HAVE you been enjoying Highland Paddy’s outstanding contributions to The Celtic Star that started this week? The Celtic nostalgia has been outstanding already – today’s column is up early as it’s match day and you can read about being lifting over the turnstiles and the old season book days below. There are also links to the two earlier articles at the bottom, a unique look inside Celtic Park’s front door back in the days when few fans were allowed in and some Celtic memories of trips to the old Tynecastle. …absolutely brilliant, all of it. Enjoy today’s column from Highland Paddy below…
Remember your first visit to Paradise when it was pay at the gate, if you are of a certain vintage?
Shoved in to the turnstile, lifted over, that feeling of euphoria that you had got in for hee haw!
Fast forward a year or two and you were too big for that, so you had to double up and slip the turnstile attendant a wee bit extra between you and your pal but you still got in for less than it should have been.
The queues at the boys gate to get in were legendary, Bhoys with beards trying to get in as being under 16 while swigging out of a bottle of Eldorado or Croft Original.
The advent of the season ticket changed all that, both for safety and for the shenanigans that were going on with the money that was changing hands as you went in.
It was a book full of vouchers, numbered to cover all the games through the season, you felt as if you had something in your pocket, something you probably wouldn’t lose.
Compare that to today’s plastic card!
It was always the shout to a steward or the police at the gate, “What voucher is it today ?”
How many had already pulled out the wrong one, ended up binning it and missing a game when that number finally came round?
It must have been murder working in the ticket office replacing the genuine ones who had lost it and the blaggers who chanced their arm and got an extra ticket for nothing for their pals ….great times!
How many of these season books shown below can you remember having?
Highland Paddy
ALSO FROM HIGHLAND PADDY ON THE CELTIC STAR…
Highland Paddy – A Unique Look Behind the Main Door at Celtic Park…see HERE.
Highland Paddy – Foam seats and crosses at Tynecastle…see HERE.
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