Richard Green - Footballer

Rushden United 1956

Back row l - r: R. Tobin, P. Barford, A. Fowler, P. Trott, M. Dilley, J. Hooton, K. Hill Front row l - r: J Mepham, M Banks, A. Parker, J. Buckby, M. Forrest, R. Green.

My name is Richard Green. I am aged 68, now retired and this is an interesting documentary of my younger days as a footballer in Rushden. When I was about 14 or 15 years of age I was introduced to football with a lot of young lads. We used to frequent Spencer Park a lot and we all played together as young lads. We all knew how good each player was and we decided that we'd possibly start a team called Rushden United and that's possibly in 1954/55, that's possibly roughly the year, that's the year I remember. We had quite a few players who used to play. In goal was Peter Trott - a very good goalkeeper, Alan Fowler, Michael Dilley, who a few years later became a good cricketer and played for Northamptonshire as a bowler.

We had Peter Barford, we were all local lads who lived in the Highfield Road area. Geoffrey Mepham, another footballer, a very, very fast right winger, Alan Parker who was my best mate and Jim Bugby, a very good centre forward for us, Michael Forrest, who sadly he's not with us any more and myself. John Houghton who was a good reserve player, Ken Hill who was a trainer and a fully qualified St. John's Ambulance Brigade officer. He used to do a lot of the 'cold sponge' if anybody got injured and we had a very successful team. In 1954/55 we won the Cup, League and Cup winners in that year which hadn't been done for 90 years.

Quite a few years we played until eventually I got married, moved to Raunds and for a few years I played for Raunds Town and then in the '60s, after I happened to be watching Rushden United again and I met an old chum, Arthur Carr, who was running the team and then he said to me what are you doing, not playing football? I said, 'No I got injured.' He said, 'So why don't you play for us?' I said, 'I've packed up football.' So he said,'Why don't you play for us?' I said, 'OK, fair enough.' And I signed for Rushden United and it was about 1960 the year and a very sucessful few years later we had some good fun. The lads were good laughs and we had some good winning games and eventually in 1968 I had to pack up through a cricket injury, so unfortunately I was cut short in my prime.

I played mostly in Spencer Park and occasionally we used to play in Jubilee Park but in the league we played in Finedon, Wellingborough, Irchester, that's about the major towns, two or three teams in Wellingborough we used to play.

How did we get there? That's a good question, either on a bus or possibly some of the management might have had a car - luckily enough. There was no such thing as buses or coaches in them days but as a totally amateur footballer you either paid out of your pockets and you got there on the bus or even on a bike. When I played for Rushden Town, I used to bike three miles, from Irchester Road right up to Haydon Road then played football for 90 minutes and then back home again. I used to get 7/6d expenses paid at the gate.

We played come rain or shine. I can remember playing in Spencer Park after the fair had moved, there was glass, lead shot from the guns and four inches of rain and for the next month we were picking up lumps of glass on the left wing, the Spencer Road side, and it could have been quite serious if you'd landed on a piece of glass.