Throughout working-class areas of England, Scotland, and Wales (the six-counties were a different scenario, a war was raging) various cultures from Pigeon Racing, Greyhound racing and training, to keeping and breeding whippets and bare-knuckled fights were present in many areas but the overarching meaning of life was football.
As the late great Bill Shankly, our nemesis but well respected, once remarked, ”football is more than a game, it is a matter of life and death.” Very true Bill because that was literally the case! All we lived for were Saturday afternoon and Tuesday or Wednesday nights if we had a game. Missing a match, come what may, was not an option. All that mattered in life for me was Manchester United FC, and all which went with following them. School and later work came secondary to the match and we had no time for those middle-class irks who claimed to support a team but never took the trouble to go to games, “part time supporters” of the highest order in our view were these despicable souls. It didn’t matter who the team was and where the fan or fans may have lived as long as they attended games was all that counted.
For example, a couple of lads from Aberdeen, Scotland, travelled regularly down to watch York City play, a fourth division side, now that was dedication! Standing on the terraces and being part of the culture as the atmosphere built up created by the fans themselves was almost as important as the game itself. My team, as mentioned, is Manchester United and back in those days I would be at every game, home, away and abroad, even friendlies, plus occasional reserve and junior games. On our travels, we would often get into altercations with the supporters of Liverpool, West Ham, Leeds etc, it was all part of the ‘awayday’.
The London based Man Utd fans, the Cockney Reds who were a law unto themselves, would regularly be fighting at Euston station on their way to Manchester because invariably one of the London clubs would be playing up north. Chelsea or Tottenham could be playing away at Everton or Sheffield for example so for them the day started before boarding the 7.45 to Manchester. The girls were as fanatical as were the lads, though in those days they were a minority, but those who did go were as barmy as their male counterparts. The packed terraces often provided an opportunity for sexual encounters between the lads and lasses as the terraces of the Stretford End at Old Trafford, the Kippax at Maine Road, the Kop at Anfield I dare say and the Gwladys Street End at Goodison provided perfect cover for a quick shag!! Urinating at half time was often done on the terraces as getting out to the toilet (bog, or trap stones) was easier said than done. Great days, great times.
Football was also a means of keeping fit. We all had local teams and played on the local green or in the street. Traffic was not as busy in the sixties and seventies as today and playing football in the street was a regular pastime. ‘Gratey’ was another version of football we played, involving two players and, as the name suggests, a grate or drain at the side of the road built into the kerb acted as goals and the ball was either a stone or a tennis ball. The tennis ball was the right circumference to stick in the grate if a player scored. Scrubbed knees were regular wounds suffered but crying to mammy was not allowed. We were all in our junior years in those days. I can still hear various mother’s voices, including mine, calling out, “get your arse in its school tomorrow” on those summer nights when we were playing football. Nobody took any notice of the first call but eventually a hand would grab the back of the neck and being dragged physically homeward was always the net result.
Football was also a means of keeping fit. We all had local teams and played on the local green or in the street. Traffic was not as busy in the sixties and seventies as today and playing football in the street was a regular pastime. ‘Gratey’ was another version of football we played, involving two players and, as the name suggests, a grate or drain at the side of the road built into the kerb acted as goals and the ball was either a stone or a tennis ball. The tennis ball was the right circumference to stick in the grate if a player scored. Scrubbed knees were regular wounds suffered but crying to mammy was not allowed. We were all in our junior years in those days. I can still hear various mother’s voices, including mine, calling out, “get your arse in its school tomorrow” on those summer nights when we were playing football. Nobody took any notice of the first call but eventually a hand would grab the back of the neck and being dragged physically homeward was always the net result.
There were five-a-side games played indoors and the ball could not go above head height. These were often on TV. A midweek sports programme called ‘Sports Night with Coleman’ was aired and presented by a great commentator of his day, David Coleman on BBC1. I can remember back in the early seventies Manchester United being on in the five-a-side final at the Empire Pool, Wembley. United fans caught the authorities off guard as about two thousand turned up. This was unprecedented at these games, usually watched by local neutrals. Not on this occasion, it was like a mini-Old Trafford indoors and as United had a shite season this tournament became a magnet for United fans. These were great days and a great culture ruined by the murderous aims of big business greed in modern times.
The nineteen-sixties and seventies could be described as the age when modernism came to the younger generation of the times. On the beaches of Southern English seaside towns in the early sixties mods and rockers would fight it out, often ruining people’s holidays. Another culture, or sub-culture, was also developing and that was the football fan of the times. Skinhead gangs (in those days multi cultured and mixed raced, unlike the gangs of the eighties) in the sixties were just beginning to appear on the streets along with a sub-division called Boot Boys and these gangs were replacing the immediate post-war Teddy Boys. Most of these new gangs were football fans and introduced something to the terraces, the terrace chant. Singing at matches had gone on long before but not in the coordinated way these newcomers mastered on the terraces. Hitherto most songs were sung by individuals in public houses, now they were brought to the terraces.
The nineteen-sixties and seventies could be described as the age when modernism came to the younger generation of the times. On the beaches of Southern English seaside towns in the early sixties mods and rockers would fight it out, often ruining people’s holidays. Another culture, or sub-culture, was also developing and that was the football fan of the times. Skinhead gangs (in those days multi cultured and mixed raced, unlike the gangs of the eighties) in the sixties were just beginning to appear on the streets along with a sub-division called Boot Boys and these gangs were replacing the immediate post-war Teddy Boys. Most of these new gangs were football fans and introduced something to the terraces, the terrace chant. Singing at matches had gone on long before but not in the coordinated way these newcomers mastered on the terraces. Hitherto most songs were sung by individuals in public houses, now they were brought to the terraces.
The old school cloth cap brigade of the forties and fifties was slowly and, I might add, reluctantly making way for the teenage revolution. At the 1963 FA Cup Final played out between Manchester United and Leicester City, United winning 3-1 with two goals from David Herd and one from new signing Denis Law, the British national anthem was played for the last time after the game. From then on, the anthem would be played before the FA Cup Final kick off. The reason for this was the United fans celebrating their team’s victory, five years after the Munich tragedy, would not keep quiet and just kept singing in chorus their own anthems which had fuck all to do with the monarchy, apart from Denis Law being King! This was also the first game to be played under an all-covered Wembley Stadium so the roof acted as an amplifier thus giving the vocalists, thousands massed on the terraces, great acoustics. This was also the age of the wall art, or graffiti as some of our detractors wished to call it, the spray painting of whose team ruled and whose end was the ‘hardest’ began appearing on walls and buildings around large inner cities. On one estate in the early seventies on the wall surrounding a working-class enclave in Manchester was written; MUFC LOYAL SUPPORTERS WE RULE thus advising any visitor this was a United fans estate. Other club’s supporters did similar in their areas, Bootle for example in Liverpool, or Wallsend in Newcastle.
Songs on the terraces of the sixties and seventies were, in many cases, works of lyrical art. The imagination and changing of words to the airs of many chart-topping hits of the day were something which the bourgeois elements who attend football grounds today could only marvel at! It was very much a working-class cultural thing of the times. Teenagers would often spend their school hours writing a song for Saturday's game, handing out their finished work at the Stretford End at Old Trafford or the Kop at Anfield turnstiles for consideration during the game. Some caught on, others did not. Whether the person's work was used or not, there can be no doubt a lot of imagination was used in composing them. An example of such imagination would be a remake of Max Boyce’s Welsh Rugby Song: Singing for the Songs Arias, our version Singing for the Munich Martyrs would go along these lines:
Songs on the terraces of the sixties and seventies were, in many cases, works of lyrical art. The imagination and changing of words to the airs of many chart-topping hits of the day were something which the bourgeois elements who attend football grounds today could only marvel at! It was very much a working-class cultural thing of the times. Teenagers would often spend their school hours writing a song for Saturday's game, handing out their finished work at the Stretford End at Old Trafford or the Kop at Anfield turnstiles for consideration during the game. Some caught on, others did not. Whether the person's work was used or not, there can be no doubt a lot of imagination was used in composing them. An example of such imagination would be a remake of Max Boyce’s Welsh Rugby Song: Singing for the Songs Arias, our version Singing for the Munich Martyrs would go along these lines:
Down to Arsenal we did go for our annual trip
a weekend out in London Town without a bit of kip,
two seats reserved for beer by the boys from Wythenshawe,
and it was beer, pontoon, crisps and fags and the King is Denis Law. (Chorus)
And we were singing, for the Munich Martyrs, of Man Utd the Busby Babes.
Into Euston we did roll with an empty crate of ale,
Ron had lost at cards again and flogged his Daily mail,
but he still looked very happy, and we all knew what for,
he’d swapped a photo of his wife for a picture of Denis Law (chorus).
There were many more verses but the reader will get the level of imagination and this was only one of many Manchester United supporter’s songs of that era.
Many of the songs which reverberated from the terraces at Old Trafford and, I understand Anfield, were composed by the fans themselves. Many a school hour was spent writing songs for Saturdays game at the educational establishments of both Manchester and Merseyside. Liverpool fans tended to look to the very popular Merseybeat during the sixties for their inspiration, and many an altered version of popular songs could be heard on the Kop each Saturday.
Many of the songs which reverberated from the terraces at Old Trafford and, I understand Anfield, were composed by the fans themselves. Many a school hour was spent writing songs for Saturdays game at the educational establishments of both Manchester and Merseyside. Liverpool fans tended to look to the very popular Merseybeat during the sixties for their inspiration, and many an altered version of popular songs could be heard on the Kop each Saturday.
At Old Trafford United fans tended to use any music, not least Irish republican songs such as “We’re off to Dublin in the Green, in the green” was altered in 1968 to “We’re off to Europe in the Red, in the Red, Denis Law will dazzle in the sun," to compose their songs around. Another one was Mary Hopkin’s 1968 hit “Those were the Days my Friend” which I understand was after a trip to Leeds who had just opened their new impressive Kop behind one goal, the Gelderd End, which Man Utd fans got on in 1968, repeated the following season 1969, “Those were the days my friend, we took the Gelderd End" became an altered version for many Reds something Leeds fans still have not forgot. It was altered again many times to accommodate a team’s end United fans took.
It was a cultural pastime away from home, taking the host teams fans territory. At the Etihad, modern home of Manchester City, the song Blue Moon adopted by the Kippax Blues back in the day, Man City’s huge popular terrace at Maine Road is now sang by another very expensive PR man working for a company employed by the club. United fans list of songs in those days was limitless. After Arsenals FA Cup Final victory at Wembley over Liverpool in 1971, winning 2-1 (and the league FA Cup domestic double) in extra time with a blistering shot from Charlie George. The Arsenal fans made up a song, “he shot, he scored, and all the North Bank roared Charlie George, Charlie George, he shot, he scored….”
Today in the soulless stadia which were once our homes, full time PR companies are employed by the club owners like the Glazers to create an artificial atmosphere once created by the fans ourselves. At Old Trafford some burke sings Glory, Glory Man Utd and encourages fans to join in, what a fucking joke, who is this comedian nicking our songs and regurgitating them for supporters to sing along to? At Anfield many of us may have seen the flags on the stand which was once the Spion Kop before the game. These flags do not belong to the fans but the PR company who give them out to supporters sat in strategic places to maximise effects on TV. Once kick off has been blown these flags are taken back into storage for the next opportunity. Watch closely the next time a Liverpool night game is televised live as stewards can be seen taking these flags away. When Liverpool score at the one-time Kop End there are no flags, just scarves and they are less in number than the days of yore. All the scenery before the game, once genuine, are phoney.
Today in the soulless stadia which were once our homes, full time PR companies are employed by the club owners like the Glazers to create an artificial atmosphere once created by the fans ourselves. At Old Trafford some burke sings Glory, Glory Man Utd and encourages fans to join in, what a fucking joke, who is this comedian nicking our songs and regurgitating them for supporters to sing along to? At Anfield many of us may have seen the flags on the stand which was once the Spion Kop before the game. These flags do not belong to the fans but the PR company who give them out to supporters sat in strategic places to maximise effects on TV. Once kick off has been blown these flags are taken back into storage for the next opportunity. Watch closely the next time a Liverpool night game is televised live as stewards can be seen taking these flags away. When Liverpool score at the one-time Kop End there are no flags, just scarves and they are less in number than the days of yore. All the scenery before the game, once genuine, are phoney.
At Old Trafford singing anti-Glazer songs are banned, not that it makes much difference, and wearing anti-Glazer scarves is not allowed. One employee was dismissed for wearing the green and yellow scarf, which is the old colours of Newton Heath, Manchester United’s former name, because it was seen as being anti-Glazer. The once mighty and feared Stretford End is now becoming a joke, as is the Kop at Liverpool, the Gwladys Street at Everton, in fact all the old popular working-class cultural havens across the game. The end of an era as today’s game and atmosphere at any of the once mighty grounds is no match for the sixties, seventies and eighties.
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| Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist. |
Different product these days Caoimhin, I watched somebody recently pointing out that footballers these days are all high level athletes with average skill levels. The days of the proper 'Baller' are on their way out. We still get the occasionally extraordinary player like CR7 or Messi but even that's dropping off. Back in the decades you mentioned there was some extraordinary talent but a lot of them didn't look after themselves Best being a huge example of this. These days with the money involved they are athletes first and footballers second.
ReplyDeleteI have to say the games are better these days though, except I'd radically change VAR. The money isn't going anywhere as it's a hugely successful industry particularly in Europe.
Abolition of FA Cup replays is an absolute disgrace.
ReplyDeleteo you not think it is better to get them over with on the day? Too many games takes a lot out of players. Look at how sluggish Liverpool are at the season's end, and blowing everything as a result.
DeleteNo because it is denying potentially much needed revenue to lower league clubs who get a plum draw at Anfield, Old Trafford, Etihad etc. This decision was taken with no consultation with the EFL or the National League. Pure self-interest on behalf of the PL oligarchy
ReplyDeleteI went to United Home Away and in Europe and the atmosphère at Old Trafford was killed by Stewards shopping anyone standing and singing.It was oppressive and woeful.The reason why United fans away were fantastic is because they were off the least and always stood.
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