There was also the gate where when you'd paid your 3d to get in as a kid your dad could wait for you at the gate and take you through onto the terracing with the adults.

Half the kids used to watch for another young lad going through with his dad and say to the steward pointing to the lads dad "I'm with him" and you'd get through.

Watched Wigan from there during my first season in 80/81. I remember being stood next to a strange man at my very first Wigan game. That man, I later discovered was Gary Bennett.

I was just about to post the same. How many dads did them kids have?

Is he immortal like Captain Jack in Torchwood? Doesn't seem to age.

He used to ref me as a kid in the mid 80's..????

What was a fully grown man doing standing around kids?



Oh, wait a minute.....

Sometimes we got free tickets off Mr McDermott at St Pats. See there were even freebies in those days.

My first few games were spent in the Hen Pen aged 13 (I think) until I realised that the all the singing from Pop Stand didn't mean it was about to erupt into violence, so I spent almost all the rest of my Central Park "career" there instead.

Yeah, but were they paid for even though you were 'given' them?

Did Gary Bennett talk a lot ?

Never stops, will be there tomorrow night probably.

Talks a lot in Perpignan on a Saturday afternoon by the river but goes quieter after the game on Saturday night.