Best Barratt Stand memories

Ah the Barratt Stand. Been in there many a time. Nice and cosy it was and nearly everyone stood on their same bit of floor each game. I too used to stand on a crate when I went with my dad. I remember the rickety old stairs at the back to get in and then pushing your way through to your regular "pearch". No-one minded. The Exeter game was phenominal the stand was so packed you could not get your hand in your pocket, fans were on the roof and up the floodlight pylons.I remember one nasty incident in there in a game against Norwich I think. Someone threw a bottle onto the pitch and a Norwich player picked it up and hurled it back into the crowd. The bottle hit a metal upright and smashed showering a young lad with glass. This almost sparked a riot and the player concerned played the rest of the game over on the main stand side. No subs in those days. I can also remember the charity collections before each game when people would walk round in front of the stands with a bedsheet and the crowd threw coins into it from great distances. If you did not mind being hit on the back of your head you could catch a few if you were lucky! Those were the days eh.

3rd Round FA Cup in January 1955 on leave from RAF National Service. Beating Wolves 2 - 0 at half-time and lost 2 - 5 in front of a crowd of nearly 26,000. Games you never forget.
AND mixing with the Chelsea fans in December 1980 in a game we won 2 - 0. No crowd trouble in those days - only banter!

Me Dad had sat me on the fence down the front one game and the bloke next to us took a dislike to this and started to argue with my Dad who politely told him to f**k off at this the bloke took a swing with his foot and kicked my Dads left leg! He then started screaming that he had broke his toe. What he did not know when taking a kick was that my old man is disabled and was wearing a solid metal caliper on his leg!
UTMM

I had a holiday from BP the year the Barratt came down and didn't go back for a couple of seasons. Nothing seemed the same. Tried all the stands since but nothing matches the wit and fun of the Barratt. We could go through a packet of Embassy every game, more if it was really hard on the nerves. The only games I remember there being no smoking were the ones like Exeter and Everton when you couldn't physically move your arms. The same spot, game after game, leaning on the wood barrier. The same people you only saw every fortnight and you had no idea where they came from. There was a couple who courted and got married over this time. They had a little lad and he was brought into the Barratt as well.

The back stairs were lethal especially going down. We nearly always dropped over the barrier and went out along the front.

Best night in the Barratt? The Everton game without a doubt. Their players came out an hour before kick off and the place was jam packed. We could see them in the tunnel before anyone else in the ground and as they came out in their suits the roar that went up from the Barratt was echoed round the ground. It was a spine tingler. Their players looked totally shell shocked as they walked on the pitched and the crowd just chanted the whole time. No stupid songs, no stupid drum, no stupid band, just real chants from the throats of real fans. Everton were beaten before the kick off and we gave them a goal start as well.

If I could live through one game again it would be that night.

Magic.

i bet the Barratt Stand regulars were a force to be reckoned with in the day...

shame i was born in 1991...

Cries of 'ARE YOU THERE WOULD'

Older fans will remember that cry.

Quoted from DJ Mera

Cries of 'ARE YOU THERE WOULD'

Older fans will remember that cry.

I seem to remember there was a large barrel chested bloke who used to start that one. Some time ago when Graham Taylor was sitting in the mainstand he said that shout was one he always remembered.

Quoted from MarinerMatt24

i bet the Barratt Stand regulars were a force to be reckoned with in the day...

shame i was born in 1991...

You would have loved it. The great thing was the mix of people, the humour and the knowledge. Nobody's perfect but if the Barratt said a player was crap they were right 99% of the time.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

You would have loved it. The great thing was the mix of people, the humour and the knowledge. Nobody's perfect but if the Barratt said a player was crap they were right 99% of the time.

Remember being in the boys stand as a kid but hardly used the Barratt Stand. Became a Pontoon Bootboy

I think many of us became bootboys Terry, but after a few years of the Pontoon I went back into the Barratt, after dallying with the main stand for a season because you could get a pint in a plastic cup at half time in the club there. It was proper Grimsby culture in the Barratt. I never saw violence - but you knew that people didn't fcuk with each other in there. I saw lots of humour and witnessed great banter, and like RRFC says, if I had one game that I could ever go back to it would be the Everton League Cup tie in the Barratt..."How long to go mate""