Last month (October) I traced the
career of Haydonian George
Anderson who played football for
Haydon Bridge, Mickley, Sunderland
and Aberdeen before becoming
Manager of Dundee and one of
Scotlands foremost soccer legislators.
I continue George’s story this month.
George Anderson’s life in Scotland was
filled with much more than his football
commitments. For a period of ten years
from 1945 he represented Rosemount
Ward in Aberdeen on the town council,
serving for a time as a magistrate. He
was a convenor of the corporation’s
town planning committee and he was
also chairman of the committee
responsible for floral decorations in
Aberdeen’s public places. Of particular
interest is a report of his pioneering
work in advocating the use of window
boxes for brightening up Union Street.
George clearly had this in mind when
the Haydon Bridge Floral and
Horticultural Society held its
Centenary Show in 1950 and the
organising committee received a large
silver trophy from Dundee’s Manager
George Anderson, to be presented for
the best window box in the village.
The trophy was won in 1950 by Mr. E.
Corbett of Whittis Crescent.
I wonder where that trophy is now?
Incidentally, I’m sure that Ted Corbett
deserved the first prize, knowing how
much work both he and his family put
into terracing and cultivating the most
difficult of gardens at Whittis
Crescent.
I have emphasised that George Anderson
the Dundee Manager had always
retained a soft spot for his native village
and that was never more evident than on
the April 19th 1952 when he invited his
family, the players and the supporters of
Haydon Bridge Football Club to the
Scottish Cup Final at Hampden Park.
George’s generosity is still remembered
with gratitude to this day.
George arranged and paid for private
transport from Haydon Bridge to
Glasgow, accommodated the visitors
before and after the match in the team’s
hotel, had special seats reserved in
Scotland’s famous stadium and, had
Dundee won the cup, had reserved
places alongside the Dundee players at
Back row left to right:
Joe Nevin. Jackie Harrison. Norman Heslop. Jeff Marshall. ?not known? Robin Armstrong. Bus driver. Gilbert Smith.
Second back row:
Jackie Thompson. Tommy Westgarth. Matt Smith. Jackie Heslop. Dent Oliver. Ralph Curry. Tommy Nicholson. Eddie Moffat.
Middle row:
Nevin Kirsopp. Billy Irwin. Andy Doodle.
Second front row:
Jackie Wardle. Lyle Herdman. Lloyd Brown. John Heslop.
Front row:
Robert Harding. Lance Spooner. Dougie Eggleton. Ronnie Marshall.
APRIL 19th 1952 HAYDON BRIDGE’S TRIP TO HAMPDEN PARK
HAYDON NEWS
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5
the victory table.
Mary Pearce (nee Stokoe) travelled to
the game with her family and
remembers sitting in the stand while the
rest of the Haydon Bridge party were all
together in a special place in the ground.
“Memories of the cup final day are hazy
but I think that Peggy Bell (nee Brown)
- Peter and Frankie’s sister - made and
iced a fruit cake which was given to the
team at the hotel in George Square. The
coach took us there before the match and
we travelled to Hamden Park following
the team coach. I remember the police
escort!”
Ralph Curry was a member of the
travelling contingent from Haydon
Bridge that day over fifty six years ago
and he still remembers the occasion with
great pleasure.
“I’d just come out of the Air Force in
March and I was invited to go to the
final. I was twenty three years old.
It was a very enjoyable day of course,
all organised by George Anderson. We
went to the same hotel where the team
were staying. We had a meal at the
hotel and then the bus took us through
Glasgow.”
Like Mary, Ralph also has memories of
the police escort to Hampden Park.
“We felt quite important because the
Dundee players were in the bus in front
of us and we followed them with a
police escort through Glasgow.
It wasn’t a great game as I remember it
and Dundee got beat 4 - 0. But it was
enjoyable for all that.”
Ralph recalls only two low points in the
day other than the result.
“Dougie Eggleton was very tactless after
the match when he shouted to George
Anderson, who had put the whole day on
for us and was disappointed his team had
not performed well: ‘Bring your team
down to Haydon Bridge and we’ll show
you how to play.’ Dougie put his foot
right in it!”
The other story, amusing for those of us
who knew the gentleman concerned,
involves the consumption of alcohol.
Or in Ralph’s case, the lack of it.
“On the day, for me, there wasn’t much
drink involved. Some of the others had
a sup mind but I got stuck with Robin
and after we had a drink bought for us
and then I bought one, it was Robin’s
turn. So we sat looking at empty glasses
and those were the only two half beers
we had all night.”
There were over thirty villagers who
travelled to Hampden on April 19th
1952 and most of those in Haydon
Bridge who couldn’t travel, listened to
the commentary on the radio.
With no score at half time and
Motherwell goalkeeper and captain
Willie Kilmarnock keeping them in the
game with a number of goal line saves,
Dundee started the second half full of
confidence but Motherwell’s two goals
in two minutes ended the game as a
contest.
In spite of Dundee’s 4 - 0 defeat,
maybe our village footballers did learn
something from their visit to Hampden
that Saturday afternoon, as they went
on to win the Hexham and District
League; beating Bardon Mill 2-0 in the
last game of the season with goals
from Dent Oliver and Tommy
Westgarth.
Haydon Bridge’s post war record in
league and cup competitions had
dubbed them as the most consistent
local football team during the period
and George Anderson, the famous
football club manager, was known to
follow their progress as keenly as that
of his own club, Dundee F.C.
George Anderson retired as Dundee’s
manager in 1954 but continued as a
director of the club until his death on
May 28th 1956.
Obituaries to George Anderson in the
Scottish newspapers where fulsome in
their praise of the former Haydonian
who never forgot his roots.
Fred Donovan, the Scottish Football
League secretary was quoted:
‘Scottish football will be much the
poorer for his passing. He was a big
man in every way as he proved by
taking the Dundee club from obscurity
to the First Division and also taking
some of the best known post-war
playing personalities to Tay side.
George undoubtedly had a shrewd
football mind and the S.F.A. paid him
one of the greatest compliments by
appointing him a member of their
selection committee.’
Perhaps the most famous soccer
legislator of all time, Sir Stanley Rous,
secretary of the Football Association,
had this to say:
‘It is with much regret that I have
heard such sad news here in Berlin on
the eve of England’s international
match. Although George Anderson
had been comparatively inactive in
football recently, he was a splendid
legislator and a sound judge of a player,
and he rendered wonderful service to
Dundee Football Club. My deepest
sympathies lie with his widow and
daughter, whom I have known for many
years.’
And the Lord Provost of Aberdeen:
‘…...Although he never lost his love for
his native Northumberland, he took
more than an ordinary pride in his
adopted city. He was an exceedingly
kind and generous man, and tactful and
genial in his dealings with people. His
generosity knew no bounds and he will
long be remembered by countless
numbers of people.’
George’s wife Lily died on December
31st 1992, while their daughter Mildred
still lives in Aberdeen.
It was while writing these Historical
Notes that I learned that Mildred was
celebrating her 80th birthday, on August
29th this year. I wish her well from the
village of her father’s birth - a place he
never forgot and where he now has a
place forever in the Haydon News
archives - and thank her for her help in
putting together these memories of a
famous sporting Haydonian.
George Albert Anderson 1887 - 1956
Sources:
In addition to the friends, family and guests of
George Anderson, already mentioned, I am
grateful for the archives at Newcastle City and
Hexham Libraries and information found in the
Newcastle Daily Journal, the Newcastle Daily
Chronicle and the Hexham Courant.
100 YEARS
The Haydon Bridge ‘Town Hall’
celebrates its 100th anniversary this
month. Since it opened on the 27th
November 1908, the building has
provided great pleasure for residents and
next month I will publish part 1 of my
history of the Town Hall. Why don’t you
share your personal memories of the
Town Hall / Club with our readers?
Contact me, Dennis Telford, on 01434 684636,
leave a message at Claires Newsagents, or write
to me at ‘The Buildings’, West Rattenraw,
Haydon Bridge. NE47 6ED. Thank you.
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6
HAYDON NEWS
HAYDON BRIDGE NATURE CLUB
AUTUMN AND WINTER TALKS
September 2008 to April 2009
13th November:
Margaret Jacot.
‘The Golden Road to Samarkand,
Uzbekistan.’
27th November:
Naomi Hewitt.
‘North East Reptiles and Amphibians.’
11th December:
Ken Carlisle.
‘Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso.’
Talks are at 7.15 p.m.
in
Haydon Bridge Methodist Church
every other Thursday
Coffee/tea and biscuits provided
Annual subscription: £10
Non-members £2 each meeting
A programme of evening walks are
organised in the Summer 2009
ALL ARE WELCOME INCLUDING NEW
MEMBERS
PETER LONGSTAFFE
I wonder whether any of our older
readers, in the parish or on our World
Wide Web Site, remember Peter
Longstaffe? Peter arrived at Haydon
Bridge as a nine year old evacuee in
1942.
“I was taken to Newcastle Central
Station with a label round my neck on a
piece of string and put on the train. I
was an only child. It was my first time
away from home and I ended up in
Haydon Bridge. I had never heard of
Haydon Bridge before that!”
Peter stayed in our village for one year,
during which time his mother was only
able to visit him once.
As an evacuee, his memories of
Haydon Bridge sixty six years ago are
of places rather than names.
“I, along with two other evacuees,
lived with a lady in a house on
Ratcliffe Road; opposite the General
Havelock.
The village doesn’t seem a lot different
now; of course I used to walk over the
old bridge. Certainly I remember
Ratcliffe Road looking just like it does
today, except that if I looked out of the
front door to the left, there was a
smithy and there was very little traffic
on Ratcliffe Road then.
Oh! And I remember we had a back
lane where there was a midden and
they used to come round during the
night and empty it. I’d never come
across that sort of thing before. We
had flush toilets where my parents
lived at Denton Burn, although I was
born in Felling.”
Peter described to me how he loved
watching the blacksmith shaping his
ironwork and shoeing horses.
As a young boy from the town he was
fascinated, and it is Brown’s
blacksmith’s shop on Ratcliffe Road
more than anything else that has stayed
in his mind.
Peter was delighted to find that
although the smithy is no more, the
arched doorways he remembers so
well still remain, and an earlier
photograph of William Henderson
Brown and his helpers shoeing a horse
in 1905 was another reminder well
received by Peter.
Our visiting 1942 evacuee does have
other memories of his time here
however.
“I remember walking across the weir
below the bridge and getting told off
about that.”
The steam trains were also a source of
dubious pleasure.
“We used to put pennies on the line
and wait for the trains to come along
and crush them up.”
Goodness. The things these townies
got up to!!
“I loved the trains and spent a lot of
time in the station yard. That has
changed a lot since I was here but the
signal box and station gates look the
same.”
Peter was as disappointed as I am
when I told him that we are to lose our
traditional station gates, that provide
character to the village, as our Parish
Council’s efforts to save them