Just watched the first episode of Man In A Suitcase, an old ITC series from the mid-sixties. There's a lot of excellent location work in it and the colour and quality was excellent - it looked like it was shot on film, not videotape - but the real bonus was the second half, which was filmed, in its entirety, at White City Stadium (Regal City Stadium as it was called in that episode).

It started with a shot of White City Station, then went on past the Territorial barracks - those of us who've been youthful for long enough will remember that the barracks extended right down to the crossing opposite the station at that time, and that you could walk through them just like you can walk through the flats now. Then, a very film noir tracking shot of the hero driving past the estate itself (briefly) before swinging round into - is it White City Road, I can't remember now, despite walking down it every day of my life .

In traditional Rs fashion for the day (under the turnstiles was the other option) the hero clambered over the gate, for extended scenes in the cavernous walkway underneath where a honeycomb of betting windows lined the inside and outside of the Ground at street level.

Plenty of great views of the Ground as the protagonists moved round it, leading up to a very satisfying denouement where dozens of 'Soviet agents' charged out onto the pitch - not to remonstrate with Stuart Leary for squandering yet another chance - but to corner the hapless McGill or whatever he was called who was craftily leading the bad guys away from his girlfriend.

Great stuff. Especially as my memories of the old place were soured by our increasingly dire performances there and its unsuitability as a football ground. It looked an elegant and majestic place on what was obviously a lovely summers day, perhaps not long before or after the World Cup match played there - Uruguay v France? With one comparatively close up shot showing how big the tote board - and therefore the stadium - really was. As well as all the other incongruous oddities like the slanting lamps over the dog track.

All the more pleasant because the summer of 1966 - the trees were in leaf so I assume it was summer - was the calm before the storm of the golden year of 1967 and after. Nobody except Gregory, perhaps, could imagine that the following decade would see us come within a quarter of an hour of winning the title itself.

For the connoisseurs, this print of the of the old series was superb, sharp, the colour bright and authentic for the period. Good performances too. I'd never seen Man in a Suitcase before. Not sure why, as I'd swallowed the Saint and the incomparable Danger Man whole.

Just thought it would bring back some memories.

I'm quite certain this is the only post of Peters that I have read totally and may I say what a pleasure.

Indeed it was the White City Road.

Many was the time that I strolled thru' the barracks to find the gates locked and grumbled my way back round the road!

I remember watching us there or at least I think it was us, being virtually blind my whole life, as a kid trying to squint at players about 100 yards away past the dog track and the running track was a waste of time for me and as for the baseball game I went to see there!!

Honestly Peter reading your post has really made me smile.

Thanks mate.

Great post mate
The White City has featured many times in Films and the small screen of course....'The Blue Lamp', second Steptoe film, Sweeney etc
I would never normally watch anything to do with Herman's Hermits but recently and over 40 years since it was made, I caught by chance the moment the greyhound was at the Stadium in,'Mrs Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter'

I'm not into the band 'The Pougues' but it seems they recorded a track on alablum in the 80's called "White City" which is about the stadium and its demolition.

Funny enough its the White City Stadium centenary year this year and 1908 olympics. So woud be good if the club could do a feature in a match programme to record the fact and recall some of our games there.

Onwards and upwards,

There was a single I think but never heard the track
I'm working on an article for the Home Page about the 1908 Olympics

Thought it would raise a smile, bp.

In the curious way of things, and immediately after I read your post, I went off to make a cuppa and my eye lighted on Dennis Signy's history of QPR. I received that in the mail a year or so ago from a woman friend I hadn't seen in years (honest). She saw it on a market stall, thought I might be interested and, as it happened, I didn't have a copy.

Even more curiously, opening it at random, the first page I came to was a photo of the young Ingham (the proper one) defending a corner. Mackay House in the background. Memories, eh?

Anyway, trust you're all convalesced now.

I must say I look forward to reading Steve's article. The stadium was an extraordinary thing to have tucked away just 'next door', and in a rather obscure corner of West London. A source suggested that it once held 120,000, although the capacity was usually given as closer to 60,000 in later years.

The history of the area is fascinating, with the - was it the Anglo-French? - Exposition that gave us the name 'White City' and the sheer extent and size of the new Wood Land Development reminding us how extensive the entire project was.

My dad always talked about how poor a stadium it was to watch football - pitch, dog track, cycle/running track then terraces, don't know if thats right but from the above I think it was a very long way from the pitch - quite the opposite to LR.

Funny thing is - he met my mum at White City - at a greyhound race. Shame we didnt buy it for £1m when we had the chance.

Terrible. A dispiriting place. Arguably the best day ever as an Rs supporter when I heard we were going back.

Is this really a thread started by Ingham?

Vaguely remember the title of the series, but no more.

By modern standards, one of the most amazing things is how quickly they built the White City Stadium- 10 months apparently.

The stadium itself - I was excited when we moved there, but the pitch was a long way away over the dog and running tracks. And I think the terracing was very shallow, probably because originally for 1908 it was mostly seated. Although that wasn't much of a problem with 10,000 or less in a 60k stadium. It was choose your own block time.

The site may have been a good deal at £1m in the early eighties as it was a big site, but it must have been a bit derelict as a stadium by then. Given that Wembley was getting a bit shabby then, was in regular use and was 12 years younger.

Ingham, I think the dispiriting way that season faded probably had a lot to do with that feeling.

I always loved the stadium itself in many ways, but given the layout then it wasn't much good for watching football.

Great post Ingham.

Oh those White City days following QPR...The Shape of the Pear after the Big Freeze was it not?

Strangely enough we were "up there" at Christmas but it was reduced to 3,245 spectators watching a 3-1 defeat by Coventry in the Penultimate home game.(May 1963) Why did you not come over and say hello

Perhaps we should have kept Frank Large and not purchased Stuart Leary .....may they both rest in peace

I was almost forgetting, Kerrins. The big freeze!

We'd lost LR for all we knew. We'd lost the first of Stock's fine teams, the 60-62 goal machine that produced 200 goals in two promotion near misses. And then we'd lost football altogether. Frozen into the grim immobility of the Pools Panel.

Wasn't Jimmy Hill on the Pools Panel? Just about the time Coventry began to make an impact with promotions, a redesigned strip of all Sky Blue with those snazzy dark blue vertical stripes in their 'stocking tops' (the Arsenal programme was still calling shorts 'knickers' at the time, I'm sure).

No doubt the W12 Ice Age accounted in part for the sense of bleakness I forever after associated with White City. And when the ice melted, the pitch more or less melted too, I seem to remember? Turning into a type of quicksand.

Didn't make Ray Brady any quicker though. My dad couldn't stand Ray Brady

Ingham...yes we did appear to have lost a lot but thankfully as it turned out John Bloom was also left behind in that White City Winter Wasteland.

I agree with your Dad. I am convinced Ray Brady's best days were at Millwall. I wonder what would have happened if Jimmy Dugdale had not got "knackered."?

From the Jan 1963 big Freeze onwards...Home defeats followed by Home defeats...a bit like Napoleon's retreat from Moscow but with warmer weather.

Obviously our memories are much the same, mate.

We seemed to have an entire team of players whose palmy days were behind them, in some cases long behind them. The Brady brothers, John McLelland who had done well for Portsmouth but who did little for us. Wasn't there a little Brentford player who was also a Mac? McLeod? Leary himself had once been a quality player in two codes.

Not sure why they moved, when it comes down to it. Various stories had it as Stock's idea, or the Board's. And I'm not sure why Stock was snapping up has-beens, lack of resources I daresay. His touch clearly hadn't deserted him as he'd already signed the has-beens Allen and Marsh when that episode of Man in a Suitcase was recorded.

Don Revie, not long before, had famously said 'think small and you stay small'. Like Shankly's notorious remarks about winning, it confused people. Which, in Shankly's case, was the idea, I'm sure

These days people still talk about needing a big ground to succeed. But no-one ever builds one. Except Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, are building stadiums which could conceivably be called big. And even those Grounds are barely the capacity they were pre-Taylor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kWwyY3b9EY

A very nicely produced official IOC video with lots of White City Shots

The White City Stadium.......the one that got away