The Bartram Effect

As 12-year-olds, we played football on the edge of a field - later, the site of a garage - which most years grew broad beans. The farmer always left an uncultivated strip conveniently close to the road, where his tractors and lorries could manoeuvre, so at non-school times and at weekends we played on a rough 'pitch' with goals marked by piles of jackets.
The trend then - and may be now, though I suspect not nearly so many lads play football in fields today - was to 'adopt' the name of a famous player. Thus one of my mates was always Jackie Stamps; another Tom Finney or Stan Matthews; a third Tommy Lawton or Billy Steel, and so on. For me it was more difficult, for being always short of breath and largely unable to play outfield, I specialised in keeping goal, which restricted the choice somewhat. In the end, and with Frank Swift rejected, it boiled down to Ted Ditchburn of Spurs or Sam Bartram of Charlton, a club which had just won the FA Cup. So it was no contest, really. I 'became' Sam Bartram, and my mother even knitted a polo-necked jersey, as seen in the News Chronicle photographs.
The time came, of course, when I actually wanted to see Sam play. In the flesh. Dad did take me (by rail) to Filbert Street to see Leicester City play Fulham; but a trip to the Valley had to wait another two years until I was 14. Eventually, I saved enough pocket-money and got a nervous parental OK, and so very early one Saturday morning three or four of us went by rail from Long Sutton (Lincs) to Spalding, and then Peterborough to King's Cross, had a crash course in using the London Tube to get to Charing Cross, and then caught the surburban train to Charlton.
I remember the stations even now: London Bridge, Deptford, Greenwich, Maze Hill, Westcombe Park, then Charlton. Follow the mass of red and white scarves along the platform and up the steps, turn right over the bridge then left into Floyd Road by Sam Bartram's shop, and thence to the Valley, that monumental concrete bowl that held 50,000 fans with no trouble at all.
The trick was to be there before noon, to get a place in the queue, and the ambition was always to make use of the 'facilities,' the largest and longest open air gents' urinal I had ever seen. But it was a journey two or three of us managed four or five times. I still have the match programmes. And we saw Sam in action. He became my hero and I became hooked on football in a way that has never entirely left me. Despite Norwich City, and after 60-plus years, the Charlton result is still the first one I look for.
A decade or so after these outings I actually met the man himself. I was in the old wooden Press box at Carrow Road, and saw this giant of a man clumping slowly up the steps. He came in, said scarcely a word, sat down and watched the game. No-one else in the Press box, or in the surrounding seats, seemed to know who he was, and I thought: 'Isn't fame fickle! Here is a man who has played in two Cup Finals and over 620 games for his club, who was never dropped by his manager and was one of the greatest football showmen, and whose appearance could put hundreds on the gate. Then a decade later no-one knows who he is.'
It is possible Sam felt that, too. In the Press room under the iron beams of the old grandstand I got him a cup of tea and we exchanged pleasantries and a few words about the match. He was modest and even shy, and somehow it didn't seem right to tell him he was my boyhood hero. Anyway, Sam - who was representing a Sunday newspaper at the time - turned up for three or four more matches, and then I never saw him again.
But the magic stuck.