as the players were part time and low paid, and there was no freedom of contract, a lot of clubs had what was referred to as "loyal servants"; often quite classy players who preferred to stay with their local team.

eg Nigel Stephenson and Jeff Grayshon at Dewsbury, Arthur Keegan at Bramley (after leaving Hull), Mick Morgan at York, Arnie Walker at Whitehaven,

Teams seemed more settled in the 70s - there was nothing like the current off-season rebuilding, although you could buy players mid season in those days

It does raise a few eyebrows.

Great recollections from the above posters.Funny how these slip your memory but then come flooding back after being triggered like this.
I too can remember "repent the end is nigh" people with their placards and leaflets on the car park down Airlie Street.
One thing that stuck in my mind when ever I saw them was,you must have some b***s trying to convert some of the pished up supporters rushing to get in threpneeys.
Talking of away ground supporters clubs,i can remember waiting on the car park to get in at H

Great recollections from the above posters.Funny how these slip your memory but then come flooding back after being triggered like this.
I too can remember "repent the end is nigh" people with their placards and leaflets on the car park down Airlie Street.
One thing that stuck in my mind when ever I saw them was,you must have some b***s trying to convert some of the pished up supporters rushing to get in threpneeys.
Talking of away ground supporters clubs TLJ,i can remember waiting on the car park to get in at Hunslets old ground and when the guy on the big double doors swung them open,dozens of Hull supporters came rushing out with bottles of ale in hand.How they got ,I don't know but it certainly was a cheap bar.

OOPS ,sorry nearly a double post.

Remember having to lay tarmac behind 3penny's that had been dumped in ground 3 days earlier,me and mate Brian tarring tin roof of same stand .
painting metal silver ,while junior supporters from round about painted back of stand white .gave them my old Wembley programme's and tickets.
Told to get dogs out ground for speedway [had 3 German Sheperds running loose then] same night sound system went wrong and Joe Longthorne brought his to help out

talking of changing games to sunday reminded me that my first game wasn't in 78/79 but will have been sometime in 1975 when hull played on saturday afternoon. my family often visited my gran who lived on etty grove which was just the other side of gordon street almost opposite the ground entrance - the grove has long gone now (demolished in the late 80s i think). anyway my dad used to sneak out of the house at halftime and see the second half, i seemed to recall you got in free at halftime (can anyone confirm?). anyway i went with him on a couple of occasions though i can't remember much about it except it was my first taste of live sport and obviously pretty exciting. think we got crowds of 4000 or so at the time according to dad.

on a different tack, the mid 70s - what did the younger folk of hull do for entertainment? hull as one poster has said attracted a mainly older audience, it is fair to assume rovers were similar and city weren't exactly packing them in. i suppose this was the age of the saturday afternoon cinema so maybe this is why sport was seen to be not as popular. it really took the rise of both rugby clubs to make the game 'sexy' at the end of the decade

could you expand on the program entry system, i'm intrigued. this raises loads of questions

was the programme really expensive?
did it have a tear off voucher inside or did you hand the whole thing in?
how did they know how many to print?
was it a one off or a regular thing?
could you sneak someone in by throwing your programme back over the wall?

it was free entry at half time.

Programme was purchased as you went through turnstile and was nothing more than a team sheet was just a means of getting around Sunday trading laws