THE article "Sid's Cup Story" (Evening Press, January 29) brings back many happy memories of 1955. Then, a mere stripling, serving at RAF Leeming, I took my girlfriend to see that City team play, this on a 1947 A J S motorbike.

Her mother must have been mad to allow it, but she did and even provided a flask of coffee, which didn't survive the rigid rear suspension. Coffee-less, I paid for seats in the stand, nothing was too good for Pat.

The City team was as you quoted, The opponents? I've no idea.

Forty two years later Pat became my second wife and I her second husband, maybe thanks to York City?

The semi-final at Hillsborough, my father, the friend who got the tickets, and I went. Unceasing rain, but we were under cover. Leppings Lane end, with room to move about, populated by pitmen - they weren't called miners in those days.

My father and friend couldn't understand a word they said, but I had so many RAF Geordie friends it was a second language to me and the exchange of banter was memorable, and at the end of a 1-1 draw hands were shaken all round. What a contrast to today.

Mick Snowden,

Manor Farm Bungalow,

Amotherby,

Malton.

Updated: 10:12 Saturday, February 05, 2005