Bollington resident's new book chronicles football history through relationship with father
By Alex Greensmith
30th Sep 2024 | Local News
A Bollington man who has been to every ground of the 92 English Football League clubs... twice, has released a new book.
Giles Goford, who works as global development producer at BBC Sport, has released his first-ever book Head for the Floodlights: Around the 92 in the 1980s.
The football fanatic boasts over 30 years in sporting media, and is an Ipswich Town fan.
He is a regular attendee of Macclesfield FC, and his son plays for Bollington United FC.
But it is the relationship with his father, Jeremy, that is explored through the lens of retro football grounds, that is the star of his new book.
Giles and his dad visited every Football League ground from April 1988 to August 1989, or in footballing terms, every team included within the top 92 from the 1987-88 season to the 89-90 season.
Almost 40 years on, the book is an important historical document, as much as it is the story of the love between father-and-son.
Giles sat down with Macclesfield Nub News for 90 minutes (not intended to be the length of a football match), to tell all.
"I turned 50 last year. I wanted to do something big as I was approaching 50, it is a landmark year," said Giles.
"Some people have a party, I wrote a book!
"My dad passed away in 2017, we did this big trip together in the late eighties. And I had all these photos in the loft.
"It was not something we talked about a lot over the years, but it is something that I remember really well. It was a really good bonding experience we had."
Taking promotion and relegation into account, they visited 94 professional football clubs.
"Over the duration of the project, Lincoln and Maidstone were promoted," recalled Giles.
"But we actually visited 93 grounds because Crystal Palace and Charlton were groundsharing at the time.
"The reason why it took us so long, is because we had to do it during the school holidays!"
The pair started the challenge on Good Friday, April 1 1988.
At that time, dad Jeremy Goford was 42, and Giles Goford was 14.
"We lived in Buckinghamshire at the time, and there was no local Football League teams near us [although today Wycombe Wanderers are a Football League club].
"So we thought let's go as far as we can first, so we went all the way to Carlisle.
"I love Carlisle, it means a lot to me as it was the first place we visited too.
"It is one of those clubs I am still so pleased are still in the Football League.
"It is so important for the community to retain their football club, and for the kids in the area to dream."
Giles, who was born in 1973, came of age during the project. In part, thanks to the challenges it posed.
"As the photos show I as quite a gawky teenager to start with," revealed Giles.
"But by the summer of 1989, I had discovered indie music. [And indeed, a proud photo of Giles on the cover shows him wearing a t-shirt of the band The Smiths].
"I changed a lot in that sixteen month period, from ages 14 to 16.
"We wanted to see how far we could get, to give ourselves that challenge. And travel expands the mind.
"I hadn't been to Manchester, I hadn't been to Newcastle. When we could we would stop off at local culture points like the Humber Bridge or Hadrian's Wall.
"One day, we did like 19 clubs in one day. We didn't contact any club in advance.
"Sadly we didn't get into all the grounds. Some of them we just had to take pictures of the outside. The main focal point was to take pictures of me underneath the sign.
"A lot of the clubs in those days didn't even have receptions! It was a very different time."
Giles' father was an actuary, working in pensions. But having looked at the quality of his photographs of Giles in the book, Jeremy could have easily had a fallback career as a photographer.
Jeremy's favourite ground was Fratton Park, as he grew up in Portsmouth. However, he was not a huge fan of the sport.
"He wasn't a football fan. He was doing this for me," said Giles.
"He had taken me to football to see Watford who were the nearest club to me when I was growing up, but apart from that, he didn't really love football.
"But he thought it would be a fun trip to do, traveling around the country, with bonding and a sense of adventure.
"He and I were both completists in some sort of way. People have done challenges and seen matches at all of the 92 grounds, I haven't, but we did it our own way.
"So it's a personal book as well, my relationship with my dad is talked about. It was always a very good relationship, but as teenagers you go through ups and downs, and that is something I talked about. And this was a very useful and fascinating way to have that bond really.
"But our differences brought us together, that was quite clear over the years.
"He enjoyed a sense of adventure, getting things done, doing something that is a bit off the cuff and different."
Remarkably, as either a testament to the love for his son, or just how attitudes to taking photographs have changed, there are no photos of father Jeremy, or Jeremy and Giles together at any of the grounds.
"Nowadays, you would take 40 pictures at one club, but back then it was on film," recalled Giles.
"So at some clubs we just took one photo. Film costs money!
"I wish we had taken a few more, it would have been nice. One of the saddest things was, we didn't get a photo together."
The book contains photos of grounds that you would not believe are home to the glitz and glamour of the Premier League today.
From decaying roller shutters at Newcastle's St. James' Park, to signs with letters missing at Wolves' ground Molineux.
"In the book, you see football as it was back then," Giles stated.
"Wolverhampton Wanderers had a ground sign declaring the club name, but it was missing the letter 's' at the end of 'Wanderers'.
"That would not be allowed now. At Molineux today, that would be replaced within an instant.
"Image wasn't as important in those days. There were not many club shops, there were no club websites to maintain, today, that sign would get picked out on social media."
No matter what club you support, even if they are not represented in the book, Head for the Floodlights serves as a timewarp, to football just before the foundation of the Premier League, before it became the global product we know it as today.
"I love the individuality of every ground," said Giles.
"Each one of these grounds has a unique story to it. Some owners would build their own floodlights.
"A lot of these stadiums were very basic, maybe one stand covered, the rest left to the elements."
The book spans 216 pages, and came out on September 24.
Many of the words in the book, come from interviews Giles conducted with former players of the mentioned clubs at that time.
"For the book, I wanted to talk to a player from each club, for context, for their memories of the ground," explained Giles.
"And I got responses from 70 ex-footballers for the book. I found quite a few of them from LinkedIn, or contacts I already had through my job.
"One of my favourite interviews with an ex-pro, was for the Gresty Road page, Crewe Alexandra.
"I spoke to former goalkeeper Dean Greygoose. I found Dean on LinkedIn, he is now a goalkeeper coach for Luton Town.
"He loved his time at Crewe. And said the smell of fish and chip shop when he was in goal at the Gresty Road end was 'amazing' and just thinking about it 'made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up'."
For some of the ex-pro interviews, the testimonials proved extra vital in preserving football history, as it was for grounds that do not even exist anymore, like the Athletic Ground in Scarborough.
"I spoke to a guy called Mitch Cook, who was from Scarborough," told Giles.
"A lot of teams had local lads playing for them back then. He told me what it was like to play at ground.
"Scarborough had a hill where fans could watch from, and freely move around.
"If Scarborough were attacking towards one end, they could move from one side, and then to the other.
"I really remember Scarborough well, they had just got promoted at the time."
Macclesfield Town were not a Football League club in the late eighties, but nearby sides Stockport County, Chester City and the Manchester clubs were.
Giles' favourite ground from the book was obviously Ipswich Town, being a lifelong fan of The Tractor Boys.
"I fell in love with Bobby Robson's team that won the 1981 UEFA Cup," added Giles.
"And back then, going to Ipswich was a really important moment for me, as being an Ipswich fan and not living there. I had kind of immortalised Portman Road in my head. This was where my heroes played.
"'To stand on the pitch, to sit in the dugout, I really felt that connection.
"Portman Road has always been a beautiful ground. I had the pleasure of speaking to defender Russell Osman, who was my favourite player, for the book about what it was like to play at Portman Road [now a Premier League stadium], at the time."
Incredibly, footie-mad Giles decided to do the challenge again 12 years later. And is detailed in the latter half of the book.
"We did the trip again in 2000, at the end of the 1999-2000 season," said Giles.
"By that time I was 27. I was living in London. I went with three mates, but as we planned to do it all in four days, my dad politely declined the offer.
"Once we had done all the grounds, we finished at Wembley Stadium, as Old Wembley was about to be demolished then, so we actually did one more!
"By then Barnet, Cheltenham and Wycombe had come up then."
The second time around, Giles and his friends did the 92 Football League club ground tour in aid of a charity, which fights against racism in football.
"With the truncated schedule of doing it all in four days, we were visiting Anfield and Goodison Park at 3am in the morning," recalled Giles.
"Roker Park [Sunderland] and Ayresome Park [Middlesbrough] had both gone by then, we had the shiny new grounds of the Stadium of Light and Riverside Stadium.
"Football had to change after Bradford and Hillsborough [stadium disasters], it was clear a lot of the grounds I went to in 1988, 1989, were not fit for purpose.
"These new stadiums had to be built and I'm glad they were.
"I like the way that some stadiums have been redesigned appropriately. Deepdale in Preston is a really good example. It looks nothing like it did, but it is still on the original site.
"And of course, in 2000, Macclesfield had been promoted then. So that was the first time I came to Macclesfield. Unfortunately, when we got there it was four in the morning.
"I then I ended up living in Bollington 11 years later [when the BBC moved up to MediaCityUK, Salford].
"It was nice to be there. I remember we drove from Port Vale over the windy Leek Road and I remember thinking at the time: 'This is beautiful round here'.
"I didn't know anything about Macclesfield or the area.
"I never thought back then on my first trip to the Moss Rose that I would be now living in Macclesfield."
"I am delighted what the current owners are doing with the club. I love the fact that it has a 4G surface, a community operation. Rob [Smethurst] and Robbie [Savage] have done a brilliant job.
"To get 4000 fans as opposed to the 1200 fans they were getting in League Two is a testament to the town. My son and daughter love going independently as well."
While there is no immediate plans for a second book, Giles is grateful for the support he has received, and is excited for the future.
And 24 years on since he last did the last ''92 Challenge', could Giles do it a third time?
"We have talked about doing it with my son," teased Giles.
"He is 13 now, so a year away from how old I was when I first started the challenge.
"And there are lots of new Football League Clubs clubs since then.
"I haven't been to Fleetwood, Morecambe, and Accrington, for example.
"I would like to thank my publisher Conker for having faith in the project, being a first-time author.
"From our first meeting together, we got on straight away.
"Thank you to the players who contributed their quotes to the book.
"Especially the players for the lower league teams, because they have such great stories of how football was back then.
"Brian McClair, who lives locally, was very kind to share some of his time to talk about Manchester United back then.
"I never thought I would have talked to Keith Houchen, who scored the winning goal in the FA Cup Final, and he contributed to the Leyton Orient, Port Vale and Coventry City sections of the book."
"For many clubs, it was a hand-to-mouth existence, where clubs were struggling financially, but the players just loved playing for those clubs.
"Getting promotion or being on live TV meant so much to them."
The book costs £16 and signed copies can be purchased on THIS LINK.
You can also buy it in person at The Mulberry Leaf coffee shop in Bollington. And Giles has donated one copy for rentals at Bollington Library.
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