This week, a Southport fan made a comment on the fans' forum about the standard of catering at Hereford's Edgar Street. A Bulls fan responded by saying that you don't go to soccer games to eat. With this I totally disagree. Going to a soccer game is an all round experience, especially at our level. Food plays a very important part in this experience. Nothing can be more pleasurable than a good game, an atmospheric crowd, and half time, with a well written programme and a piping hot steak and kidney pie. What wonderful memories I have of visiting the likes of Matlock and Worksop, who in our NPL days, served the greatest homemade pies with mushy peas and mint sauce.
I think it was on the Woking board that somebody was recently recalling when a man on a bicycle used to ride around Kingfield selling fresh pies from his basket. Not just the traditional steak and kidney and meat and potato but more daring recipes such as spicy lamb and chicken with asparagus. As far as I can remember, the food has never been that good at Haig Avenue. Hopefully the quality will improve. Surely Caterman can see that this would only result in an increase in sales, benefiting not just the stomach linings of the supporters, but his bottom line as well. The Southport area has a wealth of excellent pie producers to choose from, all he has to do is heat them up.
Food is important at soccer grounds and don't let any Bully tell you different.

The new away kit has been launched. For those of you who have not seen it, visit www.portfans.co.uk, where LFAS has done a lovely job in modeling it. Some people liked the yellow with green and black hoops, but the majority didn't, asking why the away kit is virtually the same colour as the home. Well, looking at the other clubs in the Conference, the only time we will have a selection problem is against Boston at York Street. Maybe the idea is to launch a third kit, such as Blackpool and Woking have done, or perhaps for that game we will revert to sky blue. Let's wait and see. Maybe we're simply following a trend anyway. Here in Brazil, the majority of clubs have an away kit similar to their main strip. For example, Corinthians play in white and black at home and black and white away, and both of Flemengo's kits are red and black, just in different designs.
The topic has prompted a new campaign on the fans' forum. T.O.G.S. (Traditional Old Gold Shirts Campaign) has been launched in the hope that it will prompt the club to return to the mustard shirts the team wore in previous seasons. But, just how traditional is old gold and black? As far as I can remember, the gold shirts with black shorts and socks was only introduced in the mid 1980s. When the club was first formed as Southport Central or Southport Vulcan (not sure which) the club colours were red and white. If I'm not mistaken, when the club changed its name to Southport FC, it changed to black and white stripes, colours that remained until the 1940s or 1950s. The 60s and early 70s saw the Sandgrounders playing in All Old Gold (no black shorts and socks) and from the mid seventies until mid eighties the team wore canary yellow and royal blue. It was when Charlie Clapham took over that the club reverted back to old gold again, this time with the addition of black.
So, if we're looking for tradition, we have much to choose from, be it red, black and white, old gold, yellow and blue, old gold and black, or maybe, we should celebrate a new era and welcome the yellow with green and black hoops!