Getting the Football League Ladders free with "Shoot" magazine each summer was always something to look forward to as a schoolboy in the late 60's/early 70's. It fired you up with enthusiasm for the start of the new football season ahead.However, once the League Ladders board was pinned onto the bedroom wall above the bed, it didn't take long for all that pre-season excitement to ebb away.
The first two or three weeks were fine, the fun of rearranging all the team tabs into position after a couple of opening games. Then, because the tabs were a bit fiddly, tabs would get knocked off the board while changing them, and down the back of the bed they'd fall. Not so bad if they were from lower English Leagues, but after a few weeks passed, lots of other tabs joined them down below. So it would be at this point I'd give up on them, remove the board from the wall and chuck it in the cupboard!
Not once did I ever complete a full season, and yet I'd get all excited again the following summer when it was time to get another batch of Shoot League Ladders, only to go through the same sequence one more time!!
I loved those too. I seem to remember Bradford (the old Park Avenue, I think) being bottom of the English fourth and then falling out of the League. It wasn't automatic up and down from the Conference then, either.
ReplyDeleteHalfway through the season I would get fed up too and then started playing the teams against each other by pulling scores out of a hat. Dundee won quite a few of my own championships in those years.....
I remember placing the teams in the order you thought they would finish and writing the number on the back.Don't recall ever getting any right.
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