Nearly Reach the Sky (11 page)

While Man Utd were tearing up the second division, West Ham were starting to put together what would turn out to be a triumphant Cup run. After beating Swindon we were drawn
against QPR in the fifth round, a game we won 2–1 at Upton Park. Then it was Arsenal at Highbury in the sixth round and, unless you skipped Chapter Four, you will now know this was the first time it was officially noted that Sir Trev walked on water.

The semi-final against Ipswich at Villa Park was one of the worst games I’ve ever seen. It finished 0–0, and both sides were lucky to get nil. It didn’t help that both Bob and I had monster hangovers, brought about by spending most of the previous night drinking vast quantities of Bull’s Blood (the Hungarian wine rather than the actual blood of a bovine male). We were in the North Stand and it was so packed we couldn’t force our way on to the terracing itself and had to stand on a sloping walkway instead. Try that for two hours and see what it does to your hamstrings.

The most memorable part of the day was the drive back to Cardiff. Bob was behind the wheel – it was his car after all – but he decided I should steer from the passenger’s seat while we polished off a bottle of vodka between us. So that’s the way we did it – for 100-odd miles. It was probably the most stupid thing I have done in my life – and certainly one of the most dangerous. Almost as dangerous, however, was watching Man U clinch the second division title at Notts County.

Between you and me, I much preferred supporting Man Utd at Old Trafford than on the road. Bob’s mum and dad always made me feel tremendously welcome whenever I stayed in their warm, cosy, comfortable home. Usually Bob’s mum would feed us royally, but on one occasion his dad gave us the money to treat ourselves to a meal in the Grand Hotel. It was the first time I ate duck à l’orange, which, preceded by a prawn cocktail, was without doubt the pinnacle of style in 1975. Many years later I went back to the
Grand with Di after we’d been to see a game in the north-west. We stayed overnight – partly because we didn’t fancy the drive back south, but also because I wanted to rekindle the memory of those wonderful times. We got woken up by a bunch of workmen in the adjoining room at 6 a.m. and, after our complaints to reception that no one should be hammering this early on a Sunday morning were relayed to the horny handed sons of toil next door, we were subjected to a stream of abuse through the paper-thin wall until we finally got up and went down for breakfast.

Anyway, there was no getting out of the trip to Nottingham – not with Manchester United on the verge of the title. Again we drove up from Cardiff – this time with Bob firmly in control of steering wheel as well as pedals. But soon after parking the car we became part of the phalanx of Man U fans making the slow march to the game under the watchful – and nervous – eye of a huge police escort.

Inside the ground there was the usual mixture of emotions that you get with any football crowd; expectation, tension, bravado – even some humour. But that day there was a sense of insanity too. One guy shinned up a floodlight pylon and got a huge cheer for his efforts. Another idiot decided to follow suit and clambered up the pylon in the other corner. But instead of being saluted for his efforts he was urged to jump – and for several worrying moments I really thought he was going to give in to the baying crowd below.

Bob recalls how he was finally talked down. ‘It was a convincing and compelling piece of advice from the highly trained police negotiator: “Come down here, you thick twat”.’

I can’t pretend to remember much about the game itself, although United were two up at half time and got the point
they needed. We all ended up on the pitch afterwards. Even those of us who didn’t want to go found ourselves there; to be honest, you don’t have much of a say in the matter once the common consensus is for a human stampede. Depressingly, what should have been a celebration became another wrecking spree as hundreds of Man Utd fans tried to tear apart Meadow Lane with their bare hands.

My overriding memory of the game is the sound of unidentified objects flying past my head at various times throughout the match. I had witnessed coins being thrown before, but this was something different. The missiles were clearly heavier and more menacing – they hissed in flight. It wasn’t until the following day, when the Sunday newspapers were full of pictures of a 5-inch metal kung fu star embedded in a policeman’s helmet, that I realised what had been whistling past my unprotected cranium. Had one of them hit me I doubt I would here to tell the story now. It seems some of the more enterprising yobbos had been making them at school, painstakingly filing down lumps of metal into the shape of a star with several razor-sharp prongs. I wonder what those characters are doing today? No doubt they are family men with strong views on law and order. Perhaps one of them even went on to be a metalwork teacher.

Fleet Street went to town on the red army. The
Daily Mirror
was still frothing at the mouth on Monday. Under the front page headline ‘Savage animals’ it reported that six kung fu stars had been recovered and two supporters were still in hospital. On the back page Tommy Docherty was quoted as saying: ‘What these mobsters will do next season has me really scared.’

A fortnight later Bob and I were at Wembley to watch West Ham
beat Fulham 2–0 in the Cup final, courtesy of two goals from Alan Taylor – and the chances are I never would have got to see the game if it hadn’t been for my northern soulmate. Being an all-London final, tickets were like hen’s teeth in the capital but, luckily, there were some to be had in the north and Bob’s dad managed to lay his hands on a couple in Manchester. I’ve no idea how he did it – but I will always be grateful to him for that.

The following season Bob and I were both back on our respective papers, trying to put into practice what we had learned in Cardiff. But although we could no longer go to matches together on a regular basis we were determined to see both West Ham v. Man Utd games that season. Which is why I watched in horror as some of the worst crowd trouble ever witnessed at Upton Park was played out in front of me – believing my mate was in the thick of it.

It was widely expected there would be trouble between two sets of supporters who detested one another. The shops and pubs near Upton Park had closed for the day and the sale of alcohol was prohibited. Some eyewitnesses have reported they saw skirmishes before the game, but I don’t recall encountering any trouble after Bob and I parked the Kadett in a side street and made our way to the ground. With three times the usual number of police on duty, anyone who fancied a pre-match tear-up was certain to get nicked.

As usual in those days, the away team were given the South Bank – and they didn’t get all of that. Bob had decided he wanted to be with his fellow supporters in their end of the ground rather than join me on the North Bank, where he would have been required to remain seriously schtum for the duration of the match. We went our separate ways at the junction of the Barking Road and Green Street.

The atmosphere was tense from the outset. After six minutes a
massive Mervyn Day goal kick landed on the edge of the Man Utd penalty area and, as their defence dithered, Alan Taylor nipped in to score. On the North Bank we forgot about abusing the opposition fans for a while and concentrated on celebrating the goal.

West Ham were still 1–0 up at half time. Then, nine minutes after the interval, Man Utd supporters began to spill on to the pitch. Exactly what happened down their end is still a matter of debate. Go online and you will find any number of accounts from people who were there. Some put the disturbance down to fighting, others reckon it was simply because too many people had been herded on to the South Bank terracing.

Eugene says:

But Steve disagrees. ‘This was violence. I was there. West Ham were in the ground hours before us and ambushed us on the way in. They were throwing bottles and milk crates at us. There were quite a few fans locked outside, WHU and reds.’

This was a time when the fans of both clubs reckoned they were
the heavyweight champions of British hooliganism. The red army was notorious after its exploits in the second division; West Ham’s Inter City Firm had yet to be formed but there were plenty of other, smaller, groups (some of which were later to be marshalled under the ICF banner) who were ready and willing to dish out a liberal dose of West Ham aggro when called upon to do so. The Mile End Mob; the Teddy Bunter Firm; the South Bank Crew – you really didn’t want to mess with those boys. It was these ‘firms’, say some, who caused the mayhem.

Stepney says:

His comment is appended to online footage of Brian Moore’s calm, measured, analytical commentary of the mayhem that was taking place in the south-east corner of the ground. He adds:

Pogo12xu saw things in much the same way.

Whatever the cause, one thing is certain. If there had been fences, as there were at Hillsborough fourteen years later, there could well have been a tragedy on a similar scale.

As the chaos played itself out, referee Peter Reeves was left with little choice other than to take the players from the field. He set a time limit of twenty minutes for order to be restored, after which he proposed to abandon the game. Ron Greenwood, recently elevated to general manager, went on the pitch in his gabardine Mac to see if he could help the hard-pressed police sort out the mess.

Years later, Richard went online to say: ‘I was there that day as an eight-year-old with my dad sitting safely in the West Stand. It was my first game at West Ham and I remember thinking, “Is this normal?” I remember John McDowell of West Ham leading a child off the pitch.’

In the event, the players came back with two minutes to spare – and Manchester United promptly scored via a Coppell free kick and a Macari header.

Our second goal – which turned out to be the winner – came on seventy minutes and was also the result of a set piece. Trevor Brooking picked out Graham Paddon, who had been brought down to win the free kick, and his low cross was fired home by Bobby Gould. Deep, deep joy for all those in claret and blue.

What I didn’t know at the time was that, by a huge stroke of luck, Bob had managed to avoid the man-made maelstrom that could have cost him his life. I’ll let him tell the story himself.