Hi. I hope you might find this interesting.
I recently turned 60 and have decided that during this year I am going to do some things I’ve never done before. Although I’ve lived in Lancashire most of my life and as a youngster used to go on holiday with my parents to Blackpool, one thing I’ve never done is go to the top of Blackpool Tower.
My wife and I were talking about this recently and she asked me about the time we were on holiday in Blackpool when we saw the Beatles. I told her about it and for some reason this brought back another memory that until then I’d completely forgotten about.
In the early 60’s I lived in a town called Chorley which is on the main road between Blackpool and Manchester (the A6), and near where we lived was a recreation ground where we would play football etc. During a week early in the summer holidays (1963/1964 ish) , my friends and I were playing football as normal, when four older boys/men asked if they could join in. Of course we let them, it was great fun. I’m not sure if it was just the once they joined in or for a few days, but fairly quickly they stopped turning up to join in our game.
We though nothing about it until someone (another friend) told us we’d been playing football with The Shadows.
I don’t know if it was true, and I don’t know if there’s any way now of finding out if it was true but we believed it at the time and boasted about it constantly.
If anyone does know if The Shadows ever stayed in a town called Chorley in Lancashire in the early 60’s and could let me know that would be great. If they did I may be able to ‘dine out’ on this tale a few times.
Regardless, it’s a great memory and now I've remebered this tale I’ll still be able to tell friends about the time we played football with ‘The Shadows’ (maybe).
Hope you enjoyed it.
Sean


