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Howard Burleigh, Headingley Rugby Voices: Headingley as our sporting playground

I’m not actually a devotee of Leeds Rugby, more Leeds United, but I’ve been to a lot of the major matches, mainly in the cups. My record’s pretty good: I seem to be able to pick the ones they win and some of my friends who are fanatics often ring me beforehand just to check that I am going!

Headingley, though, holds memories as a playground in the summer. We often used to wander down there, the gates always seemed open, and throw a ball about on the pitch pretending to score spectacular tries. I used to try my hand at goal-kicking and once I managed a successful conversion from nearly on the halfway line in my outdoor shoes. It was just for a laugh, we were betting how far we could kick the ball and I just jokingly put it on the centre spot and sent a friend round the posts to act as touch-judge. He couldn’t believe it when the ball sailed over his head.

One of my friendships nearly ended over kicking a ball around on the famous turf. We only had the one between us, an old over-inflated brown leather one that was coming apart at the seams. I put in a huge kick for touch and the ball sailed over the TV gantry and onto the South Stand roof. We stood around for a while waiting for it to roll back down but of course with it being ‘U’ shaped we never saw it again- for all I know it’s probably still up there. We decided against climbing the spiral staircase and had to just head off home instead, arguing about whose fault it was and who was going to pay for a replacement.

The other ‘game’ we used to play when cars were parked on the rugby pitch if the cricket was on - which we always thought was sacrilege - was to check all of the names of the season ticket holders painted on the backs of the seats in the main stand just to see if we could recognise friends, family or celebrities. If you got to that level you were either posh, rich or normally both.

Howard Burleigh

Originally published in 'Headingley Rugby Voices' Recollections of supporters, compiled by Phil Caplan.

www.scratchingshedpublishing.com Twitter @scratchingshed2

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Memory added on September 16, 2012

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