andrew neave
06 May 2006, 04:12 PM
Ok by popular request :- I was a member of the Dorset, Gateshead, and London Mufc supporters club and traveled in there Coaches to Manchester and some away games taking 4 hours ride up to Manchester to watch 90 min of Football and 4 hours journey back home, a bit depressing if ManUtd lost But I made a lot of friends.
It was interesting at times what the local Police at away games said to the manchester fans or to me directly, I remember going to see Villa on a coach, and a friend with his young son and myself sat in one of the Villa stands. After the match we where walking back to the coach parking lot when a policeman stopped us and said " Hide the boys scarf ( ManUtd scarf) you might get mugged!!!! which I thought was quite pathetic, as though he would RUN for it, if we were LOL.
And when we surfaced from the Tube station that went to Highbury Stadium we were driving like cattle by the police to were they wanted us to go and it got hairy if some drunken guys started to push sometimes your feet lost touch with the ground LOL, the Police were shouting and scowling at us all the time, for the ladies it was a bit harrowing, It was if we had a reputation LOL.
And the West Brom away match was always a hoot because we sung the " Oh i do love to be beside the seaside ------------------------ ******** of West Brom" song. only one season they got clever they stood amounst us in the away end, the devils! and pounced on individuals who were caught singing this song and chucked them out of the stadium!!! i don’t think they liked us. Talking of West Brom matches ill never forget the 1978 3-5 match at Old Trafford Cyrlll Regis got a Hat trick. despite losing, it was a fantastic match
I remember a Stoke match where we were on the back end of a run of bad results, we filled the stadium it was a mid week match and for some reason ManUtd fans came from east west south and north to this match, it was like a home match Stoke scored first. the fans started a stadium wide chant which went on and on and on it was deafening and quite emotional in a way we won that match I think, I would like to think that we played a part in unsettling Stoke who must have wondered what the hell was going on around them.
The fans attending that match got a mention in the Programme for the following Home match praising our efforts. Truly the song " we will never die will never die whell keep the red flag flying high cause ManUtd will never die" unfortunately was the song of the day, and I like to think the more we lost the more the determination to turn up at the next match to support our Team.
I witnessed some bad times, I remember a Everton match at home where Martin Buchan equalized from 30 yards in Injury time I sat in the old Stretford end seats, we went home happy believe it or not!!.
It still a puzzles me why we kept Paddy Roche in goal for so long, he was almost a goal start for the opposing team, you tended to look away when he went for a cross, we all applauded wildly when he caught the ball.
Then there was the Liverpool V ManUtd FA cup semi final at Maine Road me and steve drove up, to Manchester from Bath (where i lived at the time) because we had to, we didnt have tickets, but through my experience the Touts followed ManUtd like locusts, we stayed in steves mini overnight in a car park in Manchester on Friday or maybe a Saturday cant remember, we drove to Old Trafford on match day and sure enough we payed I think 30 Pounds (about 50 dollars) for each ticket which put us in cloud nine. Maine Road had one long stand almost 100 per cent standing terraces with a huge roof over head , the noise was deafening Liverpool and ManUtd on opposite sides of this stand with a police squadron inbetween, there was shouting chanting screaming for 90 min, It was awesome we drew and won the replay.
One memory which was very scary was when Liverpool fans if you can call them that were allowed to get of at the wrong station on the railway side of Old Trafford and some of them came up to a huge ManUtd throng of fans in front of the Souvenir shop some 14 year old kids immediately got there flick knives out and threatened any Utd fan near them, it was scary for many reasons, one that they were so young, the police pushed them back to the station platform. If I am giving you a scary impression of football in the late 70.s early 80,s it was back then.
And then there was the time Scotland came to Wembley in 1977 to play England in the decider in the Home Internationls what a bizzare day, I got a ticket from a friend who was a Bristol City fan and ended up amounst thousands of Scotlands finest waving Yellow and Red flags with you guessed it remember Bannock Burn on them ( the only battle they won lol) Stuart Pearson Steve Coppell and Brian Greenoff played that day, I was very subdued that match in some ways, I talked to one scot saying I was a ManUtd fan and I was only here to support the Utd players thankfully he understood, fortunately for me Scotland beat England , for the life of me i don’t know what happened to the English fans all you could see was a sea of scottish flags all round the stadium, it was a big day out to the Big Smoke for the scottish fans, whole familys came down for the chance to stub the noses of the English. they won and there was a pitch invasion and nobody knows where the goalposts went, but rest assured they ended up north of the border along with parts of the Pitch, sorry for my sense of humor but it was funny in some ways now, maybe Im wrong but you don’t seem to have so much fun these days. oh well.
It was interesting at times what the local Police at away games said to the manchester fans or to me directly, I remember going to see Villa on a coach, and a friend with his young son and myself sat in one of the Villa stands. After the match we where walking back to the coach parking lot when a policeman stopped us and said " Hide the boys scarf ( ManUtd scarf) you might get mugged!!!! which I thought was quite pathetic, as though he would RUN for it, if we were LOL.
And when we surfaced from the Tube station that went to Highbury Stadium we were driving like cattle by the police to were they wanted us to go and it got hairy if some drunken guys started to push sometimes your feet lost touch with the ground LOL, the Police were shouting and scowling at us all the time, for the ladies it was a bit harrowing, It was if we had a reputation LOL.
And the West Brom away match was always a hoot because we sung the " Oh i do love to be beside the seaside ------------------------ ******** of West Brom" song. only one season they got clever they stood amounst us in the away end, the devils! and pounced on individuals who were caught singing this song and chucked them out of the stadium!!! i don’t think they liked us. Talking of West Brom matches ill never forget the 1978 3-5 match at Old Trafford Cyrlll Regis got a Hat trick. despite losing, it was a fantastic match
I remember a Stoke match where we were on the back end of a run of bad results, we filled the stadium it was a mid week match and for some reason ManUtd fans came from east west south and north to this match, it was like a home match Stoke scored first. the fans started a stadium wide chant which went on and on and on it was deafening and quite emotional in a way we won that match I think, I would like to think that we played a part in unsettling Stoke who must have wondered what the hell was going on around them.
The fans attending that match got a mention in the Programme for the following Home match praising our efforts. Truly the song " we will never die will never die whell keep the red flag flying high cause ManUtd will never die" unfortunately was the song of the day, and I like to think the more we lost the more the determination to turn up at the next match to support our Team.
I witnessed some bad times, I remember a Everton match at home where Martin Buchan equalized from 30 yards in Injury time I sat in the old Stretford end seats, we went home happy believe it or not!!.
It still a puzzles me why we kept Paddy Roche in goal for so long, he was almost a goal start for the opposing team, you tended to look away when he went for a cross, we all applauded wildly when he caught the ball.
Then there was the Liverpool V ManUtd FA cup semi final at Maine Road me and steve drove up, to Manchester from Bath (where i lived at the time) because we had to, we didnt have tickets, but through my experience the Touts followed ManUtd like locusts, we stayed in steves mini overnight in a car park in Manchester on Friday or maybe a Saturday cant remember, we drove to Old Trafford on match day and sure enough we payed I think 30 Pounds (about 50 dollars) for each ticket which put us in cloud nine. Maine Road had one long stand almost 100 per cent standing terraces with a huge roof over head , the noise was deafening Liverpool and ManUtd on opposite sides of this stand with a police squadron inbetween, there was shouting chanting screaming for 90 min, It was awesome we drew and won the replay.
One memory which was very scary was when Liverpool fans if you can call them that were allowed to get of at the wrong station on the railway side of Old Trafford and some of them came up to a huge ManUtd throng of fans in front of the Souvenir shop some 14 year old kids immediately got there flick knives out and threatened any Utd fan near them, it was scary for many reasons, one that they were so young, the police pushed them back to the station platform. If I am giving you a scary impression of football in the late 70.s early 80,s it was back then.
And then there was the time Scotland came to Wembley in 1977 to play England in the decider in the Home Internationls what a bizzare day, I got a ticket from a friend who was a Bristol City fan and ended up amounst thousands of Scotlands finest waving Yellow and Red flags with you guessed it remember Bannock Burn on them ( the only battle they won lol) Stuart Pearson Steve Coppell and Brian Greenoff played that day, I was very subdued that match in some ways, I talked to one scot saying I was a ManUtd fan and I was only here to support the Utd players thankfully he understood, fortunately for me Scotland beat England , for the life of me i don’t know what happened to the English fans all you could see was a sea of scottish flags all round the stadium, it was a big day out to the Big Smoke for the scottish fans, whole familys came down for the chance to stub the noses of the English. they won and there was a pitch invasion and nobody knows where the goalposts went, but rest assured they ended up north of the border along with parts of the Pitch, sorry for my sense of humor but it was funny in some ways now, maybe Im wrong but you don’t seem to have so much fun these days. oh well.