West Brom

The picture of my mate's late mum Betty on the terraces with five other women, wearing their scarves, reminded me of why we stay loyal to a football club.

Gateshead AFC folded in 1973, making way for a Gateshead United to bear the name until it folded in 1977, at which point Gateshead FC took up the baton. And then the charabancs inched their way home. At some stage Betty and her posse helped clear the pitch to get the game on. The sight of these be-scarfed women a long way from home on a winter’s afternoon in the middle of the last century felt like an injection from Dr Football straight into my veins. It was on a wall in a small room in the house of a friend in Warwickshire. This was the fourth round of the FA Cup in February 1952.