On the Road Again!

The trip to Oldham ended up being  a 608 mile round trip from home via my brother's to the football ground and then down to our Aunt's house in Manchester. The journey up from Neill's took four and a half hours to Oldham, and back Home from Manchester about the same. In the end it was worth it as Oldham won and stay in League 1 another year. This is the brick I bought in my Dad's memory. It's in the outer wall of the new stand. Dad's brick Away fans... there are some. Honest!

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 ...