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Swansea City AFC/Athena Picture AgencyIt was once virtually like assembly a wearing hero, and whilst 103-year-old Francis Greene hasn’t ever stepped foot on a certified soccer pitch, he nonetheless left me feeling star-struck.
Among different issues, he’s a World War Two veteran, completed pianist, a success businessman, and a great-great-grandfather.
But most significantly, for me a minimum of, he’s a life-long Swansea City fan with virtually a century’s value of recollections.
While I’ve 33 years below my belt, when Francis attended the Swans’ season-ending 3-3 house draw in opposition to Oxford United remaining weekend, it introduced down the curtain on his 97th marketing campaign.
“We’d shut up the shop on a Saturday lunchtime, and I’d clutch on to dad’s hand as we made our way through the crowds and queue up at the North Bank turnstiles,” Francis reminisced with a twinkle in his eye.
“The noise, the smells, the singing were almost too much for a six-year-old to bear.
“But it enchanted me, from that first sport, I used to be hooked.”
You never forget your first time, and this was his – a 2-1 victory over Oldham Athletic in 1928.
Francis’ story will strike a chord with football fans right around the country, how their side was their first love, staying in their hearts their entire lives.
He was born in February 1922, at number one Goat Street, a stone’s throw from the old Vetch Field, where the club played.
It was from there his dad ran the family fishmonger’s, Coakley-Greene, which was established in 1856, and is still running today.
Greene family photoLike most youngsters, though, the dream was not to cheer on from the side lines – but to be out on the pitch himself.
A promising right-half for Swansea Town Boys, Francis was in the same youth set-up as full-back Jackie Roberts and winger Ernie Jones – two of the five Alice Street gang.
“I used to be by no means most likely excellent sufficient to play for the Swans, however it was once such a lot a laugh attempting,” he said.
His passion for playing wasn’t dampened, though, and he added: “Every second I wasn’t at school or serving to within the store, I’d be out in the street kicking a ball round with the ones boys.
“But you had to scarper like hell when you heard the policeman’s whistle and saw him coming around the corner.
“Boy you would be for it if he stuck you enjoying close to the automobiles.”
Francis’ playing ambitions were curtailed by the looming threat of World War Two.
Rather than waiting to be called up, he chose to enlist, training as a mechanic in the RAF ground crews, who kept Spitfires in the air during the Battle of Britain, the London Blitz, and acted as fighter support for bombing raids over Germany.
“In many ways I feel my time status at the North Bank [of the Vetch] ready me for the RAF,” he mentioned.
“You felt you have been a part of one thing larger than simply you.
“An esprit de corps, a friendship and a comradeship that you never experienced in civvy street, apart from on the terraces.
“Football is a bit of like conflict – it’s a must to know what your activity is, the way it suits into the machine, and the way each and every different guy is relying on you doing it to the most productive of your skill.”
Swansea City AFCA huge part of this bonding on the terraces revolved around learning, and singing together, the team’s songs.
Through misty eyes, Francis starts reciting a few lines from “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” – a song more commonly associated with another team in recent times.
“Long sooner than West Ham picked it up and made it their very own, we used to belt out ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’,” he mentioned.
“That made me so proud to be correctly a part of the group.”
He described it as “a right kind badge of honour”, and while some were too rude to repeat, one rather quirky song makes him chuckle as he thinks back.
“After the conflict, the favorite was once the Woody Woodpecker track from the caricature – ‘Hahahaha, It’s The Woody Woodpecker Song’ – I’ve no concept how that one stuck on, however it was once a large number of a laugh to sing it,” he mentioned.
Greene family photoFrancis’ favourite players during his childhood were fullbacks Syd Lawrence, and Wilfred Milne – who still holds the record for the most Swans league appearances at 586 between 1920 and 1937.
“Those two have been lightning, up and down the pitch, left and proper, every now and then it was once as although we had 13 males at the box, such a lot was once the bottom they lined,” he said.
But it was after returning to the North Bank when he was demobbed, that he saw some of the most iconic figures of Welsh football.
“Of route John Charles went to Leeds and Juventus, sooner than he ever were given to play for the Swans, however Mel Charles and Mel Nurse have been there,” he mentioned.
“It’s implausible that one boulevard in Cwmbwrla may produce such a lot skill.
“Then you had another set of brothers, Ivor and Len Allchurch.
“We had such a lot skill in the ones years, and all born inside strolling distance of the Vetch.”
Francis took over the family fish business, as well as becoming an executive for Littlewoods department store.
As well as cheering on the Swans, he also became an accomplished pianist in his spare time – appearing in a BBC Wales documentary, playing to enthralled crowds at Swansea Market.
It is after covering more than half a century of his life and football support that we arrive at a point that is both mine, and Francis’ favourite memory.
This is the open top bus tour following promotion to the top tier of English football for the first time, under John Toshack, in 1981.
Francis was 59 and I was three.
“Yes, we have been most likely on Kingsway [in the city centre] in combination that day – who is aware of how a long way aside – however by means of then I used to be just a little bit too large to be sitting on my father’s shoulders such as you have been,” he mentioned.
“The identical as you, I will take into account the open-top parade, the ticker-tape, and the avid gamers waving.
“I’d been going 50-odd years by then, and I never thought I’d see us bumping elbows with Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal in the top flight.”
And this sums up soccer supporters – from the ones Francis sang with at the Vetch terraces within the 1920s, to lovers at the town’s streets celebrating in 1981, and children pronouncing good-bye to mythical participant Joe Allen on the Swansea.com stadium remaining week.
You would possibly not know every different in my opinion, however via your songs, recollections, top and lows you enjoy in combination, somehow, you might be all the time circle of relatives.
