Maine Rd terrace characters

nw42 said:
I did both the Bristol & Sunderland games and you're right, I wonder if it was down to reputations, although I came close to getting knifed at Bristol when I was expecting it to be a walk in the park. As for Sunderland, went on the special and I reckon there was less than 50 on it, the walk from Seaburn station to the ground was ok but they all came out of the pubs to laugh at our following, I asked one of them who joined our escort if we were going to 'get it', he said no as there weren't enough of us, fair play.
I'm fairly sure we all went in the paddock with the big open end to our right.
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Yes, I also went to Bristol City and Sunderland that season on the specials - you're right we ended up in that small paddock at Sunderland as you described, no more than 150 in total including those off the coaches. There was also QPR away in midweek later that season where we only took a couple of hundred despite being in contention for the title.
 
lancs blue said:
Yes, I also went to Bristol City and Sunderland that season on the specials - you're right we ended up in that small paddock at Sunderland as you described, no more than 150 in total including those off the coaches. There was also QPR away in midweek later that season where we only took a couple of hundred despite being in contention for the title.
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Was that 1977? I went to QPR one Tuesday night....hardly any in that open end. Scuffles with Chelsea fans too.
 
mancityvstoke said:
Was that 1977? I went to QPR one Tuesday night....hardly any in that open end. Scuffles with Chelsea fans too.
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Unsure which season but around the same time we played a night game at Highbury, again there were hardly any blues there.
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
I've always been fascinated by City's away following in the 1970s, essentially because it seemed to vary from 10,000 to a just couple of coachloads.
Denis Law scores at Birmingham and you can literally hear a pin drop on You Tube, as one fan claps in the background. However, the following season, we lose 4-0, and you see a whole group of City fans refusing to celebrate their 2nd goal
Similarly, we seemed to take thousands to Ashton Gate in 76-77, but hardly anyone to Roker Park earlier in the season.
I've often wondered how you even knew which stand to go to. At least by the time I started going regularly (80-81) there always seemed to be a specific away end.
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I'd just gone through the turnstile at St Andrews before the 4-0 game, and a load of our lads came running from the stand and out of the stadium. No segregation and it had kicked off. I thought fuck that, I've just paid 50p to get in here and I'm going nowhere!
Stuffed on and off the pitch that day.
 
nw42 said:
I did both the Bristol & Sunderland games and you're right, I wonder if it was down to reputations, although I came close to getting knifed at Bristol when I was expecting it to be a walk in the park. As for Sunderland, went on the special and I reckon there was less than 50 on it, the walk from Seaburn station to the ground was ok but they all came out of the pubs to laugh at our following, I asked one of them who joined our escort if we were going to 'get it', he said no as there weren't enough of us, fair play.
I'm fairly sure we all went in the paddock with the big open end to our right.
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Obviously you'd know better than me, but I don't recall it being that different for games at Maine Road with some teams occasionally bringing thousands, but often just a couple of hundred.

There's also been a huge shift in population demographic with far more second generation City fans now residing all over the country, whereas in the mid 70s, the vast majority still lived in Greater Manchester, and probably didn't even own a car.

Somebody mentioned the LC Replay at Highbury in 1977-78, which was staged just six days after the original tie. That would have been a huge effort in an era when it was far more difficult to get time off work at short notice.
Plus I don't recall many Arsenal fans at the original game, or indeed any game v Arsenal at Maine Road around that period.
 
BlueRockape said:
I think in those days it came down to money.
I was on £6 a week so I had to choose my away games
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I always think that in those days it was easier to jump on a matchday special without a match ticket, but equally it was easier to just stay at home and not bother. There was no peer pressure, and you literally decided whether you were bothering the previous night in the pub.

One attendance that always fascinates me is the 1-0 defeat at Leeds Rod in 64-65, just a few weeks after the infamous 8,000 attendance v Swindon at Maine Road.
Neither team had anything to play for, yet Huddersfield still recorded their highest crowd of the season.
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
I always think that in those days it was easier to jump on a matchday special without a match ticket, but equally it was easier to just stay at home and not bother. There was no peer pressure, and you literally decided whether you were bothering the previous night in the pub.

One attendance that always fascinates me is the 1-0 defeat at Leeds Rod in 64-65, just a few weeks after the infamous 8,000 attendance v Swindon at Maine Road.
Neither team had anything to play for, yet Huddersfield still recorded their highest crowd of the season.
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Or Christmas Day, you hammered a team at home, so went to the reverse fixture on Boxing Day.

I think City would have been Hudds closest team that year.
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
Obviously you'd know better than me, but I don't recall it being that different for games at Maine Road with some teams occasionally bringing thousands, but often just a couple of hundred.

There's also been a huge shift in population demographic with far more second generation City fans now residing all over the country, whereas in the mid 70s, the vast majority still lived in Greater Manchester, and probably didn't even own a car.

Somebody mentioned the LC Replay at Highbury in 1977-78, which was staged just six days after the original tie. That would have been a huge effort in an era when it was far more difficult to get time off work at short notice.
Plus I don't recall many Arsenal fans at the original game, or indeed any game v Arsenal at Maine Road around that period.
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I went to that replay at Highbury in the Clock End. There seemed to be no segregation and only a handful of City fans in a 50,000 plus crowd. To be fair we had no trouble with the Arsenal fans who just took the piss out of us. Jennings was magnificent for them.
 
Corky said:
Or Christmas Day, you hammered a team at home, so went to the reverse fixture on Boxing Day.

I think City would have been Hudds closest team that year.
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Yeah not disputing the geography
It's more that Maine Road was only attracting crowds of circa 10,000 in Feb 65, and yet City seemingly still took a large following to a meaningless away game.
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
Obviously you'd know better than me, but I don't recall it being that different for games at Maine Road with some teams occasionally bringing thousands, but often just a couple of hundred.

There's also been a huge shift in population demographic with far more second generation City fans now residing all over the country, whereas in the mid 70s, the vast majority still lived in Greater Manchester, and probably didn't even own a car.

Somebody mentioned the LC Replay at Highbury in 1977-78, which was staged just six days after the original tie. That would have been a huge effort in an era when it was far more difficult to get time off work at short notice.
Plus I don't recall many Arsenal fans at the original game, or indeed any game v Arsenal at Maine Road around that period.
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Not sure about knowing better, we all have our lived experience, as you say Arsenal never came to Maine Road in numbers, Spurs did though, same demographic but gooners weren't known to travel well.
As for 77-8 season, that was probably my best in terms of getting to all the aways, many times I hitched, setting off on the Friday night after the pub, Knutsford services was often a battleground.
Thankfully it was usually quite easy to jump the special back to Manchester, did so on many occasions, sheer weight of numbers meant accessing the station was a piece of piss, spent many a journey kipping on the overhead luggage racks while the train was systematically dismantled, crazy times that I wouldn't swap for the world.
 
Corky said:
Or Christmas Day, you hammered a team at home, so went to the reverse fixture on Boxing Day.

I think City would have been Hudds closest team that year.
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Some very strange and low attendances that season. I think 64-65 was the straw that broke the camels back with our average attendance. I think the fans were fed up of the shite being shown on the pitch the previous 3 or 4 seasons and they just bombed to 14000 average that year,18 k the year before, but nowhere that low any time before or after for years. The one attendance that sticks out is barcodes at home, just over 10'000 which now seems impossible to believe. Bury 22k was highest home crowd all season. The year after we averaged 27k and we were flying as club again and didn't get anywhere that low until it dipped to 19k in 87/88.
 
The Lightbowne Cowboy said:
Some very strange and low attendances that season. I think 64-65 was the straw that broke the camels back with our average attendance. I think the fans were fed up of the shite being shown on the pitch the previous 3 or 4 seasons and they just bombed to 14000 average that year,18 k the year before, but nowhere that low any time before or after for years. The one attendance that sticks out is barcodes at home, just over 10'000 which now seems impossible to believe. Bury 22k was highest home crowd all season. The year after we averaged 27k and we were flying as club again and didn't get anywhere that low until it dipped to 19k in 87/88.
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I think 87-88 is a good comparison as City had plenty of terrible crowds by today's standards (as did everyone else) and yet often took thousands to away games.
One exception was the 10-1 return game at Huddersfield when our season was petering into anti climax. The crowd was only 7835, and yet I can recall 2-3 previous occasions when City had taken 10,000 to Leeds Road.
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
I think 87-88 is a good comparison as City had plenty of terrible crowds by today's standards (as did everyone else) and yet often took thousands to away games.
One exception was the 10-1 return game at Huddersfield when our season was petering into anti climax. The crowd was only 7835, and yet I can recall 2-3 previous occasions when City had taken 10,000 to Leeds Road.
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I wasn't knocking the crowds pal, I was just pointing out that we didn't ever get anywhere near the 14k again and the 19k season was the lowest. Football was at low eb in mid to late 80s and crowds were sparse at most clubs. I think the rags only got 36k that year and we were in the 2nd division which obviously didn't help. And I was at all the Huddersfield games that season, the 2 away in the cup were mental and arguably more blues than home fans.
 
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johnnytapia said:
Was a replay after we’d drawn 0-0 at Maine Rd. my dad went in the home end at Highbury. Think it was a very soft pen we lost to. McDonald scored it IIRC. The game at Maine Rd we battered them but Jennings had a blinder.
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Jennings in Maine Rd game was ridiculous, so many worldy saves
 
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