Most intimidating London Ground in years gone by?

[cityneil51]

Without question, and as several have also said, it has to be Millwall. The "adrenalin" certainly gets a work out!

 

[TCIB]

In fulham the thieves and beggars give you money the posh cunts.

 

[idahoblues]

The chelsea `head hunters ' were every bit as bad as the west ham crowd but they were in a lot better part of london. never been to millwall but would definately say that spurs were worse than arsenal. qpr and palace peaceful enough....West Ham was the worst for getting in and out.

 

[Hollywood Blue]

The Old Den (I haven't been though) had the reputation.

Went when city won 1-0, read all the story's, know some of the coaches windows got put through, but while a 1000 of us were grouped together under police escort on the train station, on the other platform were 500 of the most ordinary(non offencive) city fans with no police escort making their way back to the centre of London, sometimes the reality of what actually went on can be skewed by the romanticism of football hooliganism


Tony adcock

I went to that one. We didn't get any real aggro but remember their lot trying to break through a police line as we got within a couple of hundred yards of the ground.
Thank fuck for those coppers as I was only a young un at the time and that lot were proper hard looking docker types.
I remember Adcock's winner (It wasa looping chip and looked like it had gone over the bar) and the ground just went silent and you could hear him celebrate from the other side of the pitch. Seem to remember a delayed reaction from us blues as we looked around, thought "Fuck it" and then started jumping up and down like loons.
The old Den definitely had a dodgy atmosphere about it.

 

[JM Mcr]

No surprise to see the usual suspects mentioned here, ie Millwall, West Ham, Chelsea, but I would've thought Spurs worthy of a mention. They were usually up for it back in the day and the long walk down seven sisters road could be a hair-raising experience (particularly on a night natch). Remember one time it kicked off near the ground and a few of us got legged (we were hardly fighters tbf), in our panic we ran the wrong way n ended up in the middle of a load of highrise flats.....7 white boys from Manchester - to say we stood out is an understatement!! Reckon we must've done a half marathon that night.

In all honesty nearly all London grounds could be dodgy back in the 80s (may've been worse as a Utd fan?), just navigating the tube in one piece was usually an achievement..

 

[laserblue]

i've been to all the london grounds many times including in the 70s and 80s when hooliganism was rife. despite the cliches, millwall was the worst.

i went to see a game as a neutral about 40 years ago. fuck me i couldn't get away from there fast enough after the game.

 

[IOWBlue]

For two seasons, 84-86 i was in the army based in Southampton, so all the London aways gave me a slightly different view of things ( once we'd got to the station ). The Wimbledon away when Chelsea were outside, i was heading back off 2 weeks leave and had my kit bag with me. A spuds game was hairy getting back to the station but then we watched from another platform. Along comes daft Donald and stands next to me, puts on a pair of national health glasses and trys to look like a local who's not been to the match. Guess he had the police or spuds fans after him. As most have said, the adrenaline used to start pumping as we arrived at Euston, whoever we were playing. You only have to imagine in an era of fighting at virtually every game, there would be an average of 10 lots of supporters in London on any Saturday. Seem to remember often having Blue dippers coming back to the station at the same time as us. Been to Chelsea a couple of times, West Ham, Arse, Spuds, was never quite as bad at Fulham, QPR, Palace. I'd guess though Millwall.

 

[Doddy]

As IOW Blue has put Euston station was worst place than all the grounds put together many a pitched battle on the forecourt between different sets of fans either going from London or coming back to London after the games.

 

[Dub blue]

The Old Den (I haven't been though) had the reputation.

Went when city won 1-0, read all the story's, know some of the coaches windows got put through, but while a 1000 of us were grouped together under police escort on the train station, on the other platform were 500 of the most ordinary(non offencive) city fans with no police escort making their way back to the centre of London, sometimes the reality of what actually went on can be skewed by the romanticism of football hooliganism


Tony adcock

I went to that one. We didn't get any real aggro but remember their lot trying to break through a police line as we got within a couple of hundred yards of the ground.
Thank fuck for those coppers as I was only a young un at the time and that lot were proper hard looking docker types.
I remember Adcock's winner (It wasa looping chip and looked like it had gone over the bar) and the ground just went silent and you could hear him celebrate from the other side of the pitch. Seem to remember a delayed reaction from us blues as we looked around, thought "Fuck it" and then started jumping up and down like loons.
The old Den definitely had a dodgy atmosphere about it.

Looping chip or deflection? Could never work it out. Just remember short WTF silence followed by mayhem. Also remember a wire mesh roof running above us, announcement at half time warning that they were about to lock us in and if you needed to go, to do so now, and the enforced police escort back to Newcross station

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

I went to Chelsea in 1983 / 84 season, when Jim Tolmie hit the games only game.
We were kept back an hour, and I was still hoping the cops would keep us in longer....
We were led through various streets to where ever our coaches were, with Chelsea trying to break through into the escort, but the police held firm. Thankfully!

Yeah , by the time we'd reached the the mid-80's the police had definetely improved their 'awareness' of football hooligans , and being kept behind at grounds was becoming commonplace , as was the greater police presence before , during and after games .....

but during the 70's , as hooligan gangs manifested on a large scale , police have long admitted that they were caught 'on the hop' , and had little idea how to cope .. overall police 'intelligence' was lacking , and there just weren't enough of them to deal with many situations of violence back then.

I was at Old Trafford back in 1974 , when it all kicked off , and the cops had absolutely no idea how to cope .... there was a pitch invasion , and prolonged fighting all over the scoreboard/ scoreboard paddock areas.

Only started going to away games on a regular basis from 1982 onwards, so missed the fun of the 70's. Still, funny to see how many of the grounds have changed. Chelsea used to be a horrible place to go, but nowadays there are more foreign tourists in the crowd than locals, and West Ham has been sanitised as well. Worst I ever went to though was the Den. The old one was intimidating enough (went there for a couple of FA Cup replays - would have been about 1990) but the worst violence I ever saw by a mile was after a midweeker in 1998, when Lee Badbuy equalised for City in the 90th minute for a 1-1 draw. The West Stand paddock, which was full of Ray Winstone wannabes, emptied en masse as they raced outside to wait for us, so the Old Bill kept us locked in the stand for 45 minutes and then a further 20 minutes in a courtyard behind the away end. It was nearly quarter to 11 at night before they finally let us out altogether, and even that was under a massive police escort back to the station. When we got out, we could see why we'd been kept in, as a full scale riot had taken place. There was broken glass and bricks everywhere, coppers being treated in the backs of ambulances and riot vans as far as you could see. And even then, at that time of night, there were still pockets of little dickheads down the side streets trying to get at us. Horrible fucking place!