OBJECT LESSONS NO. 2

Following on from the recent post about how a Merthyr Tydfil AFC badge accompanied my journey through the highs & lows of secondary school education in our fair borough, a recent clear out of stuff from my house has brought a few more items of memorabilia from that era of youthful exuberance back into focus.

The seventies wasn’t a bad decade to follow the Martyrs. It started with John Charles and that beautiful mauve & yellow football kit. Broken hearts against Hendon and Tooting & Mitcham too. It ended with the heartache of that midweek defeat to Burton Albion and no promotion but in between we had the Chesham United FA Cup disappointment.

Penydarren Park was a lot different to the stadium we enjoy today. The ground was only two-sided with just Main Stand and Wank Bank providing any cover so behind each goal there was plenty of space to play football, tell tall tales and run wild.

We watched both Match of the Day and The Big Match every weekend and marveled at the big crowds, the home-made banners, the terrace chants and the scarves.

Everyone wore a scarf in the seventies. The decade started with the traditional bar scarf either worn around the neck to fend off another British winter or more exotically around the wrist for the edgier look of the football hooligan. TV footage from those days now seem laughable with the flares, platform shoes and scarves making any terrace fight look like one of those battles from another TV hit of the time It’s A Knockout.

Sadly there was no club shop at Penydarren Park although every now and again the tea hut next to the Main Stand would have rosettes or badges in stock but nothing more than that really.

Those lads whose dads worked away sometimes turned up with something black & white from a visit to the Vetch Field but something practical to keep you warm and to show your allegiance to the Martyrs wasn’t accessible for many of us.

As everyone in Merthyr Tydfil knows, the seventies were the last real decade of the big industrial employers in our town. British Coal, Thorns, Tri-ang and of course the financial and social centre of thousands of lives, the Hoover factory in Pentrebach.

There was no family in Merthyr Tydfil that didn’t have a relative working for Hoover. This decade was probably also the final years of the socially responsible employer. Thatcher would arrive at the tail end of that era and declare that society was dead and then do her best to make it true.

Hoover Sports & Social had cricket, football and bowls teams and the Children’s Christmas Parties were legendary for the entertainment, food and presents. The long walk from the hall through the factory to find your parents always seemed to take ages and every year you had the suspicion that you’d been abandoned.

Everything in my life revolved around Hoover. From listening to political debate about the factory’s future, to hearing the myth about the names of the Seven Dwarves being painted on one of the walls to stop the arguments about whether Bashful was actually one of them, to the main reason for this article – the entrepreneurial spirit of the factory worker.

If there was a new fashion or innovation, then we found out about it through Hoover. My dad would constantly come home with all manner of items that you could get from his fellow workers. It must have been like a bazaar on the factory floor.

So, you can imagine my excitement when news of a knitting machine reached my house. Someone’s wife had a new machine that could knit anything but with a design or even lettering, what kind of magic was this!

My dad followed up this leap forward in the wool trade by handing over a black & white bar scarf to me, I was very happy but when I noted the wording on both ends of the scarf I was overjoyed. On both ends were the words “MARK” and “MERTHYR”.

This scarf was all about identity. Yes, I was called Mark but more importantly I supported Merthyr Tydfil AFC. This wasn’t a general scarf that happened to be black & white and therefore could apply to hundreds of other football clubs, this one proclaimed my loyalty to the Martyrs of Penydarren Park.

I wore it every day of course although I would always fold the scarf so that only “MERTHYR” was displayed. It was my pride & joy for a few seasons and then as with everything, time moved on and new shiny things attracted my attention.

Until recently when I found that scarf once again and all the memories from that era came flooding back. I’m going to wear it again.

Chaiman Mao