On The Ashes Tour we stopped off at one of the places from my early years of living in Chadderton in Lancashire. The trip was to take our Mum's ashes to their final resting place and on the way we visited a few places from her life and also from ours.
My Dad used to work for Latics as the "pools promoter". Back in the days before lotteries and scratch cards, people had to make do with more cerebral pleasures like trying to guess from 49 football (soccer to my US friends) games each weekend which would end up in a draw (okay for you a tie). On the coupon you marked 10 games with a cross and if you managed 8 or more you could win. Some people won fortunes. Okay by today's standard it wasn't much, but by 1960 standards it was more than you could ever imagine.
Instead of scratch cards, they had tickets with the time in them. If a goal was scored that matched your ticket you would win a small prize.
My Dad managed those fund raising activities in his spare time when not working as an auditor for Platts (a now defunct mill equipment manufacturer), and also occasionally at the Alexandra Ballroom in Oldham where they had bingo and he used to do shifts there.
When we arrived, we took a few pics out front.
After a tour around the shop looking for something as simple as a small sticker for my pannier, and being unsuccessful, we saw they had left the gate open at the side and so we were able to sneak in and take some pix.
This stand, above, used to be open terrace when I was a kid and I stood behind the goal with my Aunt Linda and across the road my Mum worked in the maternity unit of Boundary Park Hospital. Now called the Royal Oldham!
The building site on the far side replaces a stand built in the 1970's which in turn replaced the old wooden stand where my dad used to sit with his cronies from the Supporters Club, whilst Linda and I roughed it behind the goal, to the right of the shot.
Sadly, we weren't on a football trip. Had we been, Latics were home later that day where they managed to lose 1-0 to Walsall in their Sky Bet League One game, and we could have stayed.
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