While I was working in castleford today , I saw a local school coach with the name DAWSONS on it !!
It got me reminiscing about our local Dawson’s travel in the 80’s.
Does anyone have any horror stories of away day travel with them ?
My main one would be on the 84/85 or 85/86 season I think .
Trip to Bristol rovers who still played at eastville then .
Coach broke down just outside of Walsall not long after the bridgeman street pick up .
They sent another coach and we got about as far as Worcester before that one packed up !!!
They then sent a WMPTE double decker which got us to eastville in some discomfort on those slidy seats !!
Arrived a bit late , but still managed to get in the ground just before Colin Brazier scored !!
Journey back was ok but then they always are after a win !!
I can’t remember the coach company apart from they were based in Wednesbury, anyway we went on a holiday to Rimini (Italy)
The outward journey was awful but the holiday itself was good.
We started our return journey and partway across France it became apparent that the coach was leaning to the offside and the ride was very bouncy.
The driver pulled in at a service station and after much discussion between the drivers a solution was found. The air suspension had gone down so they let the other side down to level things up which was ok until we set off. Honestly I’ve had a smoother ride on a rollercoaster.
Speed was reduced to try and make things more comfortable but it made no difference and people were starting to get mightily peed off so we were assured if we could make Calais we could board the ferry and a mechanic would meet us at Dover.
Well that turned out to be a load of bullshit as we simply drove on being given the excuse that nobody was available on a Sunday afternoon. Eventually we went into Watford Gap services and they changed the drop off order round putting us last off so we got off at Walsall and they had to unload half the suitcases to get at ours.
Last time I ever used a coach holiday company. I can’t for the life of me remember their name but they were something to do with Hoverland in Bradford St.
I remember it well as a 9 year old, my first visit to Bristol Rovers. We scored from a corner routine where Kenny Mower flicked it on at the near post. I’d imagine it was Steve Daley that took the corner but not certain on that.
I remember it so well because I got the new yellow away kit to wear that day. Was really exciting as a young kid. I think the game was in September because I had to wait a couple of weeks for the shirts to come in at Jan Websters.
We also beat Bristol City away first game of the season.
On my one and only trip to Eastville* our Central coach had its windows put in as we left the ground. That would be a few years before your Dawson’s experience.
*Trip to Eastville to watch football, that is - since then I have had the misfortune to be a regular visitor to the Tesco superstore that replaced the ground. The smell has gone though.
Not a football story, but when I was younger I went with my parents and girlfriend to Skegness on a Pathfinder Masons Willenhall coach. Bearing in mind that this was in the first decade of the 21st century, the coach looked like it was from the 1960s, maybe even the 1950s (see below).
We stopped at a motorway services on the way there, and along the coach parking section there were rows and rows of huge, modern, sparkling white, air-conditioned coaches from around the country, all on daytrips like ours, as we rattled alongside them belching out black smoke trying to find a space. Typical Walsall, eh?
How we made it through the twists and turns of the Lincolnshire countryside I’ll never know, but we did get there.
It also astonishingly made it back to Walsall. It was supposed to make a few drops at various points around Willenhall, Lane Head, New Invention and the like, but the old machine wheezed off the motorway and ground to a halt next to Bentley library (when it had one) at about midnight. She was going nowhere.
The driver got everybody out, opened the back end, and we could see that the engine was on fire, smoke pouring out from every vent. Lucky for us because we lived in Bentley so we just walked home, but I don’t know how the rest got back!
I never tended to use coaches all that much, but I did have a Dawson’s breakdown going to a game at Chester once (late 70s/very early 80s?) We were actually in Chester at this point but we still missed a large chunk of the first half - probably would have made kick off if we’d all got off and walked.
60’s/70’s went everywhere on coaches football matches .pub breakfast/ strip club trips crate of ale Sunday mornings .Stoke way I think .Top of the world Stafford .Lafayette. Locarno Couldn’t have lived without the old coach trips gave you great freedom to enjoy yourself.always remember the outgoing journey not so much the return !
Anyone have experience of Fred Winkle coaches in the late 50’s early 60’s. Not for footie but used for school trips. Terrible and always broke down when I went on one.
Never travelled to football much on coaches, but on the occasions i have mid-late 90s i think they were Goode’s coaches that were mentioned earlier in the thread.
Raybolds were contracted by Walsall council in the late 70’s early 80’s, they would go around the Walsall and surrounding areas, picking up all the tradesmen that were working on Blockhall in Darlaston, Birmingham rd, and New Invention, then drop them at the site, and pick us up and drop us home at the end of the day
We had some great times on our journey into work, most morning i wouldn’t even be out of bed when it pulled up outside our house on the Pelsall rd Brownhills with mom shouting up the stairs " mark they are outside get out of bed"
I would be running up the grass bank with my jeans and doctor martin boots under my arms
always insisted Central for Torquay .
