The way we were - Norman Widall

24 Nov 2015 in Heritage - The way we were

The way we were - Norman Widall The way we were - Norman Widall

Norman share several memories from Rangers past

Fred Royalles

Rangers playing away at Huddersfield St Josephs in a particularly volatile match, couple of players from each side had already been sent off, when Fred Royalles got sent off. Instead of making his way to the changing rooms, Fred hid behind a tree at the side of the pitch. The St Josephs winger broke away and went flying down the wing so Fred leapt out from behind the tree and tackled him!

Fred’s  now a referee’s assessor................. poacher turned gamekeeper! 

The Angel & Ernie

One of Rangers “watering holes” was he Angel in Lees, the landlady would sometimes put on a potato pie supper for the lads, a big aluminium bowl enough to feed the team.

Jimmy Stevie asked the landlady how many servings were in the bowl, and challenged if there was enough for everyone, to the point were he said he had a friend called Ernie who could eat the whole bowl  in one sitting. The challenge was on, the landlady would cook another pie next week and Jimmy had to bring in his mate Ernie to eat it all in one go. 

Next week Jimmy turned up with his mate Ernie........Ernie was a pig!

Jimmie and the dog

Bloke used to come to watch Rangers with his dog, during the game Jimmy Stevie somehow managed to get bitten by the dog, a Jack Russell. True to form Jimmy got even by biting the dog back! Another twist in the story was that the dog had been named Jonty......because it was a nasty little bastard. 

The Curious case of the Bubble car

When Norman started playing at Rangers not many of the lads had cars, Alan Taylor had a flat back wagon, but that was about it. Tony Finan bought a bubble car, not much help for bulk transport, but very trendy at the time. Whist Tony was in the railway one afternoon Dougie Baker, Peter Bamford, Alan Taylor, and Jimmy Stevenson lifted the bubble car up onto the back of the wagon. Tony was about to report the vehicle stolen when the truth came out. 

A Fishy Tale

Jimmy Stevenson liked fishing in the canal for tiddlers and sticklebacks. If you saw him fishing down at the side of the pitch in the canal, you had to keep your eye on your pint later that day, it was not unusual for Jimmy to slip a fish into your glass when you were not watching. Tony Lees was just about to take a swig of his drink when a dark shape flashed across the side of the glass! 

Excuse me sir, this tastes a bit woody...

Kenny Payne who supplied the pies for the Rangers clubhouse had recently been fined by whatever was the equivalent of the Environment Health at the time, because a piece of wood had been found in one of the pies during a spot check. Ronnie Hardaker was behind the bar up at Rangers the following Saturday and Norman was talking to Ronnie about the subject. The away team had just arrived and one of the visiting teams spectators rolled up to the bar, ordered a pint and then as an after thought asked for a pie. Quick as a flash Ronnie asked him what flavour “Oak, pine or ash”.

Norman and Ronnie were falling about laughing, the poor customer didn’t have a clue what was going on. 

Share:

Older Newer