A special reunion for three of the Ayresome Angels
THREE of Middlesbrough FC’s biggest fans have shared their favourite football stories – from a surprising reunion with a legendary Boro striker to meeting their husbands through the club.
Angela Bailey, Irene Mccormick and Pauline Allenby were all members of the passionate Ayresome Angels back in the 60s.
Now aged 75, 74 and 73 respectively, the trio of sisters remain devoted fans of the club and only a fortnight ago met up with one of their favourite 60s players – John Hickton.
The sisters gave the Boro legend a toaster as a wedding present in 1966, and reunited 56 years later at an event he was holding in North Ormesby.
John, who is now 78, was given a standing ovation when he entered the Working Men’s club for his show ‘A conversation with John Hickton.’
During his long-awaited return to Teesside, he spoke to BBC Radio Tees presenter Paul ‘Goffy’ Gough on June 16.
Angela, who lives in a bungalow in Thornaby opposite John’s old house, said: “Well, he’s 73 now so we didn’t know if he’d remember because he’s ageing a bit, the same as we are! We asked him if he remembered and he started nodding.
“A little bit later he went ‘yes I do remember’ and it was like the penny dropped! He even remembered what we got him.”
The sisters, who have six children and 11 grandchildren between them, have renewed their season tickets for the year and still watch the games together with the new generations but say the time of the Ayresome Angels was the best football has ever been.
Pauline said: “We’ve had a lifetime of it and we still have with our second generations. But we can honestly say the 1960s were the best time of our lives.”
The passionate fan club had the motto ‘we are the Ayresome Angels and we never miss a match’ and they described how they used to get on a bus to travel to all away games and camped outside the Riverside Stadium to buy their match tickets.
Angela and Pauline even met their husbands through Middlesbrough Football Club at Chester and Brighton away games respectively. All three, including Irene
who met her husband as a teenager, have been married about the same time as their hero John Hickton.
Although still big fans of football, they believe the game has changed and nothing will beat their era of the game even 27 years after the team played their last game at Ayresome Park.
In the 1960s Boro’s stars regularly chatted with the Angels and even befriended some of them.
Angela said: “Our sons are in their 40s and 50s and we have arguments galore with them! They think we don’t know what we’re talking about.
“We knew football as football. Money is killing the game – if you want to go as a family it costs too much now. We haven’t gone to so many away matches recently because of Covid and stuff. Football has changed and it’s not the same for us.
“It hasn’t been for the last 10 years when the money really came in. We’re all Boro through and through though and always have been.”
Football has always been a huge part of their lives – since they were 11 or 12.
Irene, who lives in Middlesbrough, said: “We were the official
Ayresome Angels so we were all on the committee more or less! We always had respect for the adults though – that was a big thing then and they worked hard to get us to the away games.
“At Ayresome Park it was really good there, you could speak to the players, they wouldn’t go around thinking they were something special.
“You could walk by them on Linthorpe Road and chat.
“I think John Hickton would still take the time to chat to anybody today as would a lot of the others. They were just ordinary family people.”
Pauline added: “John even gave us a lot of our tickets to the away game – he used to save them for us! There was always a ticket for my dad and us three.”