Caoimhin O’Muraile ⚽ Watching the Big Match Revisited on Saturday 11th October cast my mind back to those great days following Manchester United.
The game was between Tottenham Hotspur and Man Utd back in 1976, a game I remember well, resulting in a 1-1 draw. Before the game, despite appeals from both clubs, fighting had occurred on Seven Sisters Road between the ‘Red Army’ and Tottenham fans, bloody mayhem if I recall but a great day out. Violence at away games was a regular feature of our away days back then and the reputation of United’s ‘Red Army’ was fierce. We were renowned throughout England. The game itself was fast attacking football by both teams. Tommy Docherty had introduced a swashbuckling cavalier style of football not seen at United since the glorious days of Matt Busby, George Best, Bobby Charlton, and Denis Law. Great attacking entertainment unlike the garbage served up today. The sway in the crowd was crushing and electric as the chant 'United, United' went up with Spurs fans retorting with ‘shit, shit, shit’, all part of the course.
In those days Saturday was the only day of the week which mattered unless we had a midweek match. Midweek games were always thrilling because the floodlights added to the atmosphere, even in League Cup games. No club could match United’s support, even for League Cup games, and we were the first every season to pass the one million through the turnstiles at Old Trafford, even in the Second Division.
In those days Saturday was the only day of the week which mattered unless we had a midweek match. Midweek games were always thrilling because the floodlights added to the atmosphere, even in League Cup games. No club could match United’s support, even for League Cup games, and we were the first every season to pass the one million through the turnstiles at Old Trafford, even in the Second Division.
One midweek game remains in my memory and that was Leeds away back in the 1972/73 season. My dad, his mate, myself (I was 12 years old) and another young lad stood together in the Lowfield’s Road terrace towards the ‘Gelderd End’ (Leeds Kop) and most United fans were in the ‘Scratching Shed’ opposite the Gelderd. Man Utd fans had made an early disorganised attempt at crossing the pitch into the Gelderd End but the Police were prepared and the numbers trying were small. If hundreds had been inside the ground, it is reckoned, United would have been over the pitch and into the home end where they would have remained for the duration as very few Leeds were present (it would not have been the first time). Coming through Leeds to Elland Road a load of Man Utd fans charged out of a pub chasing Leeds, throwing glasses at the retreating home fans. I remember one United fan shouting; “leave them they're ours” referring to our car, he’d spotted my red and white scarf, other vehicles were wrecked! In other parts of town, I am told by Leeds fans, the story was different: it was United on the run but I can only report what I saw on ‘Marsh Lane’ that night which was Leeds running from United. To make a perfect night an unexpected goal from Trevor Anderson gave Man United the two points (two points for a win back then) shattering Don Revie's so-called ‘Super Leeds’. The Leeds fans on the Gelderd were not over the moon with the result! “You’re gonna get your fucking heads kicked in” was their chant!!
In the 1973/74 season we were relegated from the First Division (Division One can kiss my arse, we’re in Division Two at last, with Tommy Doc and Jimmy Mac, Division One we’re coming back) despite attempts to get the match against Man City at Old Trafford abandoned and replayed by our pitch invasion. Denis Law the erstwhile ‘King of the Stretford End’ backheeled the ball scoring for City. Everybody forgave Denis because he perhaps did not intend the ball going in the net. Alex Stepney should have made easy work of picking the ball up from what was more of a back-pass than a serious attempt at scoring. Denis Law was gutted and there were no celebrations from him as his City team mates danced for joy, the bastards. Shortly after Denis’s error the pitch invasion occurred, it made no odds the result stood.
In the 1973/74 season we were relegated from the First Division (Division One can kiss my arse, we’re in Division Two at last, with Tommy Doc and Jimmy Mac, Division One we’re coming back) despite attempts to get the match against Man City at Old Trafford abandoned and replayed by our pitch invasion. Denis Law the erstwhile ‘King of the Stretford End’ backheeled the ball scoring for City. Everybody forgave Denis because he perhaps did not intend the ball going in the net. Alex Stepney should have made easy work of picking the ball up from what was more of a back-pass than a serious attempt at scoring. Denis Law was gutted and there were no celebrations from him as his City team mates danced for joy, the bastards. Shortly after Denis’s error the pitch invasion occurred, it made no odds the result stood.
A new experience in Division Two awaited us and a great season it was. A game which is etched in my memory was Aston Villa at home, November 1974, with 57,000 supporters inside Old Trafford, none from Villa! My dad had secured seat tickets, my last game in the seats until the late eighties, and my mam was also at the game which we won 2-1 both goals, I’m sure, from Gerry Daly. I recall sitting in F Stand witnessing a sea of red and white scarves aloft from corner to corner behind the goal to the song ‘we shall overcome, some-day’ after the US civil rights marches and those in the Six Counties. York City away was a game which United had an element of luck with Stuart Pearson securing a 1-0 away victory for United. It was a day when ‘spot the home fan’ was the entertainment as United fans took over Bootham Crescent, York's then ground, over 15,000 fans packed into the tiny ground. A crowd of 47,000 witnessed United lose 0-1 at home to Bristol City in early February 1975, our only home defeat of the campaign. In fact, if memory serves, Bristol City under Alan Dicks' stewardship did the double over us, winning at Ashton Gate (home of Bristol City). That did not stop our surge to the Second Division title though and after one season in the second tier United were back and back with an attacking vengeance. Following Man Utd in ‘Division Two’ was an experience as our fans regularly outnumbered the home teams supporters, Sunderland and Villa exempted, though we were still large in numbers.
1975/76 saw ‘Docs Red Army’ on our travels again and what great days they were. Newcastle away was a scary place to go and safety in numbers was the order of the day. Only the hardest most dedicated fans travelled to Newcastle, around 1,500-2,000 which was more than any other team, bar Sunderland, took to St, James’s Park. We got to the FA Cup Final that year only to be robbed by Southampton - and Bobby Stokes' goal which was offside. The Ref obviously blind in both eyes ruled the goal onside and it was allowed. Despite that defeat I’d still prefer it to todays so-called ‘Video Assisted Refereeing’ (VAR) which in reality is automated refereeing with the human ref often overruled by this fucking farce.
1975/76 saw ‘Docs Red Army’ on our travels again and what great days they were. Newcastle away was a scary place to go and safety in numbers was the order of the day. Only the hardest most dedicated fans travelled to Newcastle, around 1,500-2,000 which was more than any other team, bar Sunderland, took to St, James’s Park. We got to the FA Cup Final that year only to be robbed by Southampton - and Bobby Stokes' goal which was offside. The Ref obviously blind in both eyes ruled the goal onside and it was allowed. Despite that defeat I’d still prefer it to todays so-called ‘Video Assisted Refereeing’ (VAR) which in reality is automated refereeing with the human ref often overruled by this fucking farce.
In 1977 United were back at Wembley again in the FA Cup Final defeating the enemy, Liverpool, 2-1, fucking up their treble hopes as ‘Que Sera, Sera’ drowned out ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’! 1979 back in the final again this time against Arsenal. We were 2-0 down and came back to 2-2 as most of Wembley erupted only to have our hopes dashed by Alan Sunderland giving the ‘Gunners’ a 3-2 victory in the dying seconds of the game. I remember the day because I had made a huge cardboard red and white top hat about two foot high. I had cut a large FA Cup out of silver tin foil and stuck it on the front. Saturday morning early train with a huge ‘carry out’ and we were London and Wembley bound. Dave Sexton was then manager at Old Trafford and the style of football of Tommy Doc had gone sadly, to be replaced by a more sedate and, frankly, boring approach by Sexton. Leeds away in 1980 and we needed the two points to stand a great chance of winning the league. We did not get them with Leeds coming out 2-0 victors. Once again violence erupted as United’s ‘Red Army’ of around 12,000 took over parts of Elland Road including taking over their South Stand (formerly Scratching Shed) and packing the entire Lowfield’s Road terrace right up to the Gelderd End where sporadic scuffles broke out between the two hate filled rivals.
In 1981 United had parted company with Sexton and Ron Atkinson had taken over the managerial position. This was unique for United as Ron was the first non-Catholic manager to take the reins at Old Trafford. Under Ron we won the FA Cup twice, in 1983 beating Brighton in a replay after the ‘Seagulls’ had run us close in the first game and two years later beating Everton 1-0 in 1985 with a memorial Norman Whiteside goal securing the FA Cup for us. In 1986 Alex Ferguson took over and the rest, as they say, is history. It took Fergie four years to win any silverware and in today’s shitty world the man would, in all probability, have been sacked. What a good job people running the show back then had a little more knowledge of the game than the money grabbing greedy bastards of today.
In 1989 the face of football changed forever as the numerous club owners jumped on needless government legislation to make stadiums all seated. Prices rocketed as working-class people were priced out of the game. This was purposely done by the Thatcher government on the back of the Hillsborough tragedy when 97 Liverpool fans lost their lives prior to the FA Cup Semi-Final against Nottingham Forrest. Talk about jumping on tragedy to increase profits, Ghouls nothing but a set of Ghouls! It is still my opinion those unfortunate Liverpool fans were murdered that day, corporate murder. They may be the enemy but there is a line to draw and that was/is it. They were football fans, as were we, who had gone to the Semi-Final to watch their team and never came home. A tragedy which was avoidable be under no illusions about that! Everything that made football, the sway on the terraces and ‘working-class culture’, had gone and remains absent.
During the early/mid-seventies Don Revie's Leeds United were the team to beat. In 1976 at Old Trafford we beat them 3-2 almost throwing away a 3-0 lead. Only a handful of Leeds turned up in sharp contrast to our travelling support going to Elland Road. Then Liverpool’s era of dominance began, though had the ‘Doc’ stayed at Old Trafford that would have been challenged. Great days which had to be experienced to appreciate. Though I and many of my era still attended Old Trafford during the nineteen-nineties and the dawn of the so-called Premier League, United winning the first one back in 1992/93, things were not the same. The all-seater stadia took away the atmosphere the various popular ends throughout England created, the sway in the crowd, the crush barriers everything had gone and remains so. The ‘gentrification’ of the game completed and the sport which served working-class people for over 100 years has gone and gone forever I’m sorry to say.
In 1981 United had parted company with Sexton and Ron Atkinson had taken over the managerial position. This was unique for United as Ron was the first non-Catholic manager to take the reins at Old Trafford. Under Ron we won the FA Cup twice, in 1983 beating Brighton in a replay after the ‘Seagulls’ had run us close in the first game and two years later beating Everton 1-0 in 1985 with a memorial Norman Whiteside goal securing the FA Cup for us. In 1986 Alex Ferguson took over and the rest, as they say, is history. It took Fergie four years to win any silverware and in today’s shitty world the man would, in all probability, have been sacked. What a good job people running the show back then had a little more knowledge of the game than the money grabbing greedy bastards of today.
In 1989 the face of football changed forever as the numerous club owners jumped on needless government legislation to make stadiums all seated. Prices rocketed as working-class people were priced out of the game. This was purposely done by the Thatcher government on the back of the Hillsborough tragedy when 97 Liverpool fans lost their lives prior to the FA Cup Semi-Final against Nottingham Forrest. Talk about jumping on tragedy to increase profits, Ghouls nothing but a set of Ghouls! It is still my opinion those unfortunate Liverpool fans were murdered that day, corporate murder. They may be the enemy but there is a line to draw and that was/is it. They were football fans, as were we, who had gone to the Semi-Final to watch their team and never came home. A tragedy which was avoidable be under no illusions about that! Everything that made football, the sway on the terraces and ‘working-class culture’, had gone and remains absent.
During the early/mid-seventies Don Revie's Leeds United were the team to beat. In 1976 at Old Trafford we beat them 3-2 almost throwing away a 3-0 lead. Only a handful of Leeds turned up in sharp contrast to our travelling support going to Elland Road. Then Liverpool’s era of dominance began, though had the ‘Doc’ stayed at Old Trafford that would have been challenged. Great days which had to be experienced to appreciate. Though I and many of my era still attended Old Trafford during the nineteen-nineties and the dawn of the so-called Premier League, United winning the first one back in 1992/93, things were not the same. The all-seater stadia took away the atmosphere the various popular ends throughout England created, the sway in the crowd, the crush barriers everything had gone and remains so. The ‘gentrification’ of the game completed and the sport which served working-class people for over 100 years has gone and gone forever I’m sorry to say.
Everything today is fake, the phoney atmospheres created by PR Live Entertainment companies is not real, they are not generated by supporters but highly paid useless so-called PR firms. In a word, Shit!!
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| Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist. |
I prefer the soccer culture of today.
ReplyDeleteIf that thuggery was present today I doubt I would be a season ticket holder.
But would you have preferred it as a younger man Anthony? The atmosphere, the swaying, the humour, the writing and learning of songs, and, of course, the pub. You would, given different circumstances, have much preferred it back then. Oh, by the way we were not thugs, merely over enthusiastic fans, who got a little carried away. "Thugs" are what the bourgeois media called us, take no notice of them. I could have written about Villa away, 1976 or 75, when the reporters of this so-called 'free press' urged United fans on the Witton Lane End to invade the pitch and attack the Holte End. A line of policemen full width of the pitch awaited any attempt. One reporter said: "come on lads, give us something juicy to report". The Police made no attempt to arrest these reporters for inciting violence, why not? Because they too wanted an invasion to keep arrest numbers up! Fact, not fiction!! Some older Reds stopped us youngsters falling into their well laid trap.
ReplyDeleteYou'd have loved it Anthony, not now but then, as I did. Youth was on our side. Could I do it now? More chance of knitting fog.
Caoimhin O'Muraile
There are a lot of things we would have liked as teens we no longer like and would not like for our own children.
DeleteAnybody who wants to inflict violence on football fans is a thug, whether it be a cop or a rival fan. The bourgeois press you refer to might call police violence against fans over enthusiastic policing. The victims of such violence would demur.