TRANMERE ROVERS

‘He belongs in the company of the supremely great like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt.’

BILL SHANKLY on Dixie Dean, who started his legendary football career at his home-town club, Tranmere

‘I’m quite proud of being the worst left-back in Tranmere’s history.’

RAY STUBBS who started his brilliant broadcasting career after being released by his home-town club, Tranmere

It’s hard enough being the so-called second club in a city, so being the third must be a nightmare. Especially when my mate Stu, who’s from there, insists that Tranmere is a ‘separate bloody place, it’s not in Liverpool, you ignorant git’.

Seriously, Salford Stan has nothing on Stu. Stan will at least try to patiently explain things to me. Stu just goes straight to angry. Which is always fun. He gets even more annoyed when I say, ‘Well, you sound like it’s in Liverpool’, but he loves me really and he loves Tranmere, although not enough to live there, obviously. And he supports Liverpool. No wonder I get confused.

Wherever it is, and whatever they sound like, they have always been considered Merseyside’s third team, although, unfortunately, in terms of resources and success, it is a very distant third. I’ve not actually been to their ground, Prenton Park. Partly because we haven’t often been in the same league (humble brag) but mainly because they used to play their home games on a Friday night to avoid clashing with Liverpool and Everton – you know, the two teams that they are definitely not in the same place as.

Between 1992 and 1997, Pat Nevin played 193 games for Tranmere and scored 30 goals during one of the most successful periods in their history, including three successive seasons when they reached the Division 1 play-offs. He was a proper old-fashioned winger – a joy to watch – and one of the few footballers unafraid to express left-wing views or play Joy Division and The Fall in a DJ set. He also played for Everton, so I asked him whether Tranmere felt like a different place. ‘When I was there, no, but older fans certainly spoke as though it was. Liverpool and Everton fans considered them as belonging to them, but obviously not as rivals. They were seen as harmless.’

Uh-oh. I asked Pat if that annoyed Tranmere fans as much as it annoyed Orient fans in London. ‘Seriously, Kevin, nothing annoyed Tranmere fans. They were the nicest club and the nicest fans you could meet. I was probably the most aggressive person there! They were almost fey.’

Tranmere fans being called ‘fey’ by Pat Nevin is what I call a compliment.

Prenton Park is in Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula, directly across the Mersey from Liverpool. So yes, geographically it’s separate, but only in the same way Croydon is separate from London and Palace are very definitely a Croydon team and a London team. Oh, actually, I suppose that could be quite confusing too.

Until about 1750 Tranmere very definitely was separate, being a sort of rural retreat for the wealthy folk of Liverpool, but the Industrial Revolution turned wood into iron and it became famous for shipbuilding. In 1886, the Mersey Rail Tunnel (the first in the world to be built under a tidal estuary, you’re welcome) linked the town to their new big brother, and Tranmere Rovers’ journey to being the city’s third team had begun.

Formed in 1884 as Belmont Football Club, they became Tranmere Rovers in 1885 and, ahem, roved about various grounds before settling at Prenton Park in 1912. They tried out a fair few kits as well, my favourite being a natty orange and maroon number, before settling on blue shirts and white shorts, which they wore until 1962 when a new manager changed it to all white because it was too much like Everton’s (although why would that matter if they were from a completely different place?).

Tranmere Rovers have had a history mainly untroubled by trophies and a recent history mainly troubled by finances, but they have seen some famous names. Some, like Ian St John and John Aldridge, at the end of their career, and one at the very beginning. Dixie Dean scored 60 goals (sixty!) in one season for Everton, and 323 more in all his other seasons there. He scored 18 goals in 16 games for England. But before all that, he joined his home-town team, Tranmere, as a teenager, and scored 27 goals in 30 games for them. He would be worth a gazillion pounds now, but what amazes me is what he was wearing while he did it. He scored those 60 goals in the 1927/28 season. Google a photo of him at the time and marvel at the fact his football kit probably weighs about as much as Tranmere’s back-four does now.

I love performing on stage, but I don’t tend to make life more difficult by wearing a suit of armour and a parka, which is pretty much what old-time footballers did. Remember those nipple-scratchy nylon shirts you wore playing Sunday football? They were uncomfortable, but they were light. In Dixie’s day, shirts and shorts were made of heavy cotton, or wool, both of which absorb water, perfect for an English winter. Those shorts came down to the knee, where they were met by socks made of wool so thick you could lag your boiler with them. Club badges added to the weight. Some of them were the size of corner flags and were sewn on by hand with stitches the size of wine gums.

And as for the boots! They look like their primary purpose was to hold deep-sea divers down, but players were expected to run, kick and score goals while wearing about three piglets worth of leather on each foot.

Any spare piglets went on the ball. I have held a genuine 1920s’ fully inflated leather ball; it was like lifting a toddler, only toddlers don’t have inch-thick laces to hold them together. It was often said that really good wingers could cross a ball with the laces on the side away from a centre-forward, but how anyone could do anything that accurate wearing boots that heavy is beyond me.

And the really amazing thing is that those players would have thought they were wearing the very latest cutting-edge sportswear, and probably spent half-time laughing at photos of Victorian players in their knickerbockers and peaked caps.

Tranmere’s motto is ‘Ubi fides ibi lux et robur’: ‘Where there is faith there is light and strength’. It takes faith and strength to support a team like Tranmere when virtually everyone you go to school or work with is wearing red and blue. Even I wouldn’t begrudge a little light in their lives as well.

Why You Shouldn’t Support Them

■ Stu can be quite insulting.

■ Friday night games are really hard for away fans.

■ If they want to be different that much, they really need a different accent.