On January 31,1953 I was at Borough Park to watch Workington Reds against Oldham Athletic. If it wasn’t my first game it was certainly one of the earliest I can recall.
Nothing to do with the football! I only know it was 1-1 and George Dick scored for the Reds because I’ve checked it out in my old mate Tom Allen’s excellent Reds Remembered book.
Player manager of Oldham – who won the Third Division North title that season – was former England captain George Hardwick.
Now I’d just watched The Adventures of Robin Hood and it struck me – what was Errol Flynn doing playing full-back for Oldham?
Hardwick was a dead ringer for Flynn and by all accounts his Oldham side were swashbuckling in style, having beaten Reds 4-1 at Boundary Park earlier that month.
At the front in the enclosure I got a great view of Hardwick as he operated at full-back and at six years old I was impressed. But whether I saw him as a great footballer or more a Robin Hood/Captain Blood/Sea Hawk figure cavorting down the touchline I cannot say.
Besides there was another attraction. A budgerigar was loose in the stand. It kept flying from one end of the stand and back the other way. I was mesmerised. We had just acquired one at home – a green one off my uncle George who bred birds of all shapes and sizes. This one was blue.
I can’t recall an announcement – would the owner of budgerigar ring number GB52W1234 please report to the steward in the stand – or obviously what happened to it. But with Hardwick now operating on the opposite side of the field it certainly occupied my attention for a fair while.
When I got back home and my mother asked how I’d enjoyed the game I remember telling her Errol Flynn played and there was a budgie loose in the grandstand. I don’t think she learned much about the match.
But there is a postscript some 50 years later. A work colleague and quiz team captain had a spell in the James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough where a patient at the same time was none other than George Hardwick.
They had a few chats and lo and behold he had sent in for her a copy of his autobiography, Gentleman George, which was suitably signed.
I remember asking Joan if there was any mention of him playing at Workington when there was a budgie loose in the stand – and sadly there wasn’t.
