William Henry Hawkins, and HUFC (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, April 05, 2013, 17:43 (4252 days ago) @ selbyfamily

Hi Sheila,
thats great news to hear of a happy ending to your long hunt, thanks so much for posting !. Sounds like the good old GWR played it's part again ?...
No doubt like many of us I've found a few possible ancestors in London, it's easy to discount them as coincidental matches due to their apparent distance from home, but maybe not especially if they're in the Western end, what with Paddington railway station or even Paddington Canal Basin before that.
Indeed my mum always thought my dad's elderly mother was from London, purely as her sister lived there - it turned out she was the only one of eight siblings who'd left their Forest homeland, to work in service in Ealing. Yet when I did much the same 80 years later mum thought I was mad !!
Re my Longhope mum I have also been hunting some Hawkins' lately, originally from Tewkesbury way but married into our family, plenty of William & Henrys in there too. Perhaps we're related ?.

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Talking of me being "mad", yes I do follow Hereford United with a passion, thanks for asking. I have no family connection with the city whatsoever. However like all Foresters with a "real" understanding of roundball football they're the traditional automatic "local" team to follow..... yet sadly I know some poor unfortunates including my nephew who have sadly been drawn to the dark side and even dare I say it Ashton Gate, so very sad... ;-)
I guess it's an age thing; as a kid in the late 70s Hereford were successful with full houses and, having not seen live football before, their little stadium was an exciting place to go, regular buses ran from all over the Forest including my Cinderford home. My first memory of them was aged 10 visiting my nan's pub at Longhope in '73, watching the Newcastle FA Cup game on MOTD in her sittingroom, and "that" goal. I recall it was a busy, happy, night; we usually visited if they were extra busy so dad could help behind the bar - I still drive past the pub on the main road from here (West London) via Gloster for football, so I like to think there were some happy fans in that night on their way home from the game.
I know quite a few Foresters of my age or older who still follow the Whites, including some despite having to move far away for work. Up until the 80s or so they were heavily covered by the Forest issue of the Gloster Citizen paper, more recently that had to switch to young upstarts Cheltenham Town for business reasons. Quite understandably given our poor showings these last few years my nephew also visits Ashton Gate, I think influenced by his driver dad - he took me to my first game there, a late 70s First Division game against Birmingham, to watch Trevor Francis just before he became Britain's "first million pound player - a relative bargain now !! A year or two later I worked with a City fan who took coaches from the Forest to their away games, in the interest of young romance I saw City well beaten at Anfield, Wolves, etc etc; but my heart was and still is with the Whites, especially after City miraculously stopped us getting to a Wembley Final in 86 !.
Thankfully and unlike many other lower/nonleague clubs HUFC are known & even fondly regarded throughout the land, part of Cup folklore, which makes it easier to support them especially when living so far away. Judging by both our clubs' current form it seems possible that we're be playing City again in a few years, something I thought impossible 15 years ago, but if little Cheltenham can be on the verge of it now then so can we ..??. On that depressing thought for your family please accept my sympathy to their current plight, I know how dismal they must be feeling at the moment, but when all is said and done it really is ONLY a game despite what others have famously said.
atb Jeff.
(Seriously tho' I applaud all who follow their local(ish) team, at any sport, especially unglamourous & largely unsuccessful ones like ours...).