New exhibition traces history of county's travelling football fans

Having always been fascinated by L. S. Lowry's painting titled 'Going To The Match' which shows football supporters on their way to Bolton Wanderer's old Burnden Park football ground on a match day in the 1950s I couldn't resist the temptation of visiting the exhibition titled 'Journeys To The Match' being currently held at the Lancashire Archives on Bow Lane, Preston, writes Keith Johnson.

- Keith Johnson

It not only features the likes of my generation who have enjoyed the match day experience at Deepdale since the late 1950s, but those thousands of football followers who journey the length and breadth of the nation to support their local teams.

Besides the Lowry print, perhaps the most eye catching image in the exhibition is that of the five young ladies on FA Cup Semi-Final day in March 1954 captured by a 'Lancashire Post' photographer. It shows those PNE supporters with their scarves, rosettes and wooden rattles gathered at the Tithebarn Street bus station ahead of their trip to Maine Road, Manchester to cheer on PNE against Sheffield Wednesday.

Goals from Charlie Wayman and Jimmy Baxter earned a 2-0 victory making the trip by Mavis Thompson, Anne Collinson, Eileen Sharples, Dorothy Robinson and Edith Barker more than worthwhile. Apparently, years later Mavis Thompson, by then Mavis Penswick, told Michael Barrett, author of 'PNE Forever', how on the triumphant return trip she was hanging out of the window on the upper deck of the Ribble bus making a din when she dropped her rattle into the street below and was grateful when it was handed back to her via the bus driver.