This excellent photograph is from the family album of the well-known local businessman Jim Heaton, who can be seen with his team-mates second left on the front row.

Jim's company, Heaton's Furnishings in Scotland Road, Nelson (where Mona Petty and her husband Wellbury used to run the Romany Ballroom), celebrates its golden jubilee this year, having given personal service and high quality to all its many customers since 1958.

Almost six decades on from the Nelson FC picture, Jim can still recall many of his fellow players. Back row: David Hesketh, ---------, Hacking, Stevenson, ---------------. Front: Derek Broughton, Jim Heaton, Frank Greenwood, Barry Shields, --------, ---------.

The Nelson teams during the postwar years were successful indeed, being Lancashire Combination champions in 1949-50 and 1951-2, runners-up in 1947-8 and 1950-1, winning the Combination Cup in 1949-50 and 1950-1 and reaching the Lancashire Junior Cup final in 1949-50.

Yes, the late 1940s and early 1950s were halcyon years indeed for Nelson Football Club, with the Seedhill ground and its famous wooden stand packed full with happy fans cheering on the mighty Blues.

Jim, an all-round sportsman back then, also playing cricket, tennis and golf, remembers his Seedhill football days with great delight and nostalgia, for they really were days of glory.