Yeah, it was the smoke. The smoke….

Of course, there was plenty of it around: the railway lines to the east and north of the ground, the power stations at Lots Road, Fulham and Battersea, the gasworks at Sands End and the dozens of small factories around the area, plus the odd indulgent domestic chimney in what was a mild Spring. But among the fumes and vapours of industry, a whole other smell was reaching us, whose molecules spoke a language of health and vitality, among the smoky ciphers of waste, spent energy, entropy. Wordless, Stan Critchley and I followed the little plume rising to the south as frozen, as frozen nomads might approach signs of a village.

Football – professional football, real football – was still a Northern game, then; Woolwich Arsenal were the only top-flight London team, and if Chelsea gained promotion (which they could do that very day, depending on results elsewhere), we would have only one guaranteed trip to the capital to look forward to next season, yet I always felt that football’s future was tied up with London. Perhaps it was the finals we’d lost at Crystal Palace and the Oval, great glamourous events with huge numbers and press coverage; perhaps it was the public transport, so bold and efficient; perhaps it was the verve and modernity of the city…; there had never been a clearly defined source for this feeling, but it was persistent, and as we trudged towards the little shack at the south of the ground and joined the patient queue of people that were not curious but rather expectant, blasé about the delicious smell cutting through the smog and soot of the air, I thought this feeling might be taking a concrete form.

‘A, ha-ha! You silly norvern plonka!’

Ahead of me, Bert Sanderman was hyperventilating, while a small object steamed in his hand and a smaller piece steamed on the floor.

‘By struth,’ he said, ‘that’s bloody hot!’

‘Let’s have a look,’ Stan called to him. He walked towards us, showered with sarcasm and ridicule from the rest of the queue.

‘Smells lovely,’ I said, shuffling forward with queue. ‘Steak and kidney?’

‘I shink so,’ said Bert, still in some discomfort, ‘Cor really tashte it — isht rea-y ho’’

Finally it was my turn, and I paid my penny halfpenny and strolled back to rejoin Dicky and Jack in the North Stand as the teams came out for the second half.

Pie? Hot? At a football match?

‘What y’ad, lads?’ asked Jack.

‘Pie,’ I replied.

‘Pie? Hot? At a football match? That’s unbelievable!’

We stood inhaling watching and inhaling the vapours, fighting the temptation to sample with any further senses in fear of what happened to Bert. Only after Chelsea’s third goal without reply did I try around the edges, and allow myself this miraculous taste of home-from-home. When would we have pies at Molineux? Surely it wouldn’t be long. I knew that I had seen the future, and a glimpse of the enormous commercial potential that the game held. Trust London. It was bound to be London.

The Smoke. Always the Smoke.