Land of My Fathers, Mothers & Many, Many Others
Almost everyone I know has a sports story to tell.
Here are some of the words and pictures that you’ve shared with us about the involvement of your Fathers, Mothers, Sons, Daughters, Brothers, Sisters, Nephews, Nieces, Uncles, Aunties and Others in your sports stories.
Land Of My Fathers
Gary Spain's Story (Ireland)
I can remember kicking a football with my father in Butlins during the 1970 World Cup. I was 3. It is my earliest memory. My first day in school still a couple of weeks before my 4th birthday is my next memory from that September. Football was always there.
My father was mainly a football man and had been going since the late 1940’s but his parents or two older sisters had no interest. He first went outside Limerick aged 14 in 1953 and travelled to Dundalk (360 mile roundtrip) alone to watch Limerick win the LoI Shield (our first national trophy). My mother came from a rugby family but her uncle played with Limerick in the late 1930’s (club was founded in 1937). The family were also football fans.
My father and me with the president of Real Madrid in the Bernabeu in 1980 before Real Madrid v Limerick
My first football matches were a few months before my 5th birthday in the Spring of 1971. Unfortunately I replaced the programmes complete with my crayon drawings with better copies and will never know my first game now. My father was a League of Ireland linesman and later referee. My maternal grandfather mainly brought me to games as a boy. I remember crying at not being brought to the 1971 FAI Cup Final (Limerick’s first win) but have no memory of the cup win. My maternal grandmother minded me as my parents and grandfather went. I can remember games from the 1971/72 season and went every week from the start of 1972/73. My first away game was in Cork in April 1973
If Limerick were away I would go with my father when he was officiating in Athlone or Waterford from aged 8. I’d sit in the stand alone during games but join him at half time and full time in the dressing rooms. He wouldn’t bring me to Cork (closer than the other 2) as the referee’s inspector wouldn’t have approved. Dublin, Drogheda et al were considered too far for me.
My first senior International match was a 3-3 draw v Wales in Limerick in May 1974. Two of the Welsh team stayed in our house and my Dad was linesman. I didn’t see our men play for another year. A 2-1 win over Switzerland in May 1975 in Lansdowne Road. He wouldn’t bring me to the USSR game in 1974 as it was in Dalymount Park and he reckoned it was too dangerous and I’d see nothing. I listened on the radio (not on tv) and was leaping around the kitchen as we won 3-0. I remember listening to English football on BBC radio from as early as January 1972. Peter Osgood scored in Chelsea’s 1-0 win at Old Trafford. The commentator gave the final score as Manchester United nought Chelsea 1. I recall asking my mother what nought was to see who won. I watched the FA Cup Final on tv, the FAI Cup Final and the ECWC Final that year. They were probably the only 3 live games on Irish TV then as the sports department was run by somebody who only wanted to show gaelic sports. Match of the Day wasn’t available for another 4 years. It was huge for me albeit shown at 11.30pm after BBC. My father used to wake me to watch it together and I’d go back to bed afterwards.
Land of my mothers
Anne Blaha's Story (USA)
My Dad was not into sports. But my Mom–Holy Cow! to quote Harry Caray (a prominent Chicago Cubs broadcaster) My Mom grew up in Wisconsin and became an “official cubs Fan” in 1927, at the age of 5. When she died in 2001 we buried her with her Cubs hat and bequeathed her Official Die Hard Cubs Fan certificate to my cousin who is as crazy as my Mom for the Cubs.
I grew up in Davenport Iowa, on the Mississippi River border with Illinois. Cubs were THE team in our area (a few Twins and a few Cards fan, though). So, I grew up thinking the Cubs had invented sliced bread. In high school we moved to Des Moines in the center of the state and I attended some minor league baseball games in high school and college.
Then, I met Tom (my future husband) and all of a sudden I learned that Sports is Life. As they say the rest is history!
Football (soccer) is my favorite sport but next is baseball. Or vice-versa. During the Bowl season college football is the best ever. Coming down to the Final Four I know that basketball is my favorite. NHL Finals?? Yep! Scotland and Wales rugby—ohhh yeah Very exciting! Minor league? Pro league? School teams? Neighborhood games?} they are all on an equal basis as a source of entertainment, geography, history and sociology.
A non negotiable commitment - by Tim Evans
For a self-acclaimed professional sports fan, my early development into the inexorable agony that sport so often delivers is sketchy. I have no idea what age I was, but my first sporting memory was being plonked down in front of a new TV, delivered courtesy of Radio Rentals, to watch a rather scratchy image of a rugby match that purported to be England v Wales. I was unclear of the rules (indeed I’m still pretty shaky even now), but that mattered not. I was hooked. My father, a proud Welshman who was brought up in Llandebie, enquired as to who I was supporting. It wasn’t really a question, more a command, for before I could compose myself he had answered for me. The years since might have clouded my recollection of his judgement, but the crux of it was, “I’m only going to tell you this once son and this is non-negotiable. You are Welsh and proud of it.” And that, as they say, was that.
So there I was, on a path that would lead to many, many nights of bitter disappointment, interspersed with a few nuggets of joy. A path that included following both the rugby and football codes with Wales, fanaticism for Southampton FC and later an appreciation of AFC Bournemouth, along with a string of other teams including the Detroit Lions, Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Tigers, Michigan Football, Bowling Green State University Athletics, Poole Town and many more. There’s such a ton of hurt and pain laced into those teams that to share it would take too long and be too depressing. But despite all of that, those flashes of brilliance, however rare, make it so worthwhile. Along the way, sport has provided so many great memories with friends and family, very often in far flung parts of the globe, enabling me to also satisfy a lust for travel. It’s no exaggeration to say that I really couldn’t imagine life without sport. It would be well boring.
As my own years have clicked by, I have found solace in sharing my pain with others. My son Gareth, wife Lucy, along with my mother Jan, sister Rach, nephew Dan and the rest of my extended family have been force-fed a diet of Southampton FC. And if that weren’t enough, I’ve encouraged many friends to become fans of the Detroit sports teams, including the Detroit Lions, who for the last 50 years have been on an almost biblical mission to redefine futility on the sporting field.
To those that I encouraged to jump aboard, I am truly sorry.
But one day soon, I’m sure we’ll be celebrating something. Keeps you alive doesn’t it?
Gareth and "Sav"
LOMF & Kids!
Jeremy Gutierrez' Story (USA)
Jeremy Gutierrez said about this selfie: “This is my boys and my dad at the Michigan v. Army home game this past season (2019). First time Michigan played Army since 1962.
This was a special moment for me as it connected 3 Gutierrez generations in The Big House. Saturdays in the fall months are all about family and Michigan football… and when we can bring it all together it makes for a special day. The boys love going to the games, especially with my dad, who can connect them to their Michigan and family roots.”
Tom & Noel Blaha's Story (USA)
Take us out to the Ball Game
Remember this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYWX7ZXd5I
A Father and Son memory: The picture to the left is of Tom Blaha’s son Noel at Progressive Field, Cleveland, Ohio. Tom says this is an especially warming set of photos as despite being born in Scotland, Noel is a fourth generation Indians’ fan, in fact named after his grandfather Noel who attended the most recent (Tom won’t say “last”) World Series Cleveland WON in 1948 in their old stadium (Municipal). Noel attended, with Tom, the very last league game played in that stadium in 1991. With the help (and a borrowed “hard hat”) from the ball club, Tom and Noel visited the “new” stadium whilst under construction that same day.
Twenty five years (and a lot of ball games) later, the two went to a World Series game together in that “new” stadium.
Tom says he is raising his family “in the faith” and he now boasts his grandsons Campbell & Andrew are fifth generation Cleveland Indians’ fans.
Dad, Wrexham and the World - by Andy Jones
Along with most lifelong football fans, and many on here, I can trace the familiar backstory of being taken to the local football team by a father. In my case Wrexham in the mid 70s. One of the first games was a famous European quarter final tie with Anderlecht, then one of Europe’s leading sides with many of Hollands’ 74 and 78 finalists. In the humdrum, grey mid 70s, seeing the European elite resplendent in shiny Adidas under lights, Wrexham in a one off Bayern style all red Adidas.The same month the FAW celebrated their centenary with a kit that would look jaw dropping today, never mind 1976. My town and my nation seemed cosmopolitan, glamorous and internationalist. European adventures would follow over the next decade or more as I grew up. Wales games would be played at Wrexham’s Racecourse. Exotic sides from behind the Iron Curtain would arrive to play club and country. As opposed to being bred to follow other small town provincial sides, this gave a real sense of there being a world way beyond the then three tv channel analogue world.
Back home, I was an off and on follower of Wrexham. A decade ago Phil Stead’s Red Dragons book came out, a book that certainly changed my life, at least the football part.. A history of football in Wales, it argued the deeply embedded sense of place and feeling of identity that resonated throughout every corner of Wales, every club, ground and game. I began to drift away from turgid fifth tier games at Wrexham’s Racecourse to places like Holywell Town, Caernarfon, Llanberis and Llanrhaeadr-yn-Mochnant. A decade ago, spurred on by being a Spanish speak, I learnt fluent Welsh. I got to know faces around the grounds. Many were Welsh speakers, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world. In 2016/2017 I managed to see a game in all eleven rounds of the Welsh Cup, from Felinheli to the final at Bangor.
A twenty year teaching career had largely prevented me from term time Wales away trips, but a career change allowed me to start travelling to European exotica. Even Los Angeles as 80,000 LA Chicanos roared on El Tri against Wales in a WC2018 warm up, and memorably, a trip to China, a country I’d never thought of visiting, to see Wales face the hosts and Uruguay.
All the above came from my dad taking me to football. There are amazing highs, numbing lows, but mostly, like adult life, its about finding your place in the world and getting on with it. It’s all worth it, from beating Belgium in a Euro 2016 QF to driving down the mountain from Mynydd Llandegai FC on a summer’s evening and seeing the sun setting over the distant Isle of Man. And I can’t imagine any of it without football.
Land of My Fathers, Mothers and Others
The Garrard Family's Story (Wales)
Growing up as a family watching rugby in Wales
The Garrards at Parc Y Scarlets after travelling 10 hours from Brittany, watching Wales beat Luxembourg 5:1.
Peter Oswald continues his family's passion for mountain climbing.
These photos are of Peter climbing in the 1960s.
Peter writes “I was introduced to mountaineering in the 1950s. I think it was the father of a school friend who took me and my brother on our first real mountain tour (with SAC hut, glacier and so on); I must have been around twelve years old.
Later on, as we always spent our family holidays in the mountains, we took our father on some tours, with the boys in the lead. Father was more of a hiker than a mountaineer, so the passion for more exciting mountain action came into being with my brother and me.
In the years after I was sixteen, I got more mountaineering education in summer vacation courses which were pre-military.
And Mountain Climbing in Wales
Gareth Morlais’ family also enjoyed climbing – here he is aged about 17 climbing in North Wales at Craig y Forwyn in 1978.
Gareth was introduced to rock climbing by family friend Huw Watkins.
Steven 'Goldy' Goldstein (USA)
Goldy was brought up holding a bat, running with the ball and chasing a puck
Land of Their Father L to R: Ryan (Dad Steve – or Goldy to his buddies) Brett and Eric. The family are pictured at the Baltimore Ravens M&T Bank Stadium
Andrew Brown and son (based in France near the Swiss border)
Andrew Brown writes “Sean skiing (it still feels like a huge privilege to be in the mountains every time we go) & one of me on the bike in the Vosges mountains ”
