Caoimhin O’Muraile  I was reminiscing the other day about a time when football was a great game, a working-class game watched by working class people. 

Unlike its modern successor, which in my opinion and in many other veterans of the terraces cases, is football in name only. There was once culture, solidarity among a clubs fans and a fanaticism which the establishment called “hooliganism”. We were not hooligans, unlike the monied bastards in suits today we had our teams and not profits at heart. The real hooligans are today’s owners who are doing all they can to really mess up what was our game, our territory and our beloved clubs. People who attend in many cases this hybrid modern version of what was once football are, to quote Roy Keane, “the prawn sandwich” brigade. 

The atmosphere of once mighty and feared grounds like Old Trafford and Anfield no longer exists in its natural sense, it is all “stage managed” crap. At Anfield, for example stewards come round the perimeter of what was once the Kop end and remove the flags, which belong to the club not the supporters, and take them away which is not natural. At Old Trafford they have a designated singing area decided on by the club which is again a sign of stage-managed Americanisation of the game. No longer do the huge gangs from Wythenshawe, Salford, Collyhurst in Manchester gather on the Stretford End as one because those who have season tickets are dotted all around the ground. This has gone a huge way to diluting the atmosphere once created by the fans themselves. Pre-match entertainment before this “Americanisation” was for fans who could not get into the Stretford End at Old Trafford to run across the pitch from the Scoreboard End, dogging the pursuing police. Once they had made it there was much applause from the Stretford Enders.

Old Trafford was the most vocal ground in England with songs ringing out from the Stretford End [to the air of My Darling Clementine] “Come and join us, come and join us, come and join us at the top, we’re the best fans in England and we’re louder than the Kop”. They were great days. Away days were brilliant, and from my own experiences when I reached the age of fourteen travelling around England with Man Utd was all I lived for. Jibbing trains to get to the game was the order of the day. Unlike today everybody, irrespective of team, wore their scarf. Not to do so was either cowardice or lack of dedication.

The only day of the week which mattered was Saturday, that was unless we had a game on Tuesday or Wednesday night at which point going to so-called school was out of the question. Who needed a bunch of shits called teachers [as they then were, sadistic bastards] when I could be at Old Trafford supporting with fanaticism Man Utd? To me anybody who preferred school to travelling around with United must have had some kind of mental illness. The football was great under Tommy Docherty (though my first games at United were under Matt Busby’s, the greatest manager ever, management at a young age} and in division two, 1974/75 season, we attracted the highest average home attendance [beating Liverpool who won the first division in 75 by over two thousand] with an attractive side which included Gerry Daly, Jim Holton and a host of other greats. For my mind “The Doc” signed two of the best strikers of their day, Stuart Pearson from Hull City in 1974 and later Jimmy Greenhoff from Stoke City in 1976. Greenhoff was arguably the best player never to have played at full level for England.

Saturday morning it was all to Old Trafford or whichever town we were playing in. Ma’s kitchen was a hive of activity: first job was polishing the Doc Martens up with Ox Blood polish, quick bite to eat, nick a couple of sovs (Sovereign fags) from her packet and off. On the trains in those days a buffet car was available and that was the first point of call [under age] stocking up with Youngers Tartan Bitter or McEwans Export, it was a mobile pub! The train was the Newcastle to Liverpool express stopping at York, Leeds, Huddersfield and Dewsbury and by the time we arrived at Manchester Victoria we were about 200 strong. Then the cry United, United would reverberate around the old station. Away fans did not go to Old Trafford in them days, but we always went to their ground. The centre of Manchester was full of red and white scarved teenagers, mainly from the huge council estates on the suburbs of the city and from Salford. This was the mid-seventies and United’s fans reputation was fearsome.

If it was freezing cold once inside the ground, swaying on the Stretford End, it was roasting. Outside the ground huge police horses with a muppet on its back tried controlling the crowd with limited success. The chants would go up, I’d walk a million miles, for one of yer goals oh Stuart [referring to Stuart Pearson] followed by Lou, Lou skip to ma Lou skip to ma Lou Macari along with various other airs for our teams star men. 

Some games were more memorable than others. Birmingham City away springs to mind for all the wrong reasons, we lost 5-1 in 1978. They were on a bad run and averaging crowds of around 15,000, compared to our 55,000, and they had a tidy mob. We took around 8,000 that day to St. Andrews and we had half the Tilton Road End - the rest was no mans land. Joe Jordan opened the scoring for us but that was it. Birmingham had just signed Alberto Tarantini who played a blinder for them, to the anger of the Red Army. Outside the ground was at the time a huge demolition site as old houses were being demolished which provided a store of ammunition for the visiting supporters, us! The police let us and the Birmingham fans out at the same time and, needless to say, it kicked off big time. Our army outnumbered theirs as bricks flew in both directions. I remember a copper on his motor bike getting hit by a well aimed brick from the United fans knocking him off his bike to a huge roar of approval. Away games were brilliant, some grounds like Newcastle were a bit dodgy because they could more than hold their own but United still turned up.

Middlesboro away in 1980 was a 1-1 draw but was best remembered for the tragic deaths of two Boro fans, non-combatants so to speak, as United fans charged the gates of the Clive Road corner as the police locked us in. The home fans were outside taunting the United fans, around 5,000 strong we were, and the police antagonised the situation forcing the travelling fans to rush the gates to get at our tormentors. A wall collapsed crashing down on two home fans killing them both. It was a tragedy. The police must bear their share of responsibility for this happening, as must the home supporters but looking back, so must all of us. The fighting stopped if I recall when the magnitude of what happened hit home. The media as was usual blamed the United “hooligans” with little if any mention of the Middlesboro fans asking for, and getting, a fight. Not a word of the incompetence of the police and the poor safety standard of Ayresome Park, Middlesboro’s ground at the time. Blame United they always did, even when we came off worst and were not responsible for the aggro like West Ham away in 75. The so-called newspaper, The News of the World headlines read, "The Hooligans of Manchester United Were Routed by the Cockneys of West Ham." We were the hooligans while the West Ham fans were the chirpy cockneys. United fans were surrounded that day as half the East End had turned out, perhaps seeking revenge for 1967 when the Red Army took the East End over on the final day of the season, when United won the league. The fact West Ham were out for it was not the problem, what goes around comes around, but the reporting of the incident by the media was a disgrace. Noticeable to recall was no West Ham turned up at Old Trafford for the corresponding return fixture, which tells me a lot.

By the late seventies some of the older lads had reached an age where watching the game with a few pints and discussing it in the pub afterwards was sufficient. They had outgrown the hooligan epoch in life. It was what I call a generation break which the Manchester police took advantage of, regaining control of Manchester City centre on match days. It was around this time a strange phenomena occurred at Old Trafford, the away fan! Not many, just a couple of sections of the Scoreboard End, as the police gave them safe escort to and from the ground. Up until that time only City and Liverpool turned up, and they were quiet hiding their scarves till they got inside the ground, but now other teams fans were daring to come, again in disguise till they got inside the ground.

The European away games were brilliant, I recall away to Barcelona in 1984, we were 2-0 down and at Old Trafford for the replay United were not given a prayer. Maradona played for Barca in those days and was crap, fortunately for us. That does not mean he was not a great player but on the three occasions I have seen him, on those performances he would not have laced George Best's boots. We won the second leg at Old Trafford 3-0, with Frank Stapleton and Bryan Robson taking the Catalans apart.

People who attend games today tell us it is now a family day, the biggest load of balls I’ve heard. It was a family day in my era, may parents took me in the late sixties and it mesmerized the young me. What the “prawn sandwich brigade” mean by a family day is sit down and have a nice flask of coffee, spend a fortune at the megastore and do not, whatever you do, swear. Couple this soulless with daft rule changes to the game on the pitch, along with all weather playing surfaces and what a fucking bore. Football is no longer a game of four season, the lush pitches of August and September giving way to less predictable conditions through October and November, to the real heavy playing surfaces of December January and February then into early spring as conditions improved. This told who the great player were [Messi and Ronaldo would have had no chance on a heavy December pitch away at say Derby County] Best, Charlton and law of the sixties and early seventies, replaced by Steve Coppell, Gerry Daly, Stuart Pearson, Lou Macari and Gordon Hill along with Sammy McIlroy in the seventies giving way to Bryan Robson, Norman Whiteside Frank Stapleton in the eighties. 

I could go on but you get the picture. Those days have gone and perhaps will never return, but I feel privileged to have been part of that culture. The youth of today don’t know what they have missed, I feel sorry for them as those were the days my friend.

Caoimhin O’Muraile is a Dublin 
based Marxist and author. 

Those Were The Days My Friend, We Were The Stretford End

Caoimhin O’Muraile  I was reminiscing the other day about a time when football was a great game, a working-class game watched by working class people. 

Unlike its modern successor, which in my opinion and in many other veterans of the terraces cases, is football in name only. There was once culture, solidarity among a clubs fans and a fanaticism which the establishment called “hooliganism”. We were not hooligans, unlike the monied bastards in suits today we had our teams and not profits at heart. The real hooligans are today’s owners who are doing all they can to really mess up what was our game, our territory and our beloved clubs. People who attend in many cases this hybrid modern version of what was once football are, to quote Roy Keane, “the prawn sandwich” brigade. 

The atmosphere of once mighty and feared grounds like Old Trafford and Anfield no longer exists in its natural sense, it is all “stage managed” crap. At Anfield, for example stewards come round the perimeter of what was once the Kop end and remove the flags, which belong to the club not the supporters, and take them away which is not natural. At Old Trafford they have a designated singing area decided on by the club which is again a sign of stage-managed Americanisation of the game. No longer do the huge gangs from Wythenshawe, Salford, Collyhurst in Manchester gather on the Stretford End as one because those who have season tickets are dotted all around the ground. This has gone a huge way to diluting the atmosphere once created by the fans themselves. Pre-match entertainment before this “Americanisation” was for fans who could not get into the Stretford End at Old Trafford to run across the pitch from the Scoreboard End, dogging the pursuing police. Once they had made it there was much applause from the Stretford Enders.

Old Trafford was the most vocal ground in England with songs ringing out from the Stretford End [to the air of My Darling Clementine] “Come and join us, come and join us, come and join us at the top, we’re the best fans in England and we’re louder than the Kop”. They were great days. Away days were brilliant, and from my own experiences when I reached the age of fourteen travelling around England with Man Utd was all I lived for. Jibbing trains to get to the game was the order of the day. Unlike today everybody, irrespective of team, wore their scarf. Not to do so was either cowardice or lack of dedication.

The only day of the week which mattered was Saturday, that was unless we had a game on Tuesday or Wednesday night at which point going to so-called school was out of the question. Who needed a bunch of shits called teachers [as they then were, sadistic bastards] when I could be at Old Trafford supporting with fanaticism Man Utd? To me anybody who preferred school to travelling around with United must have had some kind of mental illness. The football was great under Tommy Docherty (though my first games at United were under Matt Busby’s, the greatest manager ever, management at a young age} and in division two, 1974/75 season, we attracted the highest average home attendance [beating Liverpool who won the first division in 75 by over two thousand] with an attractive side which included Gerry Daly, Jim Holton and a host of other greats. For my mind “The Doc” signed two of the best strikers of their day, Stuart Pearson from Hull City in 1974 and later Jimmy Greenhoff from Stoke City in 1976. Greenhoff was arguably the best player never to have played at full level for England.

Saturday morning it was all to Old Trafford or whichever town we were playing in. Ma’s kitchen was a hive of activity: first job was polishing the Doc Martens up with Ox Blood polish, quick bite to eat, nick a couple of sovs (Sovereign fags) from her packet and off. On the trains in those days a buffet car was available and that was the first point of call [under age] stocking up with Youngers Tartan Bitter or McEwans Export, it was a mobile pub! The train was the Newcastle to Liverpool express stopping at York, Leeds, Huddersfield and Dewsbury and by the time we arrived at Manchester Victoria we were about 200 strong. Then the cry United, United would reverberate around the old station. Away fans did not go to Old Trafford in them days, but we always went to their ground. The centre of Manchester was full of red and white scarved teenagers, mainly from the huge council estates on the suburbs of the city and from Salford. This was the mid-seventies and United’s fans reputation was fearsome.

If it was freezing cold once inside the ground, swaying on the Stretford End, it was roasting. Outside the ground huge police horses with a muppet on its back tried controlling the crowd with limited success. The chants would go up, I’d walk a million miles, for one of yer goals oh Stuart [referring to Stuart Pearson] followed by Lou, Lou skip to ma Lou skip to ma Lou Macari along with various other airs for our teams star men. 

Some games were more memorable than others. Birmingham City away springs to mind for all the wrong reasons, we lost 5-1 in 1978. They were on a bad run and averaging crowds of around 15,000, compared to our 55,000, and they had a tidy mob. We took around 8,000 that day to St. Andrews and we had half the Tilton Road End - the rest was no mans land. Joe Jordan opened the scoring for us but that was it. Birmingham had just signed Alberto Tarantini who played a blinder for them, to the anger of the Red Army. Outside the ground was at the time a huge demolition site as old houses were being demolished which provided a store of ammunition for the visiting supporters, us! The police let us and the Birmingham fans out at the same time and, needless to say, it kicked off big time. Our army outnumbered theirs as bricks flew in both directions. I remember a copper on his motor bike getting hit by a well aimed brick from the United fans knocking him off his bike to a huge roar of approval. Away games were brilliant, some grounds like Newcastle were a bit dodgy because they could more than hold their own but United still turned up.

Middlesboro away in 1980 was a 1-1 draw but was best remembered for the tragic deaths of two Boro fans, non-combatants so to speak, as United fans charged the gates of the Clive Road corner as the police locked us in. The home fans were outside taunting the United fans, around 5,000 strong we were, and the police antagonised the situation forcing the travelling fans to rush the gates to get at our tormentors. A wall collapsed crashing down on two home fans killing them both. It was a tragedy. The police must bear their share of responsibility for this happening, as must the home supporters but looking back, so must all of us. The fighting stopped if I recall when the magnitude of what happened hit home. The media as was usual blamed the United “hooligans” with little if any mention of the Middlesboro fans asking for, and getting, a fight. Not a word of the incompetence of the police and the poor safety standard of Ayresome Park, Middlesboro’s ground at the time. Blame United they always did, even when we came off worst and were not responsible for the aggro like West Ham away in 75. The so-called newspaper, The News of the World headlines read, "The Hooligans of Manchester United Were Routed by the Cockneys of West Ham." We were the hooligans while the West Ham fans were the chirpy cockneys. United fans were surrounded that day as half the East End had turned out, perhaps seeking revenge for 1967 when the Red Army took the East End over on the final day of the season, when United won the league. The fact West Ham were out for it was not the problem, what goes around comes around, but the reporting of the incident by the media was a disgrace. Noticeable to recall was no West Ham turned up at Old Trafford for the corresponding return fixture, which tells me a lot.

By the late seventies some of the older lads had reached an age where watching the game with a few pints and discussing it in the pub afterwards was sufficient. They had outgrown the hooligan epoch in life. It was what I call a generation break which the Manchester police took advantage of, regaining control of Manchester City centre on match days. It was around this time a strange phenomena occurred at Old Trafford, the away fan! Not many, just a couple of sections of the Scoreboard End, as the police gave them safe escort to and from the ground. Up until that time only City and Liverpool turned up, and they were quiet hiding their scarves till they got inside the ground, but now other teams fans were daring to come, again in disguise till they got inside the ground.

The European away games were brilliant, I recall away to Barcelona in 1984, we were 2-0 down and at Old Trafford for the replay United were not given a prayer. Maradona played for Barca in those days and was crap, fortunately for us. That does not mean he was not a great player but on the three occasions I have seen him, on those performances he would not have laced George Best's boots. We won the second leg at Old Trafford 3-0, with Frank Stapleton and Bryan Robson taking the Catalans apart.

People who attend games today tell us it is now a family day, the biggest load of balls I’ve heard. It was a family day in my era, may parents took me in the late sixties and it mesmerized the young me. What the “prawn sandwich brigade” mean by a family day is sit down and have a nice flask of coffee, spend a fortune at the megastore and do not, whatever you do, swear. Couple this soulless with daft rule changes to the game on the pitch, along with all weather playing surfaces and what a fucking bore. Football is no longer a game of four season, the lush pitches of August and September giving way to less predictable conditions through October and November, to the real heavy playing surfaces of December January and February then into early spring as conditions improved. This told who the great player were [Messi and Ronaldo would have had no chance on a heavy December pitch away at say Derby County] Best, Charlton and law of the sixties and early seventies, replaced by Steve Coppell, Gerry Daly, Stuart Pearson, Lou Macari and Gordon Hill along with Sammy McIlroy in the seventies giving way to Bryan Robson, Norman Whiteside Frank Stapleton in the eighties. 

I could go on but you get the picture. Those days have gone and perhaps will never return, but I feel privileged to have been part of that culture. The youth of today don’t know what they have missed, I feel sorry for them as those were the days my friend.

Caoimhin O’Muraile is a Dublin 
based Marxist and author. 

20 comments:

  1. Love this trip down memory lane Caoimhin. The days when football was still a working class mans game unfortunately now it's big business, the advent of the Premier League and the huge investment by Sky has made on pitch results secondary to end of year financial reports. RIP the game we loved

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  2. I think the game is much better off without football hooliganism. People like Sean Cox can go to a game and come home safely without getting kicked near to death and damaged for life by some thug. Because hooliganism might be enjoyable it is nothing to be celebrated. I would not take my son to a game if there was that type of risk.
    But I love Caoimhin's musings on the game.

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  3. Cant disagree on the hooligan elements and in no way endorse that behaviour i just,as we all do, remember a time the game belonged to us and not big business

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  4. I couldn't agree more Gary the game is in terminal decline. Anthony we were not hooligans as portrayed by the right-wing media, just fanatical supporters. I agree with you about not taking your son to a game, which proves my point that today is not the family game the establishment would have us beleive, Sean Cox (and I do wish him well, no two ways about that) proves that. Roma so called Ultras attacked Sean behind Liverpools end, the far right fascist groups which did not exist in the fays I refer to. In the sixties and early seventies it was a family game, our family game. In an ironic kind of way what happened to Sean Cox would not have happened back in the day. Half a dozen away fans, behind the Kop, attacking a Liverpool fan and getting away with it? No, in the old days without sounding macho, it would have taken a suicide gang of oppossition fans to even go near your end. The same as the Stretford End, nobody came near us. I just could not imagine for one second a small group of away fans almost kicking a United fan to death while his fellow Stretford Enders looked on. The middle-class seating areas yes but behind the Stretford End, never in a month of Sundays, the same rule of thumb applies to the Anfield Kop of old. It would not have happened. That said, the bourgeoisie wanted us out of the game, away from the terracing, and have replaced us with "prawn sandwich" people. I understand where you are coming from Anthony, but it always was a family game not, it appears any more thanks to the suited vandals who run the game, if that what it be.

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    1. Caoimhin - a fanatical supporter who throws bricks at other supporters is in my view a hooligan. Anybody wishing to risk causing serious head injury to opposing fans by the use of bricks is engaging in thuggish behaviour. I would hate to see my kids come home from a match bleeding and in pain and then listen to the mitigation that it was just fanaticism not thuggery. It would not wash with me. I remember getting my two kids tickets for an all Ireland final - do you think I would have bothered if I thought somebody was going to brick them of they were going to be pounced on outside for wearing the wrong colours?
      Why use the term combatants to tart up this type of behaviour and give it some aura of legitimacy?
      You say the fighting stopped when the seriousness of the situation at Boro made itself apparent. There should have been no fighting to begin with. Is society supposed to legitimise this behaviour and call it something other than thuggery or hooliganism, make it legal and let it continue because it is the thing we want our kids to do?

      The reporting of the issues are a separate problem We have seen how the 1989 Hillsborough disaster was reported. The problem there was that it was fed by police lying. There were no drink fueled fans at Hillsborough bricking each other like at the Birmingham game you refer to. Yet, Norman Bettison used videos of the type of behaviour you seem to think was ok for the purposes of having Tory MPs make the argument that these type of things are what soccer fans do and that police would have expected the same from LFC fans.

      I don't want games played in muck. I want to be able to go with my son to a game in a comfortable setting where I don't have to stand and where we will not be bricked. And each modern game we have been to has been a family day out. And I do take him to games but I would not take him to a game where the type of behaviour you champion was a factor. I would have done it all myself back in the day but I am not going to defend it or recommend it as a template for fan behaviour.

      I am sure people could write of the good old days from the trenches in World War 1, the mud, the dirt the camaraderie - but society deserves much better. Fans deserve comfort, shelter, sustenance - and all of it in a safe environment.

      I hope the game continues to evolve and I would like to see it driven by something else than greed. But I do not want a return to the good old days just because it made those having the good time happy at the expense of so much else.

      Delete
  5. Gary, a point I missed in your "working mans" game. Not strictly true, it was a working class peoples game. The lasses were as fanatical, in some cases more so, as the lads. The women in no way took a subordinate role.

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  6. I enjoy your nostalgia writings Caomhin but our beloved game does not belong to us old farts, our day has passed. The game has never been stronger among the youth. I'm involved quite a bit with youth soccer down under and it's going from strength to strength. It's our kids who will push it forward and more power to them.

    But it's a different game now. With the wealthy owners paying fortunes on players and their wages they expect results. Gone are the days that the players could go on the piss after games and eat junk food, today's contracts are entirely hinged on fitness KPI's, performance stats and behaviour bonds and rightly so. If you took a championship team today and somehow magically had them play a big team from the 60's the Championship team would walk rings around them. Tiki-Taka, and video replays from multiple angles allow today's coaches an insight far beyond what 60's teams could imagine.

    Obviously there were players who were far advanced from the 60's like Best, who was a modern player playing in the 60's.

    I don't think it's a class thing with owners these days either. After Hysell the standing areas were banned and seating was enforced. If it came down to money well you'd get more people in standing zones.

    The foreign owners came for two reasons, one was the love of the game (Abramovich) or they saw the profit (Glazers) but neither of them have been shy about spending the cash to get decent players in. But the real argument against classism is the amount of parachute money flowing down the Championship upon relegation.

    But anyway, really enjoyed the piece so thank you.

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  7. Caoimhin O'Muraile

    I couldn't disagree more, but I think my response should be in an article rather than a comment. I'll write it after the Euros finish.

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  8. I am not saying I'd do the same today Anthony, in fact by the late seventies to mid eighties most of my generation were more than happy having a few pints before and after the game. The mass army of supporters had changed, the stanley knife had come, introduced by Liverpool fans, taking it to a whole new level. The culture was changing, stanley knives were terrifying which made a mockery of the Kop being a cut above the rest of us,the brick fights between rival supporters, not dissimilar to two large council estates gangs fighting, had gone. By then the pub was the dominant factor for prematch entertainment. As you said, back in the day you'd probably have joined in. It was a teenage thing begining in the early sixties.

    Steve R has a point about 'us old farts' take Old Trafford now, back in the seventies the average age of the Stretford Enders was between 17 and 20. Now it is in the 40s. As for the muddy pitches, that made the game one of four seasons a better game in my view, an opinion shared by many who attended back in those days, shared by many and equally disagreed with by some.

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    1. Caoimhin - no doubt it was a teenage thing but it was no less wrongful for that. I did a lot of things when I was a teenager that I would completely discourage my teenage son from doing.

      Delete
  9. Just back from the shop, I might add that football does not need billionaire owners, as FC United of Manchester proves. We were formed as an anti-Glazer club by veterans of Man Utd who are pissed off with the profit, profit and pure greed of the owners of PL clubs. Many of us were involved in the culture of the seventies, retired by the mid-eighties.Maybe we don't have the resources of international capitalism at our disposal but our players play for the love of United, not the paypacket received by a dozen or so PL players.

    As for the events involving brick fights in the seventies, it was great at that time, emphasising "at the time", I appear to be misunderstood here, and was part of the growing up process. As I pointed out by our early to mid twenties the pub took preference. None of us were angelic as youngsters, show me somebody who was I'll show you a liar. As for the tragedy at Boro away, I hear no criticism of the home supporters outside taunting and throwing stuff over the wall at us! Nothing about the behaviour of Teeside Constabulary, and yes we must share the blame but share means exactly that.

    Anthony you refer to the Hilsborough tragedy. Nobody is more behind the working class families of those who died and the cover up more than myself and many other United veterans. But you seem to suggest no alcohol was taken at all, it was an FA Cup Semi of course drink would have been taken but it certainly was not the cause of the 96 deaths. Nomore than drink forced the wall to collapse under pressure at Ayresome Park that day. Police behaviour played a part in both but the difference was at Hillsborough there was no fighting, on the contrary Forest fans, according to reports from those claiming to be present, and I have no reason to doubt,were trying to help.

    As I said in my piece, Football was all that counted and, in our case Man Utd and getting to the game at all costs, the trip the battles which gave way in the eighties to the pub, with no battles. Liverpool fans, an element of, introduced the lethal Stanley Knife, I was out of it by then, and everybody from Newcastle to Plymouth detested their new new so-called tactics of ambushing small groups of visiting supporters. Then darts replaced bricks as matters escalated and the once all important scarf gave way to tiny badges. To explain things, how they changed through the mid to late eighties is difficult in words unless you were around the grounds at that time.

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  10. Caoimhin - it is not about Utd fans bad Boro fans good, Teenside cops good. None of that was good. Taunting is fine because it is part of the rivalry. Throwing bricks cannot be good. And there is nothing wrong with describing that as hooliganism. And we know exactly what the cops do. Nobody is defending their action or inaction. The brick throwers are being called out. It has no place in football culture and there should be no return to it.
    I never suggested no alcohol was taken at Hillsborough. I have never known of a game where people did not take alcohol. I made the point that there were no drink fueled fans bricking each other. I have never heard of Liverpool fans introducing the Stanley knife but you have a much better knowledge of the culture and history of the terraces than me. It is inexcusable for LFC fans or any others to introduce weapons to the culture. Darts are hardly any better. All of that is something we should be glad is no longer associated with the sport. And the days where it did happen should not be romanticised as emblematic of times when things were better.

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  11. Again Anthony, I make absolutely no appoligies for what happened in the seventies. Half the time the police caused a lot of aggro, and yes it was Liverpool fans (not Everton I must stress) who introduced the Stanley knife. United, certainly no saints and neither would I pretend to be, to my knowledge ever used those evil things. After segregation was introduced in the late seventies a group of LFC fans left the Kop and stood adjascent to the away fans section in the "Annie Road End". It was that tiny gang who began throwing darts, encouraged by the Kop singing Munich songs. But this is not a tit for tat debate of "my gangs better than yours" it is an attempt by me to explain how things were in the seventies. And we as teenagers revelled in it, the culture of the time. What really worries me today as an "old fart" is there are people now of a similar or older age to me who are still attending games, not to look back with certain fond memories, but who are trying to lead young impressionable fans considering themselves new leaders of much smaller, usually far right led gangs. This is very concerning because it is a totally different culture, one organised by the middle classes who then sit back and call for stiffer penalties by the establishment. These lads cannot see that, in our teenage days it was an away day, cultural and at the time great. The game was good Best was going on his wayward road, which for us was tragic, but the culture of the Red Army, "of the day" survived. They were great away days, again relative to the times. Put it this way, referring to those "old farts" who continue, or try to ressurect, them days if anybody over the age of twenty two, or there abouts, came near us they'd have not been welcone, too old.

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    1. I don't think this comes close to addressing the issue. I don't think there is any excusing the soccer violence that happened during the 70s. The role of cops and the Liverpool fans does nothing to lessen the responsibility of the brickers and those who inflicted violence on other supporters. Dart throwing is vile - fans there for nothing but the match could have been blinded by thugs. The culture of the time hardly makes it any more right than wife battering which might also have been the culture of the times. Far right activities at soccer games are a different matter but hardly any better than the violence of the 70s.

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  12. As I said Anthony, this is not a my gang is bigger or better than your gang issue. The role of the police in the seventies was a huge contributing factor, but I repeat I am not making apologies for teenage actions in the seventies. As for the dart it was a United fan almost blinded by a Liveepool fans dart, then people wonder why it kicked off. Still the media could hear no wrong against Liverpool fans. But it is not tit for tat, it had to be experienced and was "all part of working class culture lad".

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    1. it matters not that the fan almost blinded was a Utd fan or the dart thrower a Liverpool fan. What matters is that one thug threw a dart at an opposing fan and could have blinded him. The police were hardly responsible for that. Thuggery is not part of working class culture nor should it be passed off as such. There might have been a subculture within the working class that celebrated thuggery but the majority of working class people wanted nothing to do with it, much as they want nothing to do with the culture of drug dealing which plagues working class communities.
      The media could hear no wrong against Liverpool fans? The fans of Liverpool are probably the most media demonised fans in the history of football. It took three decades of perseverance to shake that demsonisation of.

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  13. A major point which I have been foolish enough to be diverted from is this: we always albeit in our naive young mentality had our team at heart. Every one of us could name the team and one, yes one, substitite. Maybe we ran riot here and there, but that should suggest something more about society than us. We were fanatcs, devouted to our team, would walk mountains to get there and, at that age, would do the same again it appears not me who is missing the point but yourself.

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    1. being fanatics is hardly something to be recommended. Football fanatics, religious fanatics, political fanatics - fanaticism runs contrary to reason.

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  14. A fair sociollgical analysis, no doubt.about it. Fanaticism certainly in its religious form, all religions, is certainly illpgical. Today, so called post modernism, so is football, in that respect but, to quote Che Guevara, 'football is more than a game, it is an
    ???'

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  15. A misguided point Steve you made about the Glazers spending money. They plunged the club into debt, debts United never had before their ludicrous borrowing to steal the club, while at the same time taking millions out in so-called consultancy fees for themselves. They put nothing into MUFC, Old Trafford the largest stadium outside Wembley, has beed allowed to deteriorate. I was speaking to a Newcastle fan, of my own era, and he commented how when he went to OT repairs were needed. It was only the fans protest before the Liverpool game that forced the charitable Glazers to talk to MUFC fans representatives. They do not cough up money, on the contrary they take it out. Lets see how the talks between the Glazers and United fans progress. The Glazers have been not only shy about spending money, they have taken money out.

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