At least you can see rlphotos of that last matchrl.

[Note to self

If you come down at 2.30pm on Saturday St. Joes will be playing Illingworth in their first home game of the new Pennine League season. Stands may have gone but it's still one of the best amateur pitches in the area....

I have great memories of Fartown. For me it was the father/son bonding me and my dad had. To be fair we didn't do that much together apart from watching Fartown.

Little things like a flask of oxtail soup and corned beef sarnies on a freezing Sunday afternoon.

I remember watching a young Anthony Farrell a close family friend and then neighbour getting sin binned for fighting.

I also remember meeting an old friend of my dads called Henderson Gill who at the time was in the peak of his career. I was star struck.

Sat in the old wooden stand and then one week it just been completely shut (due to the Bradford City fire)

I could bore you with hundreds of memories, but I won't.

This place holds a very special piece of my heart and always will.

Would love to see us back there one day, but in my heart of hearts know it won't happen.

I think most of us who were around at those bad times could call on hundreds of memories,good and bad
like the time in 89 when tony Johnson got us to go down and clear the pitch of snow so a game v Workington could be played, we did our very best but then much to the annoyance of the Workington coach, a certain Maurice bamford,the referee decided our efforts were in vain an hour before kick off!
I remember faz's last game there,cant remember the opposition im sure dan or daz will remember, and thinking how gutted I was that faz wouldn't be playing for fartown again.

I was at a job at the back of the old dear a few weeks ago and walked through where the turnstiles would have been on Richmond avenue and was saddened to see people walking their dogs amongst the rubble and litter

like daz says we never got chance to say goodbye to fartown and some kind of charity game up there to commemorate the team of all talents would be brilliant!

IF we had had the finances available to rebuild, ala naughton park we could have had a cracking little ground to watch the giants in now
oh for a ken davy in 1992!!

You say it'd be better to bulldoze everything....coming from a wigan fan i'd have to massively disagree! I wish I still had the option to go back to central park even to watch an amateur game once or twice, even if the stands and everything were gone it would still be a brilliant opportunity!

Saw this article though and then this thread and thought immediately.....could the club not do something similar to Souths in the NRL on a smaller scale and have a 'Return to Fartown' friendly at the start of the season? Ok so Redfern can still hold about 5k so its more practicable to Souths, but if Fartown is still hosting amateur RL it must still have a safety certificate for at least a couple of hundred?

Could it not be possible to do something on this basis.....yes demand will massively outstrip supply so i'd say you probably couldn't sell ticket,s but why not include it as a marketing tool to sell Season Tickets? ie/ 200 tickets for Return to Fartown are raffled off every year to all ST holders who get entered...that way, with say 4k ST holders, you'd all have roughly a 1/20 chance- do it every year and theoretically most will get to one over a period of time?

This would also probably up ST sales as people would buy for a chance to watch Huddersfield at fartown.

Well I went back and looked at the wood where our barrier used to be !!!

In my mind I could still see the stands and supporters club, smell the liniment at the back of the main stand.

The programme seller selling the old yellow style programme,

The old tea bar, windows at the back of the main stand the host of claret and gold scarves and hats very few replica shirts in those days and the dulcet tones of several fans with rattles.

Two blows from the microphone followed by Trevor Kay welcoming us to Fartown, the floodlights never with every lamp burning and my old chums several of them stood at our barrier awaiting a healthy debate about the days prospects.

More often than not it was cold especially at Xmas and New Years derbies with the men in blue and white from Halifax my friend Ilmar's Dad an early Latvian in Huddersfield with his 100% Vodka to warm us up.

Then at 2.55pm the Huddersfield team resplendent in the original claret and gold hoops and white shorts would almost apologetically emerge from the tunnel at the end of the stand to applause and the smell of more liniment.

Rain, snow, hail and shine we were there it was a different game in my early days, competitive scrums, no limit on tackles, later to change to four then the current six !!!

The place was starting to age even in those days but we witnessed semi finals of the Challenge Cup, Championship Finals and the touring Australians and New Zealanders and bright days and dark days but the loyal few hundred when the gates dwindled were always there even in the dark times of John Bailey.

Memories of 'Seth' (Ken Senior) popping up to score in the most unlikeliest of places for a former Great Britain wing, Don Close winning every scrum against Swinton and taking us to the Semi Final at Central Park in 1972, Malcolm Branch's hat trick against the finest of Salford teams a 0-0 draw and a 2-0 win against Trinity when the sprinter Berwyn Jones ran 90 yards but put a foot in touch to our great relief.

I could go on and on !!!!!!

However as I walked away I could still imagine it all behind me, the colour the spectacle, the winter game long since gone and the commentary of Eddie Waring a lovely Rugby man when we were on telly on a Saturday afternoon !!!

So thank you Stevo for re acquainting me with a time, a place and friends many of whom have passed away and maybe were in the claret and gold sky on LLS Sunday.

The guy from Wigan was right despite the ravages of time I'm glad the bulldozers did not move in and take it all away that field on which the 'Team of all talents played and so many of my heroes with far less skill but no less passion !!!

So if we win the Grand Final this year or in the future I can go back and share it with my friends in their claret and gold scarves, a rosette pinned to their chest and salute our team and the greatest of games !!!

With what you say of course Ilmar's Dads 100% Vodka because to them it will always be a game for winter for me I am glad this place of so many memories still exists !!!

Is the huge open still there? I work on St Johns Road and head past Fartown every evening on a rat run. I understood it had been demolished? Certainly can't see it from the road.

Most of the post is my memory and a little running of my imagination !!!

I remember watching Fiery Fred bowl for Derbyshire against Yorkshire on the cricket field too !!!

rlUpdated photo gallery.rl

Please note that these photographs are copyright! Please ask before you use them nlike Sky Sports!]

I really enjoyed reading this.

You clearly have a knack for writing. As I read it I could picture everything you described.

I only managed a few years as a lad at Fartown but still love the place.

Nice one

Fair teared me up has that

But the smell is the memories trigger isn't it, the smell of lineament takes me to my playing days, the smell of wet earth, the tramp of studs in the changing rooms

But the smell of a cold day and onions frying takes me back to being 6 with my dad, walking in past those main gates with the rugby players on top and past the supporters lounge and the burger van that I always pestered my dad for but rarely got, leaning on the fence round the side terrace and those beautiful claret and gold hoops with white shorts, such memories

But they are great memories, and lets be honest the John Smiths has given us a few of those now. Our first Superleague game with 14000 in to watch us against the Bulls, slowly ticking off the wins against the clubs I could only dream of us beating in my childhood

The pinnacle of all those dreams though is the Claret & Gold sky on LLS Sunday...just think there's some little kid somewhere that will be remembering that night in decades to come

Bloody Hell fellas, give it a rest.
I came on here to brighten my day, now I'm sat all welled up, can see nowt but all I can smell is that liniment and the fried onions.

And don't get me started on the C&G sky.

Wire still play some academy games at Wilderspool ...... nothing unusual to see some old timers (says me, a 50 yr old whipper snapper) in there with a little glint in their eye as they cast their glaze around the ground. You know their thoughts are full of times gone by .....

I remember the tomato soup from the snack bar.....30p, polystyrene cup, hot as hell, burnt my mouth every week on it but it was gorgeous and just what was needed on those cold winter afternoons.

I do miss the smell of linament as we used to stand by the tunnel and watch the players come out before we ran round to the terrace to watch the game.....the smell was beautiful.