Tim Quelch - Good Old Sussex by the Sea: Sixties Childhood Spent with Hastings United, the Albion and Sussex County Cricket

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2019

Pitch Publishing

A2 Yeoman Gate

Yeoman Way

Durrington

BN13 3QZ

www.pitchpublishing.co.uk

Tim Quelch, 2019

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Print ISBN 978 1 78531 619 7

eBook ISBN 978 1 78531 657 9

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A tribute to my family

Thank you, mum and dad for such a happy adolescence, for fostering and supporting my passion for football and cricket and for helping me achieve ambitions I once thought were beyond me. Thank you, Liz and Lydia, my wife and our daughter, respectively, for your constant love, care and encouragement in all aspects of our happy lives together, tolerating, supporting and sometimes sharing my passion for sport. I hope that in time our grandchildren might discover such joys for themselves.

Tim Quelch, September 2019

I WOULD like to thank everyone who has helped me in writing this book. If I have overlooked anyone please accept my apology I am deeply grateful to former professional footballers who gave me generous amounts of their time, notably Ken and Alan Ballard, and Keith Tucker, all of whom played for Hastings United. I am very appreciative of the support I have received from other authors, namely Dave Thomas, who allowed me to use extracts from his biography of Willie Irvine Together Again; Ivan Ponting, who encouraged me to write this book as well as granting me usage of his eloquently written obituaries; Roger Sinden, for allowing me generous access to both of his lovingly assembled histories of Hastings United, including use of his captivating interviews with former Hastings United players; Paul who gave me access to his absorbing interviews with ex-Brighton players. Thanks are due to both the original Hastings United and Brighton & Hove Albion for use of material from their historic match programmes. Thanks go to Daren Burney and his colleagues at the current Hastings United who have shown great interest in this book, offering to play an active role in its marketing and sales, and assist with its charitable fund-raising objective. National and local newspapers have provided rich sources of material. Thanks go to the Hastings & St Leonards Observer, whose editor kindly permitted me to use extracts from their coverage of the original Hastings United including use of six atmospheric images from the 50s and 60s. Thanks go to the Brighton Argus, who have previously, kindly granted me permission to use material from historic interviews with former Brighton players, which are replicated in this publication; and to the national press for supplying material, rediscovered in unattributed cuttings in my boyhood scrapbooks of over 50 years ago. The references listed at the end of this book have helped improve my understanding of past times, enabling me to present a more rounded portrait, not only of the football and cricket, but also of life in Britain and elsewhere, during the last 70 years. If I have inadvertently breached copyright anywhere in this book, I hope that the copyright owners will please accept my profound apology. This book is being written to raise funds for the British Lung Foundation. All my royalties will be donated to this important cause. However, if any copyright owners wish to pursue their concerns, would they please address these first to my publisher, Pitch Publishing at Yeoman Gate, Yeoman Way, Worthing BN13 3QZ. Last, but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my friends, notably Roger King, who carefully proofread my earlier drafts, suggesting helpful amendments and supplying copious memories and statistics; and to my publishers Paul and Jane, and their assistants, Michelle, Dean, Duncan and Graham for their experienced guidance and high quality assistance.

Tim Quelch, October 2019

AFTER MOVING North in 1968, I began watching my dwindling local side, Burnley FC, suggesting, perhaps, that tough love is sometimes the more captivating kind. Yet my interest in football and cricket started in East Sussex, where I was born and bred. Here, I supported Hastings United, Brighton & Hove Albion and Sussex County Cricket Club, learning quickly the harsh price of loyalty. For soon after I had resumed watching Hastings United in August 1960, the Us dropped like a stone. They fell out of the Southern League Premier Division in 1961, and kept falling, careering to the bottom of the league below 12 months later, forcing the club to seek re-election in the chilly summer of 1962. While Brighton narrowly clung on to their Second Division status in 1961, they, too, were relegated a year later, and after enduring the harsh winter of 1962/63, the coldest I can remember, they continued to drop, finding themselves in the Football League basement in May 1963. Conversely, Hastings were then embarking upon an unexpected, if short-lived, revival.

Sussex County Cricket Club was afflicted by a similar malaise. After gaining fourth spot in the dank summer of 1960, helped by the 3,086 runs plundered by Ted Dexter and Jim Parks, they subsequently slumped into mid-table mediocrity. And despite enjoying a brief reversal of fortune, when they won the new Gillette Trophy in 1963 and 1964, they lost their one-day crown a year later and completed the 1965 County Championship season next to bottom.

It may seem a contrived virtue summoned by necessity, but I remain fonder of underdogs who scrap for mere morsels and strive to punch above their weight, than the giants accustomed to wealth and glory. This predisposition is derived from my deceased father. He never hitched his wagon to big names. He supported Brentford, then in the third tier. His message to me was not to expect too much. Not that I drool over failure. For while my love of modest causes often leaves me disappointed, the unexpected triumphs seem so much sweeter. Sometimes I wonder whether I could have sustained my support of Burnley as they hurtled towards oblivion in 1987, without this sturdy Sussex education.

Coincidentally, both Brighton and Burnley have faced identical catastrophes Burnley ten years before Brighton. And both clubs were rescued by their loyal fans, whether in the boardroom, on the pitch, on the terraces or beyond. Both clubs endured existential traumas, and both have survived triumphantly. And now both fly the flag of the small guys, determined to lower the colours of the opulent fraternity in a league bloated by obscene wealth and greed. So, while I continue to be an ardent supporter of Burnley, I remain fond of Brighton, having watched them during the intervening years, in triumph and woe, at the Goldstone, Gillingham, Withdean and the Amex. Regrettably, no one could rescue the original Hastings United in 1985.

I have an abiding loyalty to Sussex CCC, too, while being a well-wisher for the club that now bears Hastings Uniteds name. In fact, I extend similar goodwill to many underdogs, from Barrow to Aldershot; from Accrington to Torquay; from Morecambe to Hartlepool, all of whom I have watched in the last 60 years. If this is brazen promiscuity, its a perverse kind.