Season 2011-12 Fan Articles

Saturday Night Pink Echo

By Neil   Smith  ::  11/11/2011   43 Comments (»Last) There's a shop in my local village that has been empty for about four years now. Its shutters marking a place that has fallen into general disrepair as it stood overshadowed by its huge "For Sale" sign. However, there has been movement in the last couple of months with a number of workies showing up to first gut the place and now renovate it. The shop is going to be a ladies' hair salon and will soon be up and running. I'am sure it will look very nice. 

What about it? ? you may ask. Well, for me, this shop meant only one thing from 1977 (when I was 8) through until 2004. You see, this was a newsagent and until its 2004 demise, it was the place to be to buy The Football Echo.

Every Saturday night, I would be there. Arriving at 6pm to await delivery of the Saturday pink. I would arrive promptly. Usually the pink hadn't arrived so I paid the bloke behind the counter and waited outside; I didn't want to clog up his shop. I wasn't alone. There would be half a dozen of us stood waiting for the van with the Echo sign to be seen coming up the road.

Over the years, you would get to know the men you stood with. Not by name. Just purely as "that bloke gets the Footie Echo". The van would arrive and some fag in mouth bloke would jump out, pass one of us the bundle, and speed off. Once handed to the shopkeeper, he'd hand out the copies and you were off. Saturday night had begun. 

My love of the Football Echo began in November 1977. I had listened to Everton beat Coventry 6-0 that afternoon and wanted more. My dad gave me 8p and sent me to buy the paper at 6 pm. A front page headline, a photo... reports on the Everton and Liverpool matches, full-time results, league tables... This was my Saturday night football fix between Grandstand and Jimmy Hill. 

It wasn't perfect. Due to deadlines with printing the second-half match report was much shorter than the first. And some results were L-L (late kick-off). And the table wouldn't reflect these results. But usually there were only a couple of missing scores. The Stop Press might get you up-to-date with a bit of luck... 

There was also the cartoon figure of the Everton Toffee Lady and the Kopite. They would either be dancing or crying, depending on the result. 
Inside the paper was a feast of footie as well: letters, features, non-league, local amateur scene, Memory lane... and a quiz. 

The paper had its peak in the mid-80s for me. Everton were in the middle of their glorious era; Liverpool weren't bad either. And its glories were reported on a Saturday night. Virtually all games kicked off at 3pm then, you know. 

It did have its bad times. It was the first paper that reflected the Hillsborough disaster that Saturday. The headline "74 dead" was sadly not the final number...
 
Other memorable headlines stick with me though. After the 1984 win. "Magic show wins the Cup" summed up all Evertonian feelings. As did "Safe!" after the famous Wimbledon win that avoided relegation ten years later. 

Sadly, as the years went by, other media led to a fall in sales and ? in May 2004 ? the Saturday night pink went out for the last time. Everton lost 5-1 that day to Man City in an abject performance. Not a fitting end.

The following season ? and still to this day ? the pink is available as a freebie pull-out with the normal Saturday Echo... on a Saturday morning(!) It's basically a preview pull-out. It's not remotely the same. 

No more Saturdays eagerly making my way to the paper shop. No more waiting for the van to arrive. 
The demise of this institute on Merseyside wasn't acknowledged to much extent at the time. My mates will tell you I still go on about the Saturday night Football Echo. Another footie institution gone.
Within a couple of years, the newsagents was gone.

It was never the same in my eyes when the Saturday Pink went. 

I hope the hair salon does well. But the smell of hair spray and shampoo will not be a match for the odour of the freshly printed Pink Echo. 

Reader Comments (43)

Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer

About these ads