NEWS COPY – WITH PICTURES AND COLLECTS
Britain’s oldest female football fan has been rewarded for her loyalty with her own corporate box – at the age of 100.
Sprightly Kitty Thorne has attended nearly every Bristol Rovers home game since her first match in 1954, when she traveled to the ground by STEAM TRAIN.
At the time Winston Churchill was Prime Minister and meat had just been removed from World War II rationing lists.
Since then she has made the 52-mile round trip from her home in Trowbridge, Wilts., on around 1,500 occasions to see her team in action.
She says her love of Rovers keeps her alive along with strong coffee and corned beef sandwiches.
Now Kitty has been rewarded for her long-standing loyalty by being given a corporate box at the club’s Memorial Stadium until the end of the season.
After watching Rovers maintain their spot at the top of the Vanarama Conference on Saturday, despite losing 2-1 to Eastleigh, Kitty said: “Football is my life, and Rovers is my club.
“I love coming here. It’s what I look forward to. I’ll keep coming to games as long as I can.
“The first game I went to had me hooked. I fell in love with the noise and the atmosphere. The whole experience was amazing.”
Kitty was born in Woking, Surrey, but was evacuated from London to Trowbridge in 1939 along with husband Les at the outbreak of WWII.
On October 23 1954 – the year Roger Bannister became the ?rst person to break the four-minute mile – Kitty and Les took son their only son Peter, then nine, to watch their first ever Rovers game.
Boarding a steam train from Trowbridge, the family traveled to Stapleton Road station in Bristol, before making the short walk to the Eastville ground, the club’s spiritual home.
Rovers beat Leeds United 5-1 in front of 24,000 fans and Kitty fell in love with the game.
They began driving to games in 1957 whenh Les, an aircraft fitter, bought a 1939 Ford Popular.
Even after Les died from a stroke in 1959 aged just 46, Kitty continued traveling to Rovers matches by train, always taking Peter with her.
Her claim to fame is she was once ‘on the bench versus Manchester United’, during a League Cup match in 1972.
After she fell ill during the game, police officers escorted her from the packed stands and allowed her to sit pitch-side on a bench with the St.John Ambulance staff while she recovered.
Kitty, who worked at a dairy factory in Trowbridge, first became a season ticket holder in 1975 when Rovers still played their home games at Eastville.
She stayed loyal when the club moved to Bath City’s Twerton Park ground in 1986, and followed them back to Bristol when they finally returned in 1996 to share the Memorial Stadium in Hor?eld with Bristol Rugby Club.
Kitty has remained a season ticket holder in the West Stand, rarely missing a Saturday home game, and until recently always enjoyed a corned beef sandwich and flask of coffee at half time.
The dedicated pensioner, who has no grandchildren and turned 100 on January 2, has stuck with Rovers through thick and thin.
She has seen them play in finals at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium and at Wembley Stadium.
And she was at the game at home to Mansfield in May last year when the club lost its league status for the first time since 1920.
“I shed a tear that day,” she said. “It was so sad.
“I love this club. It’s a friendly warm club, a family club and for that to happen was awful.”
But she is convinced Rovers are now on the brink of realising their dream of returning to the Football League at the first time of attempt.
She added: “I think Darrell Clarke is the right man to take us up. He is doing well.”
When asked how modern football differs from the game she fell in love with six decades ago, she said: “It’s very different now.
“Back then you could get to know the players, they were all local boys, you could chat to them.”
When asked about the state of English football at the moment, Kitty pulled no punches.
“We have a poor national team, because there are too many overseas players in our league. We need to give our lads more of a chance,” she said.
Son Peter, 70, a retired postman, said: “Mum is Rovers through and through. Nothing will stop her coming to games.
“She is as passionate about the team now as she ever has been and she isn’t afraid to tear them off a strip if they aren’t playing well.”
Rovers chairman Nick Higgs said: “Our fans are incredibly loyal and Kitty epitomises this.
“To have been to the number of games she has is a remarkable achievement, and we hope she will keep coming along to watch the team for a long time to come.
“Huge numbers of our supporters travel long distances on match days, but not many can say they have traveled by steam train to get to a game.”
ENDS
