Great Yarmouth nets: Space, inclusivity and the FA Cup Bloaters

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Reed

On digital and film where stated.

Some parts of the net come up like a shimmering sheet of silver,

being so crowded with fish it’s a wonder they are not rent asunder…

We must not forget to add, that to be enjoyed in their finest perfection, they should be eaten at Yarmouth,

while yet reeking from the smoke-house.

Leisure Hour on the Great Yarmouth herring industry. 1808.

You can look at Great Yarmouth as a microcosm of what the country is going through.

Various communities trying to rub along with scarce resources and to have a laugh whenever one arises.

At Great Yarmouth Town Football Club on the East Coast of England, they try and reel the ball in first and then get it down and play.

There’s a lad from Cape Verde who’s trying out for Great Yarmouth reserves and he’s watching the first team take on Cambridge City in the FA Cup Preliminary Round.

You can see the ambition in his eyes and he talks about working in the day and training at night to fulfil his dream of becoming a professional player.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Great Yarmouth Town FC vs Cambridge City FC.

When you scrape away the surplus analysis of England’s sociology, like the top of a sandcastle, that’s all life really is in the main, people trying to better themselves and have a reasonable life.

Great Yarmouth Town FC provides that candyfloss stickiness of Saturday inclusivity that gives people somewhere great to go and watch the football.

There’s a sense of space at Yarmouth’s vast Wellesley Recreation Ground, just a street inland from the seafront, more cricket ground in vibe, with its mismatched accommodation for fans, athletics track and rows of quaint benches that run the length of the pitch.

The star is the 1892 Grandstand, noted as the oldest surviving enclosure in England and an idyllic place to perch your arse and watch a ball fly about.

Let’s just assume it’s the oldest grandstand in the world and one that you could transport to any cricket outfield in Barbados or Melbourne Aussie Rules oval and it would look the part.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Grandstand. Great Yarmouth Town FC vs Cambridge City FC. On film

Stood at the front are the Great Yarmouth Amber Wave active supporters group, looking perplexed at their drum, which only has half a skin because they’ve bashed it so hard.

They started in 2022 with two people and have grown to around 25 on a good day. The brief is pretty obvious, to create a positive atmosphere and send their sound over the straight of the running track and onto the backs of the Bloaters’ players.

We won’t call them ultras per se, they try not to swear and don’t have any pyro but their repertoire of chants rivals the Curva Sud in Milan or the Auteuil Tribune in Paris.

Say his name and he appears

I believe in Jake Spooner

Because they love him in London and Paris and Tokyo

America, Scotland and Canada and Mexico

They say, I believe in Jake Spooner!

Sing the Amber Wave lads to the player in question, who is warming up on the touchline, with Spooner half-embarrassed, half-appreciative of his serenading. There are few other clubs that will create a chant to a WWE walkout song.

Are we human? Or are we Bloaters? Is another terrace favourite to the ear-worm by The Killers.

That Bloaters nickname comes from the old herring industry that powered the East Anglian town and had thousands waiting for the haul to come off the fishing boats and be smoked, ready for the breakfast table.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Amber Wave. Great Yarmouth Town FC vs Cambridge City FC.

The fishing theme runs throughout the club and especially in the story of the FA Cup victory over Crystal Palace in 1953 where a significant crowd of 8944 squeezed into the Wellesley.

Supporters stood on fish crates to watch the Bloaters see off their South London opponents with a 1-0 win in the First Round Proper, in a match that is still talked about to this day in Yarmouth.

Henry Barham, an old punk who plays with The Black Beauties used to follow Norwich City but simply says he fell out of love with the Canaries when Carrow Road went all-seater.

You can see why he spends his Saturdays at the Wellesley now, chatting to his mates in that August sunshine that warms but doesn’t burn, missing the kick-off because he’s chin wagging, while his fellow supporters sit on picnic benches with a view onto the pitch.

The home faithful were characteristically unflustered when Shane Temple opened the scoring for Cambridge City, because their opponents were from a league higher and this blatantly isn’t a short-term project at Yarmouth.

Maybe it was that ability to relax on the ball which brought the equaliser for the Bloaters and then the last gasp winner which had even the the most laid-back holiday maker throwing their knotted hankies in the air in jubilation when Charlie Barber smashed home in time added on.

You’d have heard the cheers at the top of the wooden rollercoaster on the Pleasure Beach.

The Amber Wave’s drum is probably no more, smashed into the First Round qualifying, the sticks up in the rafters of that grand old stand somewhere.

We’ve travelled all the East Coast

We’re never gonna stop

From Cromer down to Gorleston

We’ve won the bloody lot…

Sing the Amber Wave, in no rush to go home.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Great Yarmouth beach.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Great Yarmouth town centre.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Great Yarmouth Town FC vs Cambridge City FC. On film.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Grandstand. Great Yarmouth Town FC.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Great Yarmouth Town FC supporter.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Great Yarmouth Town FC vs Cambridge City FC. Long jump pit.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Cambridge City FC supporter at Great Yarmouth Town FC.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Henry Barham. Great Yarmouth Town FC vs Cambridge City FC.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Great Yarmouth Town Kappa jersey.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Great Yarmouth Town FC cap..

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Steven Doggett: Amber Wave co-founder.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Great Yarmouth gulls.

Listen to what it means 💛

This reaction to @The_Bloaters bagging a last-minute #EmiratesFACup winner is everything 😅

🎥 @NLW_UK pic.twitter.com/K9Wc5hLZt1
— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) August 17, 2024

21/11/1953: 8,000 fans pack The Wellesley to watch Great Yarmouth Town beat #CrystalPalace 1-0 in the #FACup, 1st Rnd. #TheBloaters remain the only Eastern Counties club to beat a professional league side in the history of the competition.@TheBloaters @CPFC #GYTFC #CPFC pic.twitter.com/A2BCTd03EF
— Fussball Geekz (@fussballgeekz) August 9, 2024