheap and tacky money-making scheme. Probably.

Les Cleevely – Long-haired lunatic keeper. Trying to dribble round opposing strikers was funny if he was in the opposition goal, not so much if he was your keeper and you’d driven all the way to Macclesfield to see him do it.

Neil Clemmence – Always gave 100% whether 4-0 up or down. Decent fella too. Once scored with his bollocks.

Covered end – Ha! Ha! Ha! Only kidding…

Ian Crouch – See Jailbirds. Member of the Southern League Premier Division winning team. Now a referee who has somehow officiated Wings games at PVR.

FA Cup – Bath x 2, wall collapse, Sportsnight; Blackburn; Gillingham; Reading x 5; Swansea; Orient; Wembley, Kingstonian, Enfield, Clevedon; Cambridge United, Bristol Rovers, Lincoln City, Huddersfield Town. Heady days.

D

Liam Daish – Brought in by Paul Parker to try to rectify matters. Caretaker manager with three wins and a draw from four games before being shunned in favour of Adie Pennock. Took over as manager at Ebbsfleet where he had great success. Obviously.

Darlington – Foggy. We don’t tend to like clubs who celebrate winning the Conference at PVR on the last day of the season.

Jamie Day – Having raided former club Chelmsford in his first close-season at PVR,Paul Parker used his second summer to raid Dover. Daysie was the only one of the four recruits to survive to the next season as new boss Adie Pennock did some weeding. Seen as a surprise appointment as manager, but, boy, were we wrong. See X-rated tackles.

Debt – See HMRC, CIC.

Lennie Dennis – (a dinner date with) A triple D here with ex Jamaican International and Wings striker Lennie Dennis. Now there really is a plethora of cooking programmes on TV but imagine the surprise when we heard news of the appearance of the ex-Wings man. I don’t watch it (honestly) but apparently three blokes trying to impress a lady with their cooking, and she selects a winner and takes them on a “date.” Anyway, Lennie did win to show his cooking might well have made more of an impression than his football.

Danny Dichio – One month on loan from QPR, scored four on debut and finished season as second-highest scorer. Great hair.

Richard Dimmock – Youth team striker who became the (then) Conference’s youngest ever scorer when netting against Morecambe at PVR. Went in goal at Kettering when Glen Knight followed Ollie Morah and Dereck Brown for an early bath as Wings hung on for 3-2 win with Wayne Brown lying poleaxed on the halfway line for last few minutes.

Disappointment – It is what being a Welling United supporter is all about!

E

Erith and Belvedere – Cuckoos. We look forward to the day that they return to their side of the borough.

Exec Lounge – Fans voted for a covered end and got the exec lounge. Ho hum.

We hope that you have enjoyed the dips into the WIE archives throughout the weeks of lockdown. Well, for a change, we’ve decided on a change of tack. This week, while researching the next issue and article to feature, we picked up WIE 40 from Feb/Mar 2013 which included ‘The Wingsaurus’ which we produced as our way of celebrating the club’s 50^th anniversary. Simply, it was our tribute to all things Welling United and which, when considered in the round, we felt gave a feel for the real substance and fabric of the football club. A short update of entries also featured in WIE 41 in Aug/Sep 2013.

So, over the coming days and weeks, we are going to bring you the entire Wingsaurus as we reconstruct it in its entirety (and update where appropriate) under its own page on our website (https://wie.home.blog/the-wingsaurus). Naturally at the time we didn’t consider it to be a comprehensive list as there would be, undoubtedly, things we had overlooked. Now, of course, the club has seven more years in the bank, which will have produced events and personnel that warrant entry. Off the top of our head these include as obvious highlights; the Conference South title win in 2013 and subsequent time in the highest echelon of non-league football, the purchase of the club by Mark Goldberg, and, er, Jody Brown’s thankfully brief, inglorious tenure as manager.

And, when the football resumes and we’re able to attend games again, WIE will return and in our first issue back we’d like to include a significant update to the Wingsaurus. So thinking caps on please and send us your entries to us at wie_fanzine@yahoo.co.uk (or via the Contact page on our website).

To kick things off, here are the entries for A and B…

A

Gary Abbott – The saying “form is temporary, but class is permanent” was probably made for “Abbo” Must be one of the top scoring players ever in non-league and probably the only player more deadly in the area with his head rather than his feet! Very much a “marmite” player at PVR but scored some blinders for us but non better than “that goal” against Gateshead at PVR to guarantee our Conference survival for another season.

Darren Adams – The incoming part of Kevin Hales’ master plan swap deal with the French, Dazzlin’ rapidly became the terrace boo boy due to his lack of effort. Best remembered for kicking a Northwich player at PVR, prompting the whole crowd to chant “Off, off, off…” until the red card was brandished. Later seen at E&B&Q where he managed to earn himself a 7-game ban before the end of August. See Jailbirds.

Tony Adams – After admitting he was an alcoholic, everyone’s favourite donkey made his comeback marking Ollie Morah in a midweek, mid-season friendly at PVR. Most amusingly he had to walk past an off licence (see Squiffy’s) to enter the ground whereupon the first hoarding to greet him was advertising Bexley Council’s “Don’t drink and drive” campaign…

Tony Agana – Or ‘Aggy’ as he was affectionately known. Flying winger in our late Athenian League/early Southern League days who regularly terrorised tubby full backs. Star of the ‘Winger’ match programme for the 1983/84 season. It was a sad day when he was sold to Weymouth and went on to have a deserved career in the Football League with the likes of Watford, Notts County and Sheffield United.

B

Steve Barnes – Emerging from the youth ranks at the same time as his more famous namesake, Finnan, the midget on the left looked far better in a Wings shirt, earning The Times’ Untelevised Goal-of-the-Season award for one of his hat-trick against Bromsgrove before joining Finnan at Uncle Barry’s Birmingham. Never made it there and dropped down the leagues, including a loan stint back at PVR for the end of our relegation season.

Paul Barron – Striker in his youth days with the club. Went on to bigger and better things as a goalkeeper with Arsenal and QPR before returning to PVR. His stock at the club rose highest when he refused his wages after the 6-1 trouncing at Barrow.

John Bartley – The word “legend” is vastly overused in our eyes, but not in this case. Over his whole Welling career (including the youth team) he averaged MORE than a goal a game and, if you wanted someone to put away a chance and your life depended on it, then he was your man. White Socks’ first ever footballing hero so much so that the recent feline arrival in the Socks household now goes by the name of Bartley!

Bath City – 1987-88 FA Cup 2nd round loss; met in same round the following season. Replay at PVR with winners knowing they would host Blackburn Rovers. 2-0 down early on, we pulled one back through Terry Robbins before half time. They had one sent off before a Ray Burgess header and Phil Handford’s free kick sent us through. Goals and park end wall collapse shown on ‘Sportsnight’, which prompted Steve Rider’s “that game must be in doubt now” comment.

Laurence Batty – Fat former Woking keeper who got plenty of stick at PVR, even mentioning how much abuse he took in an interview with The Sun ahead of Woking’s trip to Everton.

Blackburn Rovers – To date the club’s only appearance in the third round of the FA Cup was at home to Blackburn. All the pre-match publicity was on the Wings with special features on both BBC and ITV local news and Nigel Ransom compared to Chris Waddle on a Match of the Day preview show. They scored early and John Glover had a header that many say crossed the line but wasn’t given.

Paul Booth – Laid back and skilful front man who could also be found under M for much travelled. A prolific goal scorer even in the woeful Paul Parker era teams he played in. Gloriously hit and miss; spectacular volleyed strikes followed by glaring misses. Almost singlehandedly kept us up though.

Eric Brackstone – Club President who was a high-profile presence around the ground on a match day up until his untimely death in January 2018. He was the club’s first major sponsor when his shop – Bettabuys – featured on the first team’s shirts.

Nicky Brigden – Faithful right-hand man to Graham Hobbins who went on to manage the side in the Conference. Known for his shouts from the dug-out of “win it, do it” and “second ball”. Was sacked in the immediate aftermath of an FA Cup defeat at Kingstonian.

Ray Burgess – Superb club servant from the Spartan League right through to the Conference. Played over 1,000 games for the club, including nearly 150 at non-league’s top table. Unfortunately, also remembered for his five-knuckle shuffle aimed towards the Wings fans at Scarborough (he missed) when he was Kevin Hales’ assistant.

Butterfly Lane – Club’s first home ground with extremely limited facilities. Now reputed to be very run down. But at least it isn’t a housing estate. Yet.

This week’s offering comes from WIE 49 published in November 2016. The photo which accompanied the article was one of my favourites taken by Keith Gillard and shows Mr Bartley celebrating after he’d scored at Stonebridge Road.

And, if you haven’t seen them yet, you can find some of Keith’s excellent photos of the Wings in action on Instagram and Twitter (@kgtopsnapper). Now, on with the article…

Bartley!!!

In a season where it has been rather difficult to find anything even remotely representing a bright spot, a Welling player scoring 6 goals in one game most certainly qualifies as such. Possibly, in fact, the only one so far. Adam Coombes’ achievement against Swindon Supermarine in our ultimately disappointing FA Cup run led to a short debate on the fans forum as to who was the last Welling player to score 6 in a game. And it was quickly and almost inevitably the name of minor deity John Bartley that appeared, with a fine night out in Banstead 36 years ago being the game in question.

1979/80 was the middle of our three seasons in the Athenian League, and our third season at PVR. The Athenian League had one division, with neither promotion nor relegation, as the non- league pyramid was at that time only in the early stages of construction. It was the year that the Alliance/Conference/ National league was launched. To get promoted you generally just applied for another league of higher status and hoped that you didn’t, for example, get the chairman of dartford as head of the ground inspection committee (as we did that year, and had our application turned down for not having any covered standing accommodation. Which, in those far off days, we did. Ho hum).

We, as ever, in 79/80 were burbling along quite nicely, scoring a lot of goals but, alas, leaving Nigel Ransom to marshal the defence, which left us quite near the top, but not near enough to make anyone believe we might actually win the thing. But as March turned to April we suddenly went slightly mad. An Easter Saturday trip to Haringey Borough saw us winning 5-0, and then two days later on Easter Monday we went one better at home to Alton Town, winning 6-0. The following Saturday found us away at Harefield United, a delightful place if you have no sense of smell or, perhaps, actually enjoy the fragrance of a farmyard. As it was, “Cows shit, and we know they do” would have been the song of the day. But we won 2-1, so after 3 wins on the trot we started to study the top of the table a little bit more closely. Sitting on top were Windsor and Eton. There were three weeks of the season to go and, due to the Athenian league issuing fixtures month by month rather than planning them for the whole season; we were left in the remarkable position of still having to play them home and away. “Interesting. Very interesting!” as Barry Davies might have said.

And next up was Banstead on a Tuesday night.

John Bartley. For Wings supporters of a certain vintage, he is the answer to all of their cat-naming dilemmas. Welling arguably have had three remarkably good strikers in our history: Terry Robbins, Gary Abbott and John Bartley. There have been other good ones, of course, such as Tony Agana and Ross Lafayette, but they didn’t hang around as long as the big three. People will have their individual favourite – Robbins had pace and worked his socks off, Abbott had excellent control, was strong in the air and had great skill, and Bartley…well…it’s hard to say what he had, exactly. He didn’t have great pace, but he could read the game, and was seemingly always in exactly the right place at the right time. He was playing at a time when to be level with the last defender was to be off-side, and at a time when defenders could happily tackle from behind and didn’t have to worry about hacking people down when they were the last defender. Nevertheless, Bartley was forever timing his runs perfectly, and being left one against one with the goalkeeper. And the thing about Bartley was that once he was in that position supporters were never in any doubt that he would score, whether it would be by gently chipping it over the diving keeper, or going around him and rolling it in from whatever snooker-like angle he had left himself. He could be a bit dodgy on penalties sometimes but generally the feeling was “Ah, the ball has come to Bartley. He will score”. And he almost invariably did. Possibly we didn’t really appreciate what we had until he left us the first time (for Millwall) and we watched how his replacement dealt with a one-against-one with the keeper. We had signed Greenwich Borough’s goal machine of the day – sadly not Ian Wright but Derek Somers – and he decided to go for power but not precision, and his resulting blast can almost compete with Stuart White’s legendary penalty miss at King’s Lynn (which is apparently still in orbit somewhere) for height and distance.

The first programme I have of Welling’s had the remarkable statistic that Bartley had scored 266 goals in 166 games, which I quite frankly didn’t believe, but from that point on he averaged a goal a game for us. For the next 400 games or so. In two spells. Again, comparing him to Robbins and Abbott, it could be said that he was playing at a lower level, which is true, but he also averaged just under a goal a game for Maidstone in the Conference, and got goals in the Football League for Millwall (where in his wisdom manager George Graham decided that this goal scorer supreme was in fact better playing out wide). And he was, well, he was John Bartley. We had him, and big club dartford up the road didn’t, so that was good.

So back to Banstead. Memories of that game are somewhat hazy due to the passage of time, but I can recollect two of his goals. One was a penalty, notable for the surprise amongst both supporters that it was actually awarded. In those days we used to win a lot of penalties, mainly due to the fine work of striker Malcolm Spratt. He was blessed with absolutely no pace at all, but a huge amount of skill which involved receiving the ball with the back to goal, moving it slightly, and somehow managing to turn past the defender. 1970s defenders in non- league were generally of the “take no prisoners” breed, and a silky and surprising turn usually defeated them, producing a rash tackle that Mr Spratt was always waiting for. He never made a particularly great effort to remain on his feet, and as a result we would have a penalty. Kenny Dalglish had perfected a similar skill further up the food chain for Liverpool, where the defenders ought to have known to take a bit more care.

Anyway, on this night in Banstead, Malcolm had the ball in the penalty area, there was slight contact with his and an opposing defender’s boot which was basically audible but harmless, and Malcolm himself continued with his run. But the referee blew his whistle and we had a penalty, much to everyone’s bemusement. Mr Bartley duly obliged with his standard penalty, right footed to the keeper’s right at what is generally regarded as a “saveable height” and much repeated whenever England manage to stumble into a penalty shoot-out.

The other goal I can remember was…er…memorable. Bartley received the ball at chest height with his back to goal, somewhere out on the left wing. Time is pushing him nearer and nearer to the halfway line, but I suspect in reality it wasn’t that far. Still, what he did next was still pretty impressive; even if it wasn’t from the 50 yards my faulty memory wants to believe. He controlled the ball on his chest and then just smacked the ball goal wards on the turn.

There are certain shots at goal where you just know that the goalkeeper is in trouble. The deflected free-kick off our former manager Paul Parker in the World Cup Semi-Final of 1990 v Germany, which was inevitably going to loop over a Peter Shilton who seemed unable to take the one pace back that was required to put him in a position to save it. The long drifting shot by Ronaldinho which floated over David Seaman in the 2002 World Cup v Brazil, and the last minute “Nayim from the halfway line”, again over Seaman, that prevented Arsenal from winning another bit of silverware. Mr Bartley’s shot was always going to end up in the top corner, and there was absolutely nothing the keeper could do about it, bar saying “shit!!!’ in a panicky kind of way. That goal might have been our fifth, and as it was still in the first half it was clear that any shot from any distance was going to find the net, so why not shoot from the halfway line?

The game finished 7-1, which stood as our highest victory for a time. A fourth win on the trot set us up for the weekend – a home game against top of the table Windsor and Eton. If we could beat them home and away then we might, just might, have a chance of winning the league.

Of course, there is the old saying of it not being the despair that is difficult to deal with, but the hope. Our important top of the table clash ended in the inevitable disappointment, a 0-2 home defeat. It was a thoroughly unpleasant afternoon all round, as Windsor had managed to attract what was described in the following Tuesday’s programme (a 2-1 defeat to Woodford that completely killed off any lingering dreams of cups and medals) as the kind of undesirable element that produces behaviour that “we really wouldn’t expect at our level”. Or, annoying twats in plainer language. Unfortunately, we were scheduled to go away for the return at Windsor the following Saturday where there was indeed an abundance of twats who were tagging along for the ride, and it was another unenjoyable day where secretary Barrie Hobbins was spat at and generally abused. So, Windsor was off the Christmas card list for a while.

We won our three remaining games to finish 5th, and joint top scorers in the league with 86 goals from 38 games. Bartley was the league’s top scorer, of course. That was his last full season for us for a while, as he moved off to Millwall during the following season. He returned in 1984, to lead our attack in our Southern League Championship winning side of 1985/86 which we won by 23 points (which I just mention to cheer us up).

Our fun with Windsor didn’t end there. The following season we were again near the top but not near enough for it to be exciting (which was, in fact, our standard position in that era as from 1976/77 onwards, in various leagues and divisions, we finished 6th, 6th, 7th, 5th, 7th and 8th, before an unexpected nose-bleed inducing 3rd place finish in 1982/83). But we went into our final game of the season, at home to Windsor knowing victory could prevent them from winning the league for a second time. We duly crashed to our heaviest ever defeat, 1-6, and had to endure their charmless fans taunting us with “going up, going up, going up”, as they had been accepted into division 2 of the Isthmian League. So, not a particularly good afternoon, but ultimately we had the last laugh, as the unexpected resignation of Bognor from the Southern League left a handy Welling sized space that needed filling, so the following year found us starting a league campaign one level below the Conference, while Windsor were starting in their new league 3 levels below the Conference. So, it was goodbye, and good riddance to them, until they turned up to smack 5 past us in the Trophy many years later.

So, 36 years since a Welling player got six goals in a game, but Adam Coombes has become the first to achieve the feat at PVR.

Tim

It’s Thursday, so that must mean it’s time for us to take our lockdown delve into the WIE archives. If nothing else, it keeps us sane.

This week we jump forward again, nearly five years to November 2016 and WIE 49. And we’ll start with the cover. Hmm; what’s all that about? Well, it was to, err, ‘celebrate’ the recent debut on trial for the club of TOWIE ‘star’ Dan Osborne in a Kent Senior Cup tie away at Chatham Town. And we used up all of the Essex vernacular in our locker in the cover too…

Moving swiftly on; this was a 24-page issue and my editorial focussed on Mark Goldberg’s acquisition of the club. And I wasn’t asking for much: “I want to be able to turn up for home games and watch a team that is clearly proud to wear the shirt and put in a shift that warrants my support. I want to watch those games in a stadium that is safe and offers relative comfort (just a roof over the terrace would be a bloody good start). That would do really. But we’re a million miles from that at the moment.” The same is true today over four years later. Ho hum.

As for the rest of the issue, it was that time of year when we looked with much jealousy towards our non-league brethren as they make headlines in the FA Cup. Tim, at his charitable best, had a different take on things as he hoped for the odd minnow-killing to retain the status quo. Meanwhile Alex paid tribute to his favourite Wings player, a certain Terry Robbins, no less.

Back on that 2016/17 season and Polo shared with us the delights of a weekend away in Poole. Disappointingly there wasn’t a single mention of Harry Redknapp, who was probably dropping off his Mrs somewhere, or something. Oh, and we lost to an injury time goal.

One of the few joys to be had so far that season had been Adam Coombes scoring a double hat-trick in a game, so Tim celebrated the last player to do so for the Wings. A certain Mr Bartley apparently. And we’ll bring you that article in full tomorrow. Yes, I know we’ve featured many of Tim’s articles so far, but we’ll take any opportunity to recall Bartley’s time with the club.

GaryH then took us into a surreal world of Welling United-related movies. Nightmare on, err, PVR anyone? Anyone? No? It was worth a go. Or not. Things then got back on track with Danson Mark giving us his, by then, regular Ramble.

We then took the opportunity to reprint an excellent article that Non-League Oracle produced on Luke Saggers who, back then, we had high hopes of being our next homegrown(ish) prodigious striker. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. GaryH then let off some steam on the thorny issues of time-wasting and added on time. And it was White Socks who had the “honour” of wrapping up the issue with his own take on the immediate aftermath of Big Sam’s sudden departure from being the England job. And our former manager Jody Brown featured. Of course.

Take care, stay safe and see you next time.

As promised, we share with you the following article from WIE 37 published in January 2012…

It Was Better Back Then

“Now is the past that in 20 years time we will be longing for” wrote the man in my newspaper and, yes, I’m pretty certain that it won’t be long before we’ll all be sitting around in our heavily armoured reinforced concrete bunkers thinking back fondly to the times when the worst mischief that kids “in our day” got up to was the occasional burning down of Croydon.  It was in that spirit that at the latest WIE editorial meeting (which consisted of the email “We’re doing another.  Write something.  Anything.”) I threw out the comment “Why was watching Welling in the past so much better?” The swift response from our esteemed editor, fine curmudgeon that he is, was “Because it was”, hence this article was born.

We’ll go back 30 years or so to the days just after Welling took over the derelict PVR.  1977-78 was our first year here, after Bexley United’s demise in the summer of ’76 (a summer strangely better remembered for a scorching summer and drought or, as we would call it today, Autumnal weather).  The team that arrived from our former home in Butterfly Lane in Eltham was extremely young and close-knit.  The average age was 21, with the veteran Ray Burgess being a couple of years older, but despite their youth many of the players had already chalked up 300 games as Welling players having progressed through the various youth teams.

So why was everything better?  Where to start?  Possibly the biggest difference was in the atmosphere and the relationship between the club, players and supporters.  The death of Bexley United resulted in a missing, lost generation of supporters.  The Bexley supporters in their late teens and early twenties didn’t transfer their allegiance to Welling, moving off elsewhere.  The result was that, with Welling bringing very few supporters over from Eltham the new Welling fans where a mixture of kids in their early or mid-teens (or younger), pensioners, and the usual smattering of the hideously mad.  The lost generation were, however, the cohort that tended to be bitter, cynical and angry, and would spend the game getting on the backs of, or slagging off, their own team’s players.  A trip to watch Dartford in a pre-season friendly (I’d had my tetanus) was a real eye-opener – the level of bile spat at some of the unfortunate Dartford players by their own fans in the angry mob behind the Darts’ goal was something to behold.  And this at a pre-season game.

And, of course, it was difficult to slag off your own players when you shared the same bus with them to away games.  For that’s what we did in those first years of Spartan and Athenian League football.  The players would of course take the back seats.  The Hobbins would be at the front, and the supporters such as there were would be sandwiched in the middle.  From the back of the bus would come the sound of raucous laughter.  There would be the occasional player/supporter interaction.  One which I really can’t imagine happening nowadays was “the head butt challenge”.  I’m not too sure how it began, but one of our larger teenage fans, who had a habit of strolling around Bexleyheath with a radio-cassette player on his shoulder, blasting out “A Stairway to Heaven” (an excellent contrarian display at a time when teenage punks would be at the throats of revivalist teenage Teddy-boys) challenged our rotund left back Peter Cooper (or “Parrot” as he was known, due to a prominent proboscis – “Promiprobo” being a non-starter as a nickname) to prove who had the harder head.  A series of hefty clashes of foreheads followed, but it was Muhammad Ali v Joe Bugner and a clear victory for the Parrot.  I don’t know, but I can’t picture Lee Clarke, say, exchanging head butts with a supporter on a bus.

Bus trips were fun.  Most trips wouldn’t take much longer than a couple of hours as we headed to Surrey, Berkshire or Hertfordshire.  In those pre-M25 days we had to spend a lot of time on the South Circular or needed to head straight through London.  Straight through London involved the inevitably clapped out bus having to get up and over Shooters Hill.  It was touch and go sometimes, and on occasions there was an audible sigh of relief when the bus driver took a left into Welling Way, thus avoiding the hill completely.  Other times it was like being aboard a version of an exhausted panting and sweating cartoon “Speed Buggy” (a rubbish cartoon character from the 70’s for those fortunate enough not to know).

The South Circular meant traffic jams, and traffic jams meant delays, and delays meant the occasional instruction from the Hobbins at the front of “OK, lads, get changed”.  And nothing probably brought so much pleasure to a group of South East London lads stuck on a bus in Epsom High Street than the opportunity to expose their bare backsides to the posh totty parading around outside.  It was always a proud moment when our bus pulled up late outside a ground and the team ran out, fully kitted-up, straight onto the pitch, like the veteran Barnstoneworth team of Michael Palin’s “Ripping Yarns”.

If, by some chance, the bus actually arrived at the ground on time there was a good trick that the older, more athletic looking teenage supporters could do.  This was the “Can I carry your bag?” offer to an obliging player, which allowed the volunteer porter to bamboozle the stringent security at those Athenian League grounds (typically old-man-in-cap), by being mistaken for a player and thus getting in for free.  Some people used the same technique in different circumstances.  Sir John Bartley’s replacement, Derek Somers, was also mistaken for a player, and somehow ended up in our first team.

Bus trips meant that both players and supporters would meet up in the clubroom at about midday on Saturday. The heart of the clubroom was the well used pool table.  It sloped in many directions.  It belonged to the players before away trips, but for home games it was passed on to the supporters after the team had retreated to the dressing room at 2pm or so.  Again, there was a kind of shared experience between the team and the supporters.

The shared bus disappeared as we moved up to the Southern League.  Increasing professionalism put paid to that, added to the fact that with an increasing number of travelling supporters it was becoming an utter pain for secretary Barrie Hobbins to organise.  When it was just the same dozen people every fortnight it wasn’t such a problem, but that wasn’t to last.  Later the pool table disappeared, the players got their own lounge, and the shared experience died away to some extent.  But such is the way of progress.

The matchday experience was somewhat different, too.   Abuse of your own players off the agenda (and not just because of the team’s evident head-butting skills – it would have been difficult to lay into Martin Curr as he missed his second penalty of the night in a 0-2 home defeat given that the previous Saturday he had bought me and a mate some chips on a long trip back from Hampshire).  The obvious targets were thus the opposition players.  Naturally focus fell on the fat and the redheaded, the former being particularly well-represented at full-back in the Athenian League.

The younger supporters then, as now, would stand behind the goal we were nominally attacking.  The pensioners who, whatever the weather, would all be wearing regulation black raincoats that may or may not have been issued to them at the end of the war, would gather under the cover on the halfway line.  Yes, you read that right.  In those primitive and far off days there was actually a place to stand when it rained, mad and unnecessary though that may seem.  Apparently, there is even photographic evidence knocking around somewhere.  Anyway, the pensioners were referred to as “The Gumbies” (our head-butting runner-up’s other cassette was a Monty Python one) and if the ball ever ended up on their bit of terrace, causing Gumby confusion, the event was met by a chorus of people attempting to say the word “Chrysanthemum”, and the suggestion that rather than throwing the ball back they should “arrange it nicely in a vase”.  Get thee to a YouTube if that comment has gone sailing over your head like an over hit corner.

Apart from baiting the old, short and fat, most of the time watching Welling was spent chatting amongst ourselves while waiting for someone to get the ball to John Bartley, who would score.  With no promotion or relegation from the Athenian League it was all pretty pressure free (I’m struggling not to say “pointless”.  Damn.  Failed), so we amused ourselves as best we could.  One way was the shouting out of random words – “Boing” when a long kick from the keeper eventually bounced off someone’s head; “Frog” when an opposition keeper took a goal kick.  This last habit led to an unexpected incident of Gumby Rage at somewhere god-awful (possibly Uxbridge).  A home Gumby was incensed by our inflammatory use of the word “Frog”, and charged overlooking to land a bunch of fives, but fortunately public school educated secretary Barrie Hobbins intervened with a well-timed and commanding “Go away, you silly old man”, and order was restored.  Public schools – training people to run an Empire.  You never lose it.

Another way to pass the time at PVR while waiting for the ball to Bartley was to observe the passing bus people.  Indeed, sometimes that provided the only entertainment.  One of the older teenagers had an unfortunate habit, or urge, shall we say.  You’ll have to imagine the David Attenborough voice – “The sight of the… young females… of breeding age… in the rear of the… transportation device… encourages the young male of the species… to… display”.  Still, nothing there that would stop a 30-year career in the Met Police.

So, why was everything better?  It just seemed to be more fun, somehow.  Less serious.  Less professional.  We didn’t have to go to Thurrock.  Instead we went to strange places that people had never heard of (but not Thurrock).  “Where did you go last weekend?”  Rather than “Up the Broadway” I could say something like “Chalfont St Peter”.  It was at Chalfont St Peter, in fact, that programme editor Paul Carter came back excitedly from the bar bearing the first packet of prawn cocktail crisps that any of us had ever seen.  It was my knowledge of the existence of Chalfont St Peter, and from that Chalfont St Giles, that I was well positioned to explain to a bemused Black Country friend a joke in Viz, where a cockney character in evident pain says “Ooooh, me Chalfonts”.

Every trip was an adventure and learning experience.  Some of the clubrooms had pool tables with even more complicated slopes than ours (and I credit the passing of my maths A levels to the years of practical experience I gained from experimenting with the “collisions of solid spheres on inclined planes”, which happily made up a significant proportion of the syllabus (but without the practical, and pint, alas).  Other clubrooms had the amazing new game, Space Invaders.  And then, as I got older, the other major attraction of clubrooms came to the fore – you could get a pint straight after the game, whereas the pubs might not open until 6pm due to the World War One licencing laws that were applied at the time.

So, football then was fun, had beer, and was a bit of a laugh.  And football now?  Fun, beer, and a bit of a laugh.  What’s changed?  Damn.  It might just be me.  At a game not too long ago, a mate pointed to a set of modern day gumbies huddled near the halfway line and said, “That’s us in a few years”.  Old men standing around in the cold.  Talking about how much better the players were in the old days – John Bartley, Andy Townsend, Neil Clemmence.  How the beer had tasted better. How that wouldn’t even have been a foul in our day, let alone a straight red card.  How these modern footballs are like balloons.  How there used to be buildings in Croydon.  Blimey.  Nearly there already.

Tim

 

Despite, at times, it seeming like the days and weeks are merging into one at present we have remembered it’s time for our dive into the WIE archives in search of something semi-interesting to keep us, ahem, “entertained”. But first, we trust that you and your loved ones are all keeping safe and well.

This week we jump forward 15 years and 17 issues to WIE 37, which covered January/February 2012. Let’s start with the, frankly, rather disappointing front cover for which I take full responsibility. I have an inkling that this was pulled together in panic at the last minute with the copy deadline fast approaching and with yours truly suffering from a real lack of inspiration. And it was based on the likelihood of striker Andy Pugh leaving in the transfer window and Leyton Orient being one of the clubs rumoured to be interested. But, in the end, you’ll remember that the club took what appeared to be the first offer on the table and Pugh departed up the M11 for the bright lights of Cambridge and a regular place on the substitutes bench at the Abbey Stadium.

WIE 37 was a 24-page issue, which only had six contributors (there’s definitely a bit of a theme here). My editorial questioned the pricing policy of the club following their decision to charge full admission prices (£12 for adults) for the FA Trophy replay against Thamesmead Town at PVR. My main point was there was little – let me rephrase that – there was no imagination from the club with admission charges when it came to home cup games and friendlies with the default setting being full price, which ultimately meant lower attendance figures. But of greater importance was our recognition of the recent news that our former central defender had passed away.

First up in this issue’s articles was from Alex with a look at some dodgy kit designs, inspired by the visit of Dover to PVR and some of their concerning strips over the years. Sutton United’s delightful chocolate and yellow combination came in for a special mention. Next was a contribution from a reader rather than a regular, which we are always delighted to receive. On this occasion Ulsterwings shared with us his personal history of supporting the Wings and his experience of following the club on overseas postings with the Army.

Under the title “The Fields of Peckham Rye” Russ shared with us his experience of watching Gaelic Football’s All-Ireland Championships. The connection to Peckham being that part of London’s connection with a few of the game’s historic greats. White Socks was next up with his account of the weekend trip to Truro for our league game down in Cornwall. The weekend comprised mainly of booze, kebab and curry houses and a little bit of football (a pleasing 3-2 win).

The centrespread was a feature on an exhibition by Leo Fitzmaurice called “Post Match” in which the artist had cleverly and imaginatively created football shirts from flattened cigarette packets and cartons. And very good they were too. Much better than the hideous ‘Jokerman’ font that I chose to use for the article; God knows what I was thinking. Safe to say that any future issues of WIE will use one, simple font throughout.

Next, and our separate offering for you this week, was Tim’s article titled “It was better back then” in which he reminisced on his 30 or so years watching football at PVR. As, is now usual, we’ll bring you that tomorrow.

An uncredited article is next titled “Memorable Away Days” and includes the FA Trophy win at Blyth Spartans in 2006, the 1-0 win at eventual champions AFC Wimbledon in 2009 and the 5-0 win at Woking in 2010. If only we’d saved one or two of those goals for our last visit to Kingfield…

Alex was next up with his account of his trip to Lille in which he took in the hometown club’s game against Sedan. Lille included Ashley Cole in their line-up, which didn’t dampen Alex’s enjoyment of the trip too much.

The issue drew to a close with Russ’ review of taking in the production of ‘Fit and Proper People’ at the Soho Theatre. Unfortunately, Russ didn’t have a great time as he found the play, about the takeover of a football club, had too many clichés and stereotypes. Funny that. But at least this issue of WIE was riding high in the culture stakes.

Tim, who was at the time based in Japan, provided the latest instalment of mangled English from FC Tokyo’s match programme. Examples such as “I told each player to cope with the opponent composedly with concentration”, and “Though we suffered two successive defeats, we get cheering up for the next match” make us think they were using the same translation algorithm used by Instagram.

The issue rounded off with a Caption Competition. Amazingly, in what was probably a first for the fanzine, we actually had some entries. Perhaps we’ll do some more in future.

Take care everyone and see you next time.

Today’s offering from WIE 20 is the cartoon that featured as one half of the issue’s centrespread. Our cartoonist, Mark Cook, wasn’t a Wings fan; in fact, he didn’t much like football at all if memory serves. I can’t remember how Mark came onboard exactly, but I do recall that he was a neighbour and school friend of ex-Wing Richard Dimmock.

Anyway, we like this particular cartoon because – although WIE 20 was published in September 1997 – it is relevant commentary on the club’s dealings in the transfer market over the years. Of course, the club has paid transfer fees for players; the returns to PVR of John Bartley and Gary Abbott spring immediately to mind along with the signings of Terry Robbins and Mark Hone, but we’re struggling to think of any others. No doubt we’ve overlooked some, but you get the point.

Stay safe and we’ll be back with another look into the WIE  archive next week.

Hello everyone [jumps off hamster wheel), here we are again with another dip into the WIE archive. This week we jump forward ten issues to WIE 20, which hit the streets in September 1997.

There are two things to note about the front cover. First, this comes from a time when – for a short while – WIE had a cartoonist. And boy we could do with having another one, so if you have that particular talent and would like to get involved in future editions of the fanzine please get in touch. The cartoon itself is a comment on the previous season’s home form when we suffered ten league defeats at PVR. If you look closely, each of the Native Americans depicted carries the name of one of our conquerors.

WIE 20 was a 24-page affair, which had only five contributors. My editorial was pretty downbeat and focused predominantly on Kevin Hales’ record up until that point as Wings manager. That record didn’t make for pretty reading, and I was fed up with it and chose not to hold back. Thankfully Tim’s predictions for the 1997/98 Conference season were up next to bring some humour to the proceedings. He didn’t get any of his predictions correct for the 1996/97 season, so we take it on trust that no WIE reader at the time was stupid enough to rush to the bookies off the back of this particular article. And, having just looked up the records for 1997/98, I can confirm that they proved that neither Tim nor I know anything (funny that). The Wings finished 10^th with 60 points, which not only made my editorial look, ahem, somewhat misguided but also knocked into a cocked hat Tim’s prediction of us finishing next to bottom and relegated. He predicted Stevenage to win it (they finished 15^th), while Halifax finished top of the pile (against his predicted 15^th), so at least his folly had some symmetry about it. Anyway, moving swiftly on…

Tim’s crazy predictions were followed by three short articles; one proposing a play-off system of sought, a Mystic Meg parody (“Welling United fans, you will experience further hair loss in April…”); and a comment piece on the Wings appearance in an episode of They Think It’s All Over. Meanwhile the centre-page spread included a cartoon strip titled ‘Wheel of Chance”, which was a comment on the club’s dealings in the transfer market. We will bring you that separately tomorrow.

“The Diary of a Madman, Aged 28½” which looked at the club’s performance over the summer (spoiler alert … it wasn’t great), before the issue was completed with Tim’s month-by-month review of the previous season’s fun and games. Happy days. Or not.