Pete's nine decades of true dedication

“I’ll miss it. I’m conditioned to it, but you realise that you can’t go on forever. My legs have gone and I’ve got arthritis. Fifty years ago, I used to walk down Warwick Road and see this bloke regularly. He was very, very bad on his legs; I bet it took him half an hour to walk from The Trafford pub down to the ground. I’d think: bloody hell, the dedication. And all these years later, here’s me!”

“My dad was born in Ordsall, just off Trafford Road, and his eldest brother was a dead-keen United fan. My guess is that his brother started taking him immediately after the First World War, when my dad would have been about 10 – he was born in 1907. He’d always mention his favourites from the bad old days. People like [Frank] Barson appealed to working lads as he was a bit of a tough guy.”

 

“It’s been brilliant. By the late ’40s, I was going to away matches. In them days, in the First Division there was Bolton, Burnley, Blackburn, Huddersfield... so many easy trips. Then we started going to London. In the early days, it was leave at midnight on Friday and come back midnight on the Saturday. You’d have a few beers and a game of football in Hyde Park. It was wonderful. And best of all, later on, was European trips.”

“I went to Munich a few times and always loved that, though I missed the plane once! My first was 1957 to Shamrock [Rovers]. Dortmund in 1997 was memorable. They put up a big stage in the square and had some bands on. Pat Crerand was up there. They had stalls selling beer. I went to Madrid in 1968 and that was frightening, because the police were carrying machine guns. Franco was still around then.”

 

“I think it changes. It’s great in your teens and twenties – you can go somewhere and have a few beers, and I never had any issues with the hooliganism that came up in the ’70s. And then my daughter, Rachel, started mithering me to go when she was about nine. She’s 54 now, so we’ve been going together for 40-odd years.”

“In the early days I had one season at the Manchester End [East Stand], then several at the Stretford End, then over to North Stand when they built the first bit of the cantilever, around 1965. Then 20 years ago I moved to South Stand. Three or four years ago, I got fixed up with a seat that had fewer steps to get to. [United’s chief operating officer] Collette Roche got the ticket office on the case and they transferred me. Where I am now is a brilliant seat, because it’s as near to the halfway line as I’ve ever been. It was great on the Stretford End when that appealed to me, but then it becomes more appealing to sit down!”

 

“I’m not passionate either way. I like Old Trafford, I’m happy enough with it. But a bit more roominess would be beneficial. Given the land United own around the ground, building a new stadium further back from the railway line and the canal, so the stadium is more accessible, would be great.”

“There was West Brom, when we lost 5-3 [1978] – that was a good game. Barcelona in 1984. But the best ever was at Maine Road, in ’57 against Bilbao. We had to win by three clear goals after getting beat 5-3 in Bilbao. That was amazing. There was also the game when we beat Sheffield Wednesday when Bruce got the winner, that was tremendous. And any game where they beat Bolton was good. I hated them! When they beat us to win the Cup in ’58, it was quite an emotive time just after Munich, and they drove through Manchester and Salford parading the trophy. They got pelted in Salford!”

 

“It’s got to be Duncan Edwards, with George [Best] second. You can’t compare the two, because what they did was different altogether. I saw Duncan in the youth team and I’m fairly certain I would have seen his debut – my powers of recall are not great! In the youth team, they would often switch him to centre-forward if the goals hadn’t come. The fans called him ‘the Tank’, in the days when players had nicknames! Allenby Chilton was the original ‘Chopper’, Jack Rowley was ‘Gunner’.”

“The club needs a sort out, which has started. Hopefully success is coming, and I’ll watch on my telly! My daughter still wants to go and hopes she’ll get a ticket for one or two games. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get to the odd one.”