Or your paper was taken from a till pile, still warm from the printing press. A van would speed up to the newsagent’s, halt suddenly and its driver burst in with batches of papers, a kind of merry hold-up in reverse. Thrown on the counter, the string being liberated with scissors, satisfying the growing queue of customers whose cries of "Evening Star in yet?" and "Standards late!" would be answered with a theatrical flourish. On an away day, another town’s version could be purchased from a railway station stall; its contents both alien and familiar.
It was an astonishing accomplishment: a detailed, printed record of a match starting at 3 p.m. could be read in the windy streets by teatime. In those hours, the photographer had taken an action shot in the first 10 minutes of the match, a bonus if he got a photo of a goal. The film was dispatched with a motorcycle rider to the newspaper's darkroom.
A reporter had rumbled away in the ground, phoned in tidings of near-misses and dubious penalties, and whole pages had been set and checked at the newspaper office and then printed and distributed. To think that, for the reader, the joy had only just begun.
In the 1950s, Saturday night newspapers enjoyed immense popularity in the UK, primarily for two reasons. First, they provided football fans with the latest match results and up-to-date league tables. Second, and perhaps more importantly, they were essential for checking football pool results.
This was an era before modern gambling outlets existed in Britain. There were no betting shops, no bingo halls, and no National Lottery, reflecting the rather restrictive social environment of post-war Britain. For many people, the football pools represented their main chance at winning life-changing money, making these Saturday evening papers an eagerly anticipated part of the weekly routine.