@AlanCecil said:
If we play Sheff Wed, then its likely we will play in the red and white quarters as the higher finishing side in the League season gets to choose their home kit.
Plenty of red and white shirts still on sale.
If SW and Sunderland can both wear white stripes in the same match (semi 1st leg) then I can’t see blue/white stripes against blue quarters shoukd be a cause for change
Going solely on the interest from friends and family, as soon as the final whistle went there are at least twice as many people asking me about tickets than for the Southend final (at least when I landed after being up in the air returning from a stag weekend). The situation of the club in the years leading up to the Southend final (three years of battling relegation, a decade of being marginalised in our home town by the egg-chasing parasites) was far worse than where we are today (years of building up success, the unprecedented success of getting to the Championship, extra determination perhaps to go to big events again after Covid).
If we mustered 17,000 against the backdrop of the barren years leading to 2015, then I would say that 25,000 would be the lower end of my estimate for this final. The upper end would be low to mid 30,000s if we really capture the wider Wycombe area's imagination during the next 12 days.
This is an enormous opportunity to get a new generation of kids and young adults hooked on the club just like people of my generation were by the glory years under Martin O'Neill. The supporters who took the club to their hearts then helped take the club to dizzying heights and have to a large extent sustained us as a professional club, something that was scarcely imaginable even 5 years before O'Neill joined.
That this current era can even be mentioned in the same breath as the magical days of the early 90s is a testament to all everyone at the club has done rebuilding the club from the wreckage of the Steve Hayes years.
@AlanCecil said:
If we play Sheff Wed, then its likely we will play in the red and white quarters as the higher finishing side in the League season gets to choose their home kit.
Plenty of red and white shirts still on sale.
If SW and Sunderland can both wear white stripes in the same match (semi 1st leg) then I can’t see blue/white stripes against blue quarters shoukd be a cause for change
But it will be……..
I know exactly who's down thumbed you for that as well !
They've both got black shorts on as well, we've been made to change before for wearing the same.colour pants !
You can't seriously be suggesting that blue + blue and white isn't a colour clash? Blue and white stripes v red and white stripes is totally standard - is anyone having trouble telling the two teams apart? I don't think teams should be able to wear the same colour shorts, but it's ultimately down to the ref as far as I can tell.
@ReturnToSenda said:
You can't seriously be suggesting that blue + blue and white isn't a colour clash? Blue and white stripes v red and white stripes is totally standard - is anyone having trouble telling the two teams apart? I don't think teams should be able to wear the same colour shorts, but it's ultimately down to the ref as far as I can tell.
When we played Bristol Rovers and we both played in our first-choice blue varsity blues quarters and they in their mid-blue and white quarters it worked (certainly for the ref who ok'ed it), although I appreciate that the ability to distinguish shades of colours varies a lot from person to person.
@ReturnToSenda said:
You can't seriously be suggesting that blue + blue and white isn't a colour clash? Blue and white stripes v red and white stripes is totally standard - is anyone having trouble telling the two teams apart? I don't think teams should be able to wear the same colour shorts, but it's ultimately down to the ref as far as I can tell.
When we played Bristol Rovers and we both played in our first-choice blue varsity blues quarters and they in their mid-blue and white quarters it worked (certainly for the ref who ok'ed it), although I appreciate that the ability to distinguish shades of colours varies a lot from person to person.
Yeah, that's messing with my eyes! Always go for maximum possible contrast imo (so Sunderland in their yellow away kit would have been better, although this is perfectly fine).
Some points to consider if anyone is slightly disappointed by any lesser numbers of supporters at Wembley this year compared with the large numbers at Runcorn and especially the amateur cup figures of decades ago.as some seem to have been at such as the Southend match or even the Preston playoff.
Owing to Wycombe’s position in the most expensive area of the country. Ie London and the South East many people of my generation from hitherto Bucks families with roots going back into history have been forced to leave the region due to the impossibility of buying a property in the area. I live up north now and many friends and acquaintances have had to leave the south east too I know of others up here and many more in places such as the West Country. All these were the kind of working class people who form football’s natural constituency and many were wanderers fans. In their place have moved into the area people from London or from all other areas of England who have moved to take up well paid jobs in London. Many of these are not interested in football or still retain sympathies with the clubs from where they or their families.originated. This has been going on around Wycombe for decades but has got even worse even in the days since we took such a large amount to the Runcorn match.
Further afield from Wycombe itself in the villages and small towns of south bucks it has been happening since the late 50s as the places have become some of the most expensive settlements in the country. It’s easy to forget that places like the Chalfonts up until the mid 50s (aside from a couple of roads on the outskirts full of big houses that had no real interaction with the villagers anyway) were full of basically working class people. My mum’s family came from over there and were working class and provided sone of those massive Amateur cup final attendances when Wycombe town itself was far smaller than it is today.
Nearly all of the people in those villages up until the start of the 1960s were from true Bucks families with Bucks accents to match and mostly all linked by families.they provided all the members of the village football teams. Now however in places like Chalfont St Giles there are still probably a thousand maybe a few more Bucks people left in a ‘village’ of over 10000 people lbut almost completely confined to the council estates. The chance of the true natives affording a house their truly laughable. Those handful of locals do keep the local football teams going though in those places often in a battle with newcomers if they want to improve their ground etc.
The number of newcomers to such areas who follow football and especially the local variety are probably vanishingly small now and would if they’re team sports followers at all be firmly Rugby Union.
Nowhere to me was this battle Wycombe have to keep attendances high more evident than during Marlows FA cup runs of the early 1990s where on Marlows east side which contains the council estates and in those days the pubs those people frequented all those pubs ran coaches up to Spurs while on the towns west side almost completely very middle class and full of newcomers and posher pubs you wouldn’t have known there was an FA Cup third round match on. I lived in the town for a bit then and I went up to White Hart Lane. Different team obviously to Wycombe but Marlow’s experience is a microcosm of what Wycombe are up against.
In Wycombe things are further exacerbated by the ‘white flight‘ that has happened in places like Castleford in the last few decades which is now heavily Asian which once again is a community not known for following local football teams.
Also Bucks has the smallest number of elderly people proportionately of any county in England - this again a result of the transient nature of the population - families moving in staying for their working years but then moving away to retire someone less hectic while many/most of their children moving away to university and not returning.
Wycombe in the surface of it may be a fair sized town in a generally very highly populated area (the South East) with in any other area outside the south east seemingly massive amounts of potential supporters to call on but that statement shows little of the reality of the situation. As many of their natural supporters have had to over the years leave the area for financial reasons..A sort of almost ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Bucks working classes by the incoming middle classes from the rest of England and pusher areas of London. At its most outrageous the massive council house waiting list occupants in Wycombe and Slough were tempted by offers of vacant houses in places like Huddersfield and Blackburn (in the days when we had empty houses up here) not knowing that these were vacant because they were those houses situated on the most rough estates in the towns which most Bucks people wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. By the time the unfortunate Wycombe and Slough people realised this they were marooned there with no way back or any chance of moving to their new home towns more salubrious council estates. Killing two birds with one stone by clearing out of the housing lists and gerrymandering by NIMBY’s who didn’t even originate from the south east or at least Wycombe or Slough in the first place and who were worried they might knock a few quid if the price of their houses by rehousing people who could often trace their roots in the area back hundreds of years..
I’ve written on this before on other sites but there’s definitely a book to be written on it by someone with the time and expanded upon by how it has now happened/is happening all over the country. It’s spread up here and in the West Country in more recent years albeit in only certain areas but spread it has. In villages where aside from maybe a small council estate or in smaller villages a row of council houses in places like Cheshire, the nicer parts of the West Country and Lancashire (the Ribble Valley etc), the Yorkshire Dales all the natives have been forced out to be replaced by the rich escaping the cities and the second home owners. And often with that goes the end of village football and other local pursuits too.
So if Wycombe had reached Wembley for something like a Football League play-off (hypothetically of course as there were no play-offs and we were not in the Football League) in the 1930s, 40s or 50s can anyone imagine the demand for tickets and the potential amount of supporters Wycombe would have been able to take to Wembley back then?
I remember the whole of the youth club I belonged to going by coach to Brentford to see the Amateur cup semi-final in about 1949. Most of them, especially the girls, were not that interested in football but it was our local club and it was a good day out/ The key to getting that sort of following on the day will be the cost of the tickets.
A commendable, well-argued post. I still find it interesting that Wycombe ranked top (I seem to remember) of the food poverty charts last year. Given that the “cost of living crisis” has worsened since then it should be recognised that a (depressingly) high proportion of the local population can’t remotely afford to go. Add those to the (depressingly) high proportion of those new inhabitants of the local area that you eloquently describe and I actually think that anything above 20,000 from us will be a good result
I assume that tickets can be bought separately from the clubs' allocations if people prefer that. Is that correct? They do seem priced rather too high to attract those who are not committed to the two clubs taking part.
@BuryExileWasRochdale , would I be right in assuming that you voted for Johnson at the last election and that you would advocate compulsory resettlement of invaders into the wrong side of Marlow to Rwanda?
Going back to original point I am hoping we follow the Wycombe and District schools from the early 80’s who beat Sunderland schools to land the big prize. Mark West, Kevin Keen and all showed the way for Saturday
The cost of watching sports way back was not like it is today. My tickets to watch the Olympics in 1948 cost 12/6d. The final at Wembley in 1957 and previous
semi-finals at Brentford and Doncaster were more than covered by my Saturday morning job so there is really no comparison with today. People of all ages would want to go because it was our local team. Nowadays you really need to be dedicated to the cause and hats off to all those from both clubs and their friends who are making the effort. I hope it turns out to be a really good game. I will watch on TV with a cup of tea handy.
@Right_in_the_Middle said:
Going back to original point I am hoping we follow the Wycombe and District schools from the early 80’s who beat Sunderland schools to land the big prize. Mark West, Kevin Keen and all showed the way for Saturday
@wingnut said:
The cost of watching sports way back was not like it is today. My tickets to watch the Olympics in 1948 cost 12/6d. The final at Wembley in 1957 and previous
semi-finals at Brentford and Doncaster were more than covered by my Saturday morning job so there is really no comparison with today. People of all ages would want to go because it was our local team. Nowadays you really need to be dedicated to the cause and hats off to all those from both clubs and their friends who are making the effort. I hope it turns out to be a really good game. I will watch on TV with a cup of tea handy.
Sadly, that is a very good point. I can remember standing on the Stretford End for £1.50 in the mid 80s and other First Division terraces for not much more than that. The only other purchase I can think of that has risen way faster than inflation is property. And far fewer young people can afford that either.
@Right_in_the_Middle said:
Going back to original point I am hoping we follow the Wycombe and District schools from the early 80’s who beat Sunderland schools to land the big prize. Mark West, Kevin Keen and all showed the way for Saturday
And Keith Dublin and Rambo Bressington.
I was at the home leg, and the previous game against East London.
@Right_in_the_Middle said:
Going back to original point I am hoping we follow the Wycombe and District schools from the early 80’s who beat Sunderland schools to land the big prize. Mark West, Kevin Keen and all showed the way for Saturday
And Keith Dublin and Rambo Bressington.> @LDF said:
@Right_in_the_Middle said:
Going back to original point I am hoping we follow the Wycombe and District schools from the early 80’s who beat Sunderland schools to land the big prize. Mark West, Kevin Keen and all showed the way for Saturday
And Keith Dublin and Rambo Bressington.
I was at the home leg, and the previous game against East London.
I went to every home game that year, we beat some team 9-0 in an earlier rnd. I think they were from Herts, they had tow names. Second name was something like Carricot or daricot
@LDF said:
I was at the home leg, and the previous game against East London.
It was my year at school - knew a good number of the lads and went to all the games including the Sunderland away leg. Travelled up on the Wycombe supporters coach having got special permission from school to be late in the next day!
@BuryExileWasRochdale said:
Some points to consider if anyone is slightly disappointed by any lesser numbers of supporters at Wembley this year compared with the large numbers at Runcorn and especially the amateur cup figures of decades ago.as some seem to have been at such as the Southend match or even the Preston playoff.
Owing to Wycombe’s position in the most expensive area of the country. Ie London and the South East many people of my generation from hitherto Bucks families with roots going back into history have been forced to leave the region due to the impossibility of buying a property in the area. I live up north now and many friends and acquaintances have had to leave the south east too I know of others up here and many more in places such as the West Country. All these were the kind of working class people who form football’s natural constituency and many were wanderers fans. In their place have moved into the area people from London or from all other areas of England who have moved to take up well paid jobs in London. Many of these are not interested in football or still retain sympathies with the clubs from where they or their families.originated. This has been going on around Wycombe for decades but has got even worse even in the days since we took such a large amount to the Runcorn match.
Further afield from Wycombe itself in the villages and small towns of south bucks it has been happening since the late 50s as the places have become some of the most expensive settlements in the country. It’s easy to forget that places like the Chalfonts up until the mid 50s (aside from a couple of roads on the outskirts full of big houses that had no real interaction with the villagers anyway) were full of basically working class people. My mum’s family came from over there and were working class and provided sone of those massive Amateur cup final attendances when Wycombe town itself was far smaller than it is today.
Nearly all of the people in those villages up until the start of the 1960s were from true Bucks families with Bucks accents to match and mostly all linked by families.they provided all the members of the village football teams. Now however in places like Chalfont St Giles there are still probably a thousand maybe a few more Bucks people left in a ‘village’ of over 10000 people lbut almost completely confined to the council estates. The chance of the true natives affording a house their truly laughable. Those handful of locals do keep the local football teams going though in those places often in a battle with newcomers if they want to improve their ground etc.
The number of newcomers to such areas who follow football and especially the local variety are probably vanishingly small now and would if they’re team sports followers at all be firmly Rugby Union.
Nowhere to me was this battle Wycombe have to keep attendances high more evident than during Marlows FA cup runs of the early 1990s where on Marlows east side which contains the council estates and in those days the pubs those people frequented all those pubs ran coaches up to Spurs while on the towns west side almost completely very middle class and full of newcomers and posher pubs you wouldn’t have known there was an FA Cup third round match on. I lived in the town for a bit then and I went up to White Hart Lane. Different team obviously to Wycombe but Marlow’s experience is a microcosm of what Wycombe are up against.
In Wycombe things are further exacerbated by the ‘white flight‘ that has happened in places like Castleford in the last few decades which is now heavily Asian which once again is a community not known for following local football teams.
Also Bucks has the smallest number of elderly people proportionately of any county in England - this again a result of the transient nature of the population - families moving in staying for their working years but then moving away to retire someone less hectic while many/most of their children moving away to university and not returning.
Wycombe in the surface of it may be a fair sized town in a generally very highly populated area (the South East) with in any other area outside the south east seemingly massive amounts of potential supporters to call on but that statement shows little of the reality of the situation. As many of their natural supporters have had to over the years leave the area for financial reasons..A sort of almost ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Bucks working classes by the incoming middle classes from the rest of England and pusher areas of London. At its most outrageous the massive council house waiting list occupants in Wycombe and Slough were tempted by offers of vacant houses in places like Huddersfield and Blackburn (in the days when we had empty houses up here) not knowing that these were vacant because they were those houses situated on the most rough estates in the towns which most Bucks people wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. By the time the unfortunate Wycombe and Slough people realised this they were marooned there with no way back or any chance of moving to their new home towns more salubrious council estates. Killing two birds with one stone by clearing out of the housing lists and gerrymandering by NIMBY’s who didn’t even originate from the south east or at least Wycombe or Slough in the first place and who were worried they might knock a few quid if the price of their houses by rehousing people who could often trace their roots in the area back hundreds of years..
I’ve written on this before on other sites but there’s definitely a book to be written on it by someone with the time and expanded upon by how it has now happened/is happening all over the country. It’s spread up here and in the West Country in more recent years albeit in only certain areas but spread it has. In villages where aside from maybe a small council estate or in smaller villages a row of council houses in places like Cheshire, the nicer parts of the West Country and Lancashire (the Ribble Valley etc), the Yorkshire Dales all the natives have been forced out to be replaced by the rich escaping the cities and the second home owners. And often with that goes the end of village football and other local pursuits too.
So if Wycombe had reached Wembley for something like a Football League play-off (hypothetically of course as there were no play-offs and we were not in the Football League) in the 1930s, 40s or 50s can anyone imagine the demand for tickets and the potential amount of supporters Wycombe would have been able to take to Wembley back then?
Just read this. Yep, a good summary of the situation, I'm also an exile with no hope of returning. To try and put a positive on it, there is huge untapped potential amongst the rich and amongst those who football clubs tend to ignore because football is not 'in their culture'. Minds greater than mine can suggest how that can be done but our survival might depend on it in the long.
@BuryExileWasRochdale said:
Some points to consider if anyone is slightly disappointed by any lesser numbers of supporters at Wembley this year compared with the large numbers at Runcorn and especially the amateur cup figures of decades ago.as some seem to have been at such as the Southend match or even the Preston playoff.
Owing to Wycombe’s position in the most expensive area of the country. Ie London and the South East many people of my generation from hitherto Bucks families with roots going back into history have been forced to leave the region due to the impossibility of buying a property in the area. I live up north now and many friends and acquaintances have had to leave the south east too I know of others up here and many more in places such as the West Country. All these were the kind of working class people who form football’s natural constituency and many were wanderers fans. In their place have moved into the area people from London or from all other areas of England who have moved to take up well paid jobs in London. Many of these are not interested in football or still retain sympathies with the clubs from where they or their families.originated. This has been going on around Wycombe for decades but has got even worse even in the days since we took such a large amount to the Runcorn match.
Further afield from Wycombe itself in the villages and small towns of south bucks it has been happening since the late 50s as the places have become some of the most expensive settlements in the country. It’s easy to forget that places like the Chalfonts up until the mid 50s (aside from a couple of roads on the outskirts full of big houses that had no real interaction with the villagers anyway) were full of basically working class people. My mum’s family came from over there and were working class and provided sone of those massive Amateur cup final attendances when Wycombe town itself was far smaller than it is today.
Nearly all of the people in those villages up until the start of the 1960s were from true Bucks families with Bucks accents to match and mostly all linked by families.they provided all the members of the village football teams. Now however in places like Chalfont St Giles there are still probably a thousand maybe a few more Bucks people left in a ‘village’ of over 10000 people lbut almost completely confined to the council estates. The chance of the true natives affording a house their truly laughable. Those handful of locals do keep the local football teams going though in those places often in a battle with newcomers if they want to improve their ground etc.
The number of newcomers to such areas who follow football and especially the local variety are probably vanishingly small now and would if they’re team sports followers at all be firmly Rugby Union.
Nowhere to me was this battle Wycombe have to keep attendances high more evident than during Marlows FA cup runs of the early 1990s where on Marlows east side which contains the council estates and in those days the pubs those people frequented all those pubs ran coaches up to Spurs while on the towns west side almost completely very middle class and full of newcomers and posher pubs you wouldn’t have known there was an FA Cup third round match on. I lived in the town for a bit then and I went up to White Hart Lane. Different team obviously to Wycombe but Marlow’s experience is a microcosm of what Wycombe are up against.
In Wycombe things are further exacerbated by the ‘white flight‘ that has happened in places like Castleford in the last few decades which is now heavily Asian which once again is a community not known for following local football teams.
Also Bucks has the smallest number of elderly people proportionately of any county in England - this again a result of the transient nature of the population - families moving in staying for their working years but then moving away to retire someone less hectic while many/most of their children moving away to university and not returning.
Wycombe in the surface of it may be a fair sized town in a generally very highly populated area (the South East) with in any other area outside the south east seemingly massive amounts of potential supporters to call on but that statement shows little of the reality of the situation. As many of their natural supporters have had to over the years leave the area for financial reasons..A sort of almost ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Bucks working classes by the incoming middle classes from the rest of England and pusher areas of London. At its most outrageous the massive council house waiting list occupants in Wycombe and Slough were tempted by offers of vacant houses in places like Huddersfield and Blackburn (in the days when we had empty houses up here) not knowing that these were vacant because they were those houses situated on the most rough estates in the towns which most Bucks people wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. By the time the unfortunate Wycombe and Slough people realised this they were marooned there with no way back or any chance of moving to their new home towns more salubrious council estates. Killing two birds with one stone by clearing out of the housing lists and gerrymandering by NIMBY’s who didn’t even originate from the south east or at least Wycombe or Slough in the first place and who were worried they might knock a few quid if the price of their houses by rehousing people who could often trace their roots in the area back hundreds of years..
I’ve written on this before on other sites but there’s definitely a book to be written on it by someone with the time and expanded upon by how it has now happened/is happening all over the country. It’s spread up here and in the West Country in more recent years albeit in only certain areas but spread it has. In villages where aside from maybe a small council estate or in smaller villages a row of council houses in places like Cheshire, the nicer parts of the West Country and Lancashire (the Ribble Valley etc), the Yorkshire Dales all the natives have been forced out to be replaced by the rich escaping the cities and the second home owners. And often with that goes the end of village football and other local pursuits too.
So if Wycombe had reached Wembley for something like a Football League play-off (hypothetically of course as there were no play-offs and we were not in the Football League) in the 1930s, 40s or 50s can anyone imagine the demand for tickets and the potential amount of supporters Wycombe would have been able to take to Wembley back then?
What an excellent post, I really enjoyed reading it. The "almost ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Bucks working classes by the incoming middle classes from the rest of England and pusher areas of London." Such failures of suggestive governments to build and manage housing have certainly ruined the notion that families can live generation after generation in areas they were born.
You write very well @PJS for someone who only had one year at school !
To be fair, I was speed reading (having seen @BuryExileWasRochdale’s excellent post several times) and wrongly got the impression that you were a youngster who’d been to the away game at the Stadium of Light earlier this season. I now realise that you were referring to the English Schools Shield (?) matches in 1981. I was living in Sands then and thoroughly enjoyed the few games I got to. Some really good youngsters, obviously. Can you recall any names apart from West and Dublin?
And any idea of the name of the team we beat 9-0?
That’s really testing my memory @micra as I have been living away from Wycombe since the late 80s and have lost touch with most of my old Wycombe mates. That said I can remember Jon Delaney (dad played for Wycombe in 70s) and Martin Smith - went to junior school with them both plus David Lay, Kev Keen and Barry Wilson who were at John Hampden at the same time as me (I’m sure there was one other in the squad from JHGS but can’t remember!). Also remember Graham Bressington who played for us in later years I believe.
Thanks for that @PJS. One or two familiar names, especially Delaney. Dad John still lives not far from us in Holmer Green. Had a spell at Bournemouth in between (?) spells with the Wanderers.
Comments
The two things aren't comparable
Going solely on the interest from friends and family, as soon as the final whistle went there are at least twice as many people asking me about tickets than for the Southend final (at least when I landed after being up in the air returning from a stag weekend). The situation of the club in the years leading up to the Southend final (three years of battling relegation, a decade of being marginalised in our home town by the egg-chasing parasites) was far worse than where we are today (years of building up success, the unprecedented success of getting to the Championship, extra determination perhaps to go to big events again after Covid).
If we mustered 17,000 against the backdrop of the barren years leading to 2015, then I would say that 25,000 would be the lower end of my estimate for this final. The upper end would be low to mid 30,000s if we really capture the wider Wycombe area's imagination during the next 12 days.
This is an enormous opportunity to get a new generation of kids and young adults hooked on the club just like people of my generation were by the glory years under Martin O'Neill. The supporters who took the club to their hearts then helped take the club to dizzying heights and have to a large extent sustained us as a professional club, something that was scarcely imaginable even 5 years before O'Neill joined.
That this current era can even be mentioned in the same breath as the magical days of the early 90s is a testament to all everyone at the club has done rebuilding the club from the wreckage of the Steve Hayes years.
Well said @ReadingMarginalista
Should easily eclipse that Southend day.
To think we thought we'd missed a lifetime one off 2 years ago with no crowds.
We're truly blessed to have the same opportunity a mere 2 years on.
I know exactly who's down thumbed you for that as well !
They've both got black shorts on as well, we've been made to change before for wearing the same.colour pants !
You can't seriously be suggesting that blue + blue and white isn't a colour clash? Blue and white stripes v red and white stripes is totally standard - is anyone having trouble telling the two teams apart? I don't think teams should be able to wear the same colour shorts, but it's ultimately down to the ref as far as I can tell.
When we played Bristol Rovers and we both played in our first-choice blue varsity blues quarters and they in their mid-blue and white quarters it worked (certainly for the ref who ok'ed it), although I appreciate that the ability to distinguish shades of colours varies a lot from person to person.
Yeah, that's messing with my eyes! Always go for maximum possible contrast imo (so Sunderland in their yellow away kit would have been better, although this is perfectly fine).
We'll be
playingbeating Blunderland, so it's the blue quarters anyway.Ticket news to come later
Some points to consider if anyone is slightly disappointed by any lesser numbers of supporters at Wembley this year compared with the large numbers at Runcorn and especially the amateur cup figures of decades ago.as some seem to have been at such as the Southend match or even the Preston playoff.
Owing to Wycombe’s position in the most expensive area of the country. Ie London and the South East many people of my generation from hitherto Bucks families with roots going back into history have been forced to leave the region due to the impossibility of buying a property in the area. I live up north now and many friends and acquaintances have had to leave the south east too I know of others up here and many more in places such as the West Country. All these were the kind of working class people who form football’s natural constituency and many were wanderers fans. In their place have moved into the area people from London or from all other areas of England who have moved to take up well paid jobs in London. Many of these are not interested in football or still retain sympathies with the clubs from where they or their families.originated. This has been going on around Wycombe for decades but has got even worse even in the days since we took such a large amount to the Runcorn match.
Further afield from Wycombe itself in the villages and small towns of south bucks it has been happening since the late 50s as the places have become some of the most expensive settlements in the country. It’s easy to forget that places like the Chalfonts up until the mid 50s (aside from a couple of roads on the outskirts full of big houses that had no real interaction with the villagers anyway) were full of basically working class people. My mum’s family came from over there and were working class and provided sone of those massive Amateur cup final attendances when Wycombe town itself was far smaller than it is today.
Nearly all of the people in those villages up until the start of the 1960s were from true Bucks families with Bucks accents to match and mostly all linked by families.they provided all the members of the village football teams. Now however in places like Chalfont St Giles there are still probably a thousand maybe a few more Bucks people left in a ‘village’ of over 10000 people lbut almost completely confined to the council estates. The chance of the true natives affording a house their truly laughable. Those handful of locals do keep the local football teams going though in those places often in a battle with newcomers if they want to improve their ground etc.
The number of newcomers to such areas who follow football and especially the local variety are probably vanishingly small now and would if they’re team sports followers at all be firmly Rugby Union.
Nowhere to me was this battle Wycombe have to keep attendances high more evident than during Marlows FA cup runs of the early 1990s where on Marlows east side which contains the council estates and in those days the pubs those people frequented all those pubs ran coaches up to Spurs while on the towns west side almost completely very middle class and full of newcomers and posher pubs you wouldn’t have known there was an FA Cup third round match on. I lived in the town for a bit then and I went up to White Hart Lane. Different team obviously to Wycombe but Marlow’s experience is a microcosm of what Wycombe are up against.
In Wycombe things are further exacerbated by the ‘white flight‘ that has happened in places like Castleford in the last few decades which is now heavily Asian which once again is a community not known for following local football teams.
Also Bucks has the smallest number of elderly people proportionately of any county in England - this again a result of the transient nature of the population - families moving in staying for their working years but then moving away to retire someone less hectic while many/most of their children moving away to university and not returning.
Wycombe in the surface of it may be a fair sized town in a generally very highly populated area (the South East) with in any other area outside the south east seemingly massive amounts of potential supporters to call on but that statement shows little of the reality of the situation. As many of their natural supporters have had to over the years leave the area for financial reasons..A sort of almost ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Bucks working classes by the incoming middle classes from the rest of England and pusher areas of London. At its most outrageous the massive council house waiting list occupants in Wycombe and Slough were tempted by offers of vacant houses in places like Huddersfield and Blackburn (in the days when we had empty houses up here) not knowing that these were vacant because they were those houses situated on the most rough estates in the towns which most Bucks people wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. By the time the unfortunate Wycombe and Slough people realised this they were marooned there with no way back or any chance of moving to their new home towns more salubrious council estates. Killing two birds with one stone by clearing out of the housing lists and gerrymandering by NIMBY’s who didn’t even originate from the south east or at least Wycombe or Slough in the first place and who were worried they might knock a few quid if the price of their houses by rehousing people who could often trace their roots in the area back hundreds of years..
I’ve written on this before on other sites but there’s definitely a book to be written on it by someone with the time and expanded upon by how it has now happened/is happening all over the country. It’s spread up here and in the West Country in more recent years albeit in only certain areas but spread it has. In villages where aside from maybe a small council estate or in smaller villages a row of council houses in places like Cheshire, the nicer parts of the West Country and Lancashire (the Ribble Valley etc), the Yorkshire Dales all the natives have been forced out to be replaced by the rich escaping the cities and the second home owners. And often with that goes the end of village football and other local pursuits too.
So if Wycombe had reached Wembley for something like a Football League play-off (hypothetically of course as there were no play-offs and we were not in the Football League) in the 1930s, 40s or 50s can anyone imagine the demand for tickets and the potential amount of supporters Wycombe would have been able to take to Wembley back then?
Well, we did get to Wembley in the 50s of course, and took 30,000 supporters
I remember the whole of the youth club I belonged to going by coach to Brentford to see the Amateur cup semi-final in about 1949. Most of them, especially the girls, were not that interested in football but it was our local club and it was a good day out/ The key to getting that sort of following on the day will be the cost of the tickets.
@BuryExileWasRochdale
A commendable, well-argued post. I still find it interesting that Wycombe ranked top (I seem to remember) of the food poverty charts last year. Given that the “cost of living crisis” has worsened since then it should be recognised that a (depressingly) high proportion of the local population can’t remotely afford to go. Add those to the (depressingly) high proportion of those new inhabitants of the local area that you eloquently describe and I actually think that anything above 20,000 from us will be a good result
I assume that tickets can be bought separately from the clubs' allocations if people prefer that. Is that correct? They do seem priced rather too high to attract those who are not committed to the two clubs taking part.
Really interesting post @BuryExileWasRochdale, based on what you have written you should be the one to write the book.
@BuryExileWasRochdale , would I be right in assuming that you voted for Johnson at the last election and that you would advocate compulsory resettlement of invaders into the wrong side of Marlow to Rwanda?
Going back to original point I am hoping we follow the Wycombe and District schools from the early 80’s who beat Sunderland schools to land the big prize. Mark West, Kevin Keen and all showed the way for Saturday
The cost of watching sports way back was not like it is today. My tickets to watch the Olympics in 1948 cost 12/6d. The final at Wembley in 1957 and previous
semi-finals at Brentford and Doncaster were more than covered by my Saturday morning job so there is really no comparison with today. People of all ages would want to go because it was our local team. Nowadays you really need to be dedicated to the cause and hats off to all those from both clubs and their friends who are making the effort. I hope it turns out to be a really good game. I will watch on TV with a cup of tea handy.
And Keith Dublin and Rambo Bressington.
Sadly, that is a very good point. I can remember standing on the Stretford End for £1.50 in the mid 80s and other First Division terraces for not much more than that. The only other purchase I can think of that has risen way faster than inflation is property. And far fewer young people can afford that either.
I was at the home leg, and the previous game against East London.
And childcare. And fuel. And utility bills. And matchday food / drink. And matchday travel.
And Keith Dublin and Rambo Bressington.> @LDF said:
I went to every home game that year, we beat some team 9-0 in an earlier rnd. I think they were from Herts, they had tow names. Second name was something like Carricot or daricot
It was my year at school - knew a good number of the lads and went to all the games including the Sunderland away leg. Travelled up on the Wycombe supporters coach having got special permission from school to be late in the next day!
Just read this. Yep, a good summary of the situation, I'm also an exile with no hope of returning. To try and put a positive on it, there is huge untapped potential amongst the rich and amongst those who football clubs tend to ignore because football is not 'in their culture'. Minds greater than mine can suggest how that can be done but our survival might depend on it in the long.
What an excellent post, I really enjoyed reading it. The "almost ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Bucks working classes by the incoming middle classes from the rest of England and pusher areas of London." Such failures of suggestive governments to build and manage housing have certainly ruined the notion that families can live generation after generation in areas they were born.
You write very well @PJS for someone who only had one year at school !
To be fair, I was speed reading (having seen @BuryExileWasRochdale’s excellent post several times) and wrongly got the impression that you were a youngster who’d been to the away game at the Stadium of Light earlier this season. I now realise that you were referring to the English Schools Shield (?) matches in 1981. I was living in Sands then and thoroughly enjoyed the few games I got to. Some really good youngsters, obviously. Can you recall any names apart from West and Dublin?
And any idea of the name of the team we beat 9-0?
That’s really testing my memory @micra as I have been living away from Wycombe since the late 80s and have lost touch with most of my old Wycombe mates. That said I can remember Jon Delaney (dad played for Wycombe in 70s) and Martin Smith - went to junior school with them both plus David Lay, Kev Keen and Barry Wilson who were at John Hampden at the same time as me (I’m sure there was one other in the squad from JHGS but can’t remember!). Also remember Graham Bressington who played for us in later years I believe.
Thanks for that @PJS. One or two familiar names, especially Delaney. Dad John still lives not far from us in Holmer Green. Had a spell at Bournemouth in between (?) spells with the Wanderers.
Raymond Jack, a centre back called Paul Bates (no relation) I used to work with keeper Tony Ashby..