The football superfan with 97 years of club memories

It was almost like meeting a sporting hero, and while 103-year-old Francis Greene has never stepped foot on a professional football pitch, he still left me feeling star-struck. Among other things, he is a World War Two veteran, accomplished pianist, successful businessman, and a great-great-grandfather. But most importantly, for me at least, he is a life-long Swansea City fan with almost a century's worth of memories. While I have 33 years under my belt, when Francis attended the Swans' season-ending 3-3 home draw against Oxford United last weekend, it brought down the curtain on his 97th campaign. "We'd shut up the shop on a Saturday lunchtime, and I'd clutch on to dad's hand as we made our way through the crowds and queue up at the North Bank turnstiles," Francis reminisced with a twinkle in his eye. "The noise, the smells, the singing were almost too much for a six-year-old to bear. "But it enchanted me, from that first game, I was hooked." You never forget your first time, and this was his - a 2-1 victory over Oldham Athletic in 1928. Francis' story will strike a chord with football fans right around the country, how their side was their first love, staying in their hearts their entire lives. He was born in February 1922, at number one Goat Street, a stone's throw from the old Vetch Field, where the club played. It was from there his dad ran the family fishmonger's, Coakley-Greene, which was established in 1856, and is still running today. Like most youngsters, though, the dream was not to cheer on from the side lines - but to be out on the pitch himself. A promising right-half for Swansea Town Boys, Francis was in the same youth set-up as full-back Jackie Roberts and winger Ernie Jones - two of the fiveAlice Street gang. "I was never probably good enough to play for the Swans, but it was so much fun trying," he said. His passion for playing wasn't dampened, though, and he added: "Every moment I wasn't in school or helping in the shop, I'd be out on the street kicking a ball around with those boys. "But you had to scarper like hell when you heard the policeman's whistle and saw him coming around the corner. "Boy you'd be for it if he caught you playing near the cars." Francis' playing ambitions were curtailed by the looming threat of World War Two. Rather than waiting to be called up, he chose to enlist, training as a mechanic in the RAF ground crews, who kept Spitfires in the air during the Battle of Britain, the London Blitz, and acted as fighter support for bombing raids over Germany. "In some ways I think my time standing on the North Bank [of the Vetch] prepared me for the RAF," he said. "You felt you were part of something bigger than just you. "An esprit de corps, a friendship and a comradeship that you never experienced in civvy street, apart from on the terraces. "Football is a bit like war - you have to know what your job is, how it fits into the system, and how every other man is depending on you doing it to the best of your ability." A huge part of this bonding on the terraces revolved around learning, and singing together, the team's songs. Through misty eyes, Francis starts reciting a few lines from "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" - a song more commonly associated with another team in recent times. "Long before West Ham picked it up and made it their own, we used to belt out 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles'," he said. "That made me so proud to be properly part of the crowd." He described it as "a proper badge of honour", and while some were too rude to repeat, one rather quirky song makes him chuckle as he thinks back. "After the war, the favourite was the Woody Woodpecker song from the cartoon – 'Hahahaha, It's The Woody Woodpecker Song' – I've no idea how that one caught on, but it was a lot of fun to sing it," he said. Francis' favourite players during his childhood were fullbacks Syd Lawrence, and Wilfred Milne - who still holds the record for the most Swans league appearances at 586 between 1920 and 1937. "Those two were lightning, up and down the pitch, left and right, sometimes it was as though we had 13 men on the field, so much was the ground they covered," he said. But it was after returning to the North Bank when he was demobbed, that he saw some of the most iconic figures of Welsh football. "Of course John Charles went to Leeds and Juventus, before he ever got to play for the Swans, but Mel Charles and Mel Nurse were there," he said. "It's incredible that one street in Cwmbwrla could produce so much talent. "Then you had another set of brothers, Ivor and Len Allchurch. "We had so much talent in those years, and all born within walking distance of the Vetch." Francis took over the family fish business, as well as becoming an executive for Littlewoods department store. As well as cheering on the Swans, he also became an accomplished pianist in his spare time - appearing in a BBC Wales documentary, playing to enthralled crowds at Swansea Market. It is after covering more than half a century of his life and football support that we arrive at a point that is both mine, and Francis' favourite memory. This is the open top bus tour following promotion to the top tier of English football for the first time, under John Toshack, in 1981. Francis was 59 and I was three. "Yes, we were probably on Kingsway [in the city centre] together that day – who knows how far apart – but by then I was a little bit too big to be sitting on my father's shoulders like you were," he said. "The same as you, I can remember the open-top parade, the ticker-tape, and the players waving. "I'd been going 50-odd years by then, and I never thought I'd see us bumping elbows with Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal in the top flight." And this sums up football supporters - from those Francis sang with on the Vetch terraces in the 1920s, to fans on the city's streets celebrating in 1981, and youngsterssaying goodbye to legendary player Joe Allenat the Swansea.com stadium last week. You may not know each other personally, but through your songs, memories, high and lows you experience together, in some way, you are always family.