A DEVOTED fan has written a book about the “golden years” of Sussex sport.

Tim Quelch’s Good Old Sussex By The Sea takes a nostalgic look back on his childhood steeped in sport in 1960s Hastings.

The books covers the highs and lows of football and cricket in the county at a time when, Tim said, “local allegiances counted and expectations of success were more modest”.

But this was hardly an age of innocence, Tim said, and the book also charts Hastings United’s involvement in a major police corruption scandal. Good Old Sussex By The Sea takes the reader on “a rollercoaster ride of triumphs and woes”.

Tim said: “I remember my adolescence in 1960s’ Hastings with great fondness. Following Hastings United and Brighton and Sussex CCC was a big part of those good times.

“Notwithstanding these clubs’ sharply vacillating fortunes, they all helped me learn that success is always sweeter when hard won. This period left me with an enduring love of underdogs.”

Growing up, Tim avidly followed Hastings Utd, Brighton and Hove Albion and Sussex County Cricket Club. His passion for football was ignited by United’s “giant-killing” 1953-54 side, which came tantalisingly close to an FA Cup clash with Arsenal.

Later, his affection for Brighton grew after he witnessed their 1961 FA Cup battle with First Division champions Burnley. Watching cricket in the same year, he was captivated by explosive Sussex batsman Ted Dexter and mesmerised by West Indian fast bowler Wes Hall.

Tim said: “I wanted to provide a series of vivid vignettes of players I admired in my youth – the flamboyant Sussex batsman Ted Dexter and his intimidating county colleague, speedster John Snow, the burly Hastings centre forwards Len Duquemin and Bobby Smith, bustling local fisherman Joe White, ‘headmaster’ Jim Ryan, a male model, and brawny schoolboy international Kevin Barry. And who could forget early 60s ‘top gun’ Terry Marshall and Gordon Burden, a stubby left winger with an enormous heart and scorching pace?

“As for the Albion, the book looks at lethal goalscorer Bill Curry, bought for a song in 1959 and discarded negligently a year later, underrated striker Adrian Thorne, a promotion winner in 1958, dynamic Scottish midfielder, Jimmy Collins, a huge presence in Brighton’s promotion side of 1965, towering centre half, Roy Jennings, modest hunter gatherer Kit Napier and his promotion-winning partner in 1972, Willie Irvine.”

Tim said: “I also wanted to capture the excitement and atmosphere of some of the games which stood out in my memory – Brighton’s plucky FA Cup scrap with First Division Champions, Burnley in the Goldstone mud in January 1961, Hastings’ pulsating top-of-the-table clash with Tonbridge in November 1962 and languishing Sussex’s amazing humiliation of the all-conquering West Indian Test cricket team in June 1966. And I wanted to place these striking memories in context, setting out what it felt like as a ‘baby boomer’ in post-war Britain, the ‘mend and make do’ attitude in post-war austerity and the brief period of prosperity which followed resulting in our Prime Minister telling us in 1957 that we ‘never had it so good’.”

Tim said these social changes were accompanied by changes in sport, too.

“Professional football became less of a working class game after the abolition of the maximum wage in 1961.” he said. “Players became more remote from their fans, ceasing to travel to home games on public transport after their higher wages made cars affordable. The game became more tactical and defensive after the 1962 World Cup. Meanwhile cash-strapped cricket was dragged reluctantly into the 20th century with the emergence of one-day matches.

“The early Sixties probably represented the last golden age of the non-league club in terms of achieving regular four-figure gates.

“But it is encouraging to see the recent upward trend in attendances at the club that bears the original Hastings Utd’s name. Cricket has become attractively viable once more despite tiny gates at many county championship games. And of course Brighton is now competing gamely in the Premier League having narrowly averted oblivion in the mid-Nineties.

“There is no cause for wistful regrets. The future appears to much more promising for Sussex clubs than it was in the mid 60s.”