One of my group of friends went off at age eleven to private school. It was good to see him again at Christmas, but he brought with him a ‘football’ with a very odd shape, and announced that even if you weren’t a goalkeeper you could handle it : not that his game had goalkeepers anyway ! In fact Burnley only had one rugby club, though of course a host of soccer teams. Actually we didn’t ever use the word ‘soccer’, we knew what we meant when we spoke of ‘football’. The distributions, in industrial Lancs and Yorks, of soccer and rugby (two codes) are fascinating.

Most of my gang (very largely boys) were at the same school, Heasandford. Most of us lived in the same mainly middle class area I have described, but others, certainly in the wider milieu of Rakehead, lived in the generally working class terraced houses to be found on and around Briercliffe Rd. Heasandford school was surrounded by these terraces. Having said all of this, I don’t think that ‘class’ was in our consciousness, not least because in many cases, such as mine, my (paternal) grandparents were at least in their younger days working class, and certainly lived in the town in a typical terraced house. Moreover, there was no ‘social science’ at school, primary or secondary (Burnley Grammar, though here sixth formers undertook the catch-all General Studies A-level). History as a subject of course concerned national matters, mainly wars and politics, though not with much on the economic, social or labour aspects. For me it was family history, from c1964, that triggered my interest in the local, etc.
But back to football. My wife will probably tell you that our marriage was bigamous, in that I was born wearing a claret and blue scarf, and have never worked out how to loosen it. Burnley of course is a classic northern town best known for its football, even though it is often quoted as being the largest cotton weaving town in the world at the end of the 19th century. We lived a little over a mile from Turf Moor. My father was quite a keen fan, and took me initially to reserve matches from the age of six or so, then first team from about eight. By ten or eleven I would go with friends of my age. No particular danger was seen by parents. Opposing team fans would mix freely with locals, with generally good natured behaviour from all. Yet crowds were typically of the order of 30,000. The only piece of advice that my father instilled was that when leaving, in a slow moving crowd, you should keep your arms up, not allowing them to become pinned. Sometimes I would be on my own, and in those days matches ended at 4.40 sharp, no ‘time added on’ usually. I had my own spot by the tunnel exit at the cricket field end, and when the final whistle blew I was off, at top speed, to be back home for the results on Sports Report at 5.00. Talking of cricket, for matches late and early in the football season you could, at one end, watch the cricket through the wooden panels at the back of the stand. 
From the age of about fourteen a group of us would travel, on the football train specials, to away matches in Lancs and West Yorkshire. This included of course the title clinching win at Maine Rd in 1960. Other matches I remember with fondness are the Newcastle match about 1952 where Tommy Cummings scored his wonder goal, the 1956 9-0 annihilation of New Brighton in the Cup, and the 1962 Cup Final against Spurs at Wembley (not so fond though of that result).

In short, this was an era of mainly standing (the grandstand on Brunshaw Rd was the only seated area, rather posh and not cheap), no floodlights (till 1958), open air, usually with rain, in much of the ground, and players who lived in the town, in digs if unmarried (many were Scottish, Irish, or north-easterners). One permanent feature of the Burnley fan is to expect them to lose, even in the successful days of say 1956 to 1963. The exploits of the 2022-23 team feel very unnatural, great though they are !
Other aspects of my life, as for many people, derived from interests of other family members. My grandfather in Burnley, of whom I wrote on the site a little time ago, was a keen rambler, likewise my father. Pendle was regularly ascended, and later in my teens I think that, usually with one or two friends, I climbed every Lake District mountain. Both my father, in his younger days, and sister were keen tennis players, and I joined and played for local Parks teams, later in life becoming a player of decent standard elsewhere. Both these physical activities, in contrast to football, were perhaps ones somewhat associated with the upwardly mobile. Having said that I remember one miner you just did not beat at tennis !
Family then is one main influence, of course, on what we are. This may be genetic, or to do with lifestyle and interests. My grandfather was good with figures, a cotton trade union secretary in his later working life. My father became a bank clerk. My grandfather particularly encouraged me, and my sister, to play card games, notwithstanding a nonconformist background ! As a result I could do elaborate sums before starting school, and was very bored with the subject when I got there ! Inevitably I became a mathematician.

I could write more, of Guy Fawkes, of Burnley Fair, of Good Friday and the monkey, of first footing on Jan 1st, of trainspotting, of towering snowdrifts aged nearly three, of the strange species called girls, of shovehalfpenny at the Grammar school, of marbles, of collecting bus tickets, of the frightening farmer occupying the field behind our house, of our window cleaner who always gave me a penny, of fear of swimming (I’m keen now), and more. But I hope the foregoing shows the main features of (my) life and some attitudes in the town just postwar. And of the beautiful game.

​

Rex Watson