Holding History

My dad recently presented me with a box of his old Leeds United programmes from the late sixties and early seventies. I had no idea he’d collected them as a teenager. It’s something he’s never mentioned. While he’s a Leeds United supporter, his first love was always rugby league.

I felt a surge of excitement opening a fifty year old box that had been living in my gran’s loft, like I was holding something immediately precious to me and of great value. The only thing I can compare it to is like finding the first pressing of a vinyl in a record store and excitedly catching the bus home to go play it and find out whether it sounds just as good as it did fifty years ago. I didn’t know I was looking for it until I found it, but this glimpse into the past gave me an attachment to something I didn’t know existed.

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