By Michael Wilkinson

My first visit was on Tuesday to watch to Shrewsbury vs Barnet.

Both sides played well and tried their best right to the final whistle and there was no crowd trouble of any sort.

Now it’s many years since I’ve watched a pro football match, in fact the last time was at Fratton Park in Portsmouth with my dad and one of the visiting team members was a gent called Stanley Matthews, when all the players wore brown leather boots with knock in studs and the ball was made of leather.

A comparison is interesting.

Touch judges now seem to only look for the offside and don’t indicate where the ball went out.

The players now throw the ball in at up to 20 yards from where it went out rather than where it actually went out of play (try that at a rugby match!).

Players actually man-handle each other and push their opponents out of the way whilst the ref watches and does nothing.

Contact between players used to be allowed only from elbow to shoulder.

Players argue with the ref – why?

Finally, and I find this quite fascinating, each side has a box outlined beside the pitch where a man jumps up and down whistling, shouting and gesticulating telling his players what to do, I thought that was the captain’s job!

The ball seems to spend an amazing amount of time in the air as players head it in seemingly random directions to the point where I thought he game should be renamed head ball.

When we played with leather balls it took a brave man to head a wet ball and not risk brain damage.

The seating was good for viewing as dad used to have to send me down to the front of the terraces to watch, in those days it was what all the dads did for their children who were always looked after by the crowd.

A good evening’s entertainment nevertheless!