Roughest grounds you've been too and biggest scraps!

[davewatsonstackle]

Elland Road ,70`s,Dirty leeds Fans..even the coppers gave you a dig on the way in!

 

[Shaggy]

Millwall away at the old den, FA Cup reply, they had Gypsey Horlock in their side, no trouble that I can remember of saw, just scary and unnerving, midweek in bandit country, horrible place, air of menace, City lost 1-3.

God awful shithole of a ground.

 

[dennishasdoneit]

Cardiff in the cup as already mentioned.

They were 1-0 up with about 5 minutes to go and we saw quite a lot of their fans start to leave. Didn't think much of it till the police opened the gates to let us out and they were all stood there waiting for us.

That was a weird one that. Normally there would be at least some distance between the waiting home fans and the exits for the away fans, but at Cardiff it was just one big melee as soon as you walked through the gates.

My mate got lamped as soon as we stepped through the gate, in the "confussion" afterwards I found myself alone, isolated and getting the "thousand yard stares" from several rabid welshman!!

i decided discretion was better than valour and walked straight towards them instead of away from them muttering something about English bastards. It worked!!

The only problem was that I was going in the opposite way to the train station and it took ages to get there the long way round. By the time I did get there a big mob had gathered outside looking for City fans entering.

I didn't fancy wading through, so I went to a nearby Boots shop, bought some shampoo and insisted on a shopping bag to carry it in. I then bought a copy of the local paper, folding it to clearly show the title and carried that in my other hand.

Once kitted out with my "I'm a local" disguise, I breezed through and strolled deliberately on to the wrong platform as the Manchester bound platform was crawling with Cardiff. I sat down on a bench and read the paper hoping to fuck nobody would talk to me.

When my train came in, I waited to the last minute, got to the right platform, jumped on the train and collapsed in a seat!!

Great story road sweeper!..To this day, i still don,t know how i got out of cardiff alive. it was mental.all day. in fact, i,ve just had to tex my old mate from surrey who was with me that day , and ask him how we did it!


Just had tex back from mate..it was me vomiting in the toilets before the match at the rugby club which meant that we missed the worse of the fighting that day .strongbow has its good points..i,ll never forget the walk from the rugby club to the football ground..i just wanted me mum....and another memory, nowt to do with fighting, but painful....nathan blakes smirk on his face as he ran past city fans after he scored the winner...can still see it now.

 

[happychappy]

Millwall away at the old den, FA Cup reply, they had Gypsey Horlock in their side, no trouble that I can remember of saw, just scary and unnerving, midweek in bandit country, horrible place, air of menace, City lost 1-3.

God awful shithole of a ground.

My lad did millwall the other week with his forest mates, beer at London bridge, their own train to the ground, covered walkway from station to ground, said it's the safest away ground in the country now, one extreme to the other

 

[Bluescholar]

League Cup Semi Final Away to Liverpool 1981. Vibe of true danger in the air.

Biggest punch up I saw was at Peterborough in the FA Cup run the same year. A load of local yokel farmer types finally succumbed outside a chippy to the City hordes after they had jumped on a City fan further up the road...on a bridge if my memory still works.

Was that where the City fan had took a bit of a kick in on the way out on a car park with his mates slagging City fans off for doing nothing and then more and more Blues gathered round these PBoro fans until they just dissapeared under a load of punches,same one?

Cant ever forget Gerry Gow walking to the train station that day with it all kicking off in a supermarket across the road,he honestly didnt give a fcuk.

yep game as fuck Peterborough backs to the walls...but eventually outnumbered by City.
Outside some shops ....might have been a chippy as you say can't remember.

I remember being surprised at this happening at this small town.

There was a big scrap in the town centre before the game which resulted in someones wedding photos being ruined,the battle went thro the churchyard! Big local weapon in a utd shirt got some special treatment ;-)

 

[Shaggy]

Millwall away at the old den, FA Cup reply, they had Gypsey Horlock in their side, no trouble that I can remember of saw, just scary and unnerving, midweek in bandit country, horrible place, air of menace, City lost 1-3.

God awful shithole of a ground.

My lad did millwall the other week with his forest mates, beer at London bridge, their own train to the ground, covered walkway from station to ground, said it's the safest away ground in the country now, one extreme to the other

Thank heavens times have changed, the old den was a ropey old place and that part of London is proper not right.

"Has been proper nawtey" to qoute that 2 bob nobber Danny Dyer, at the new den but not as bad as it was. Riot against Brum a few years ago. Associate of mine has only just had a restricting order against him lifted from that night.

It involved when ever an england side played in a tournament abroad he had to hand in his pass port at the local police station. That included Rugby, Cricket,so it proper ruined his holidays etc, every time England football played home or away, he had to report to local police station.

Genuine top bloke, hard as nails but did not act like a bully, just a proper loon when it came to football. He looks back and can't believe what anightmare he was and the anguish he caused his family.

Did time in Swedend during euro 92.

Apologies for spelling and grammer, ripped on medication for sinusitis and post ankle op.

 

[dennishasdoneit]

Don't know if this has been mentioned but if anybody went to Dublin in 89 or 90 ( can't remember the exact year ) when we played celtic at Tolka Park then you will know what rough is. We were sat in the middle of all the IRA supporters and they really enjoyed telling us about all the British troops that they had killed.

This was the only time I have been scared at a match and I was at the Newcastle game in 77.

I was there with the wife,about 500 City and about 10,000 Celtic which I did not expect obviously!

Went in my City shirt as it was a lovely day.

As I got there had a run in at the back of the stand(someone called McMahon an English Bastard) so sat further down next to some sound Scottish Celtic fans who took us under their wing so to speak.They said the Derry Boys had come down for us.Quite ironic really as I was christened at Gorton Monastery.

I remember a Union Jack burning and landing on the fence in front of us just as Vonky came over to take a throw in - he looked at me in my City shirt sat in a sea of Green as if to say what the f.......

On the way out Celtic fans at the top of the stand which overlooked the walkway pissed on me and the wife,I know how to show a girl a good time.

Wow! i,d completely forgotten about that match. Didn,t see any trouble but that day i understood truly, what it meant when you were away from home. Celtic took over all the pubs. i,d never seen such big hard men on the piss before. i had no wish to shout for city, or talk city..it was just celtic. they were here,they were in control.

they sang ,loud songs which filled the pub with noise.city, that day were an irrelevance.
really can,t believe i,d forgot about this match-maybe because it was a friendly , but give me millwall or cardiff any day. i was scared.

 

[Balti]

that car park behind the Kippax was the scene of many a running battle when the away fans were allowed out of their cage ....leeds got a right kicking on there one year after we'd been given a hard time at their place....the year we just sang we hate jordan and we hate jordan we are the jordan haters all the way through the game

and those alleyways could tell countless stories..........my Chelsea mates travelled far and wide following their team in the days of kerry dixon and whenever this conversation comes up then the alleyways around Maine Road are always right up there with the west hams and millwalls in the hall of fame

funnily enough they always say that the baseball ground was one of their worst trips as they were game lads following their leader hickey around but ended up fighting hard as fuck older adult miners lol...never run so far and so fast apparently lol

having travelled with them a handful of times in the eighties for the craic then the baseball ground must have been surprisingly intimidating indeed but when I went with City many moons ago we took so many there that we took liberties

talking of chelsea was it the late eighties when hickey literally marched an army in from town under police escort and it was carnage all the way back into town again afterwards as City shadowed them back

it had gone from random fights and mass brawls to organised meets and such by then so some of the, errr, fun had gone out of it ;-)

 

[Manchester33]

Millwall away at the old den, FA Cup reply, they had Gypsey Horlock in their side, no trouble that I can remember of saw, just scary and unnerving, midweek in bandit country, horrible place, air of menace, City lost 1-3.

God awful shithole of a ground.

My lad did millwall the other week with his forest mates, beer at London bridge, their own train to the ground, covered walkway from station to ground, said it's the safest away ground in the country now, one extreme to the other

I know a couple lads from Millwall, say there is never trouble there any more, only at local away days.

 

[Blue Til Death]

Stoke im sure it was 1999, the britannia was fairly new, mid week game.

A ballsup fro mthe start, was a last minute thing, my mate rang and said ive got a spare for stoke do you want to come, his dad drive us down, dropped us about a mile away from the ground

As we walked up to the ground, every cab we asked to take us home told us to politely get stuffed

It was pretty moody in the ground, lots of stoke fans basically seemed to spend the whole game throwing things / gesturing at the city fans, and i mean ALL GAME

Wiekens scored late on, i think, which promted a large section of the yobbos from stoke to leave the ground, only for them then to appear to the right, where the road slants down, there is a gap between the stands, and they were making cut throat gestures etc.

Full time whistle goes, no way of getting home, we make our way outside

NExt thing, the stoke fans stormed the city fans, as there was only temporary fencing seperating us (like you find surrounding a building site), police dogs off leads, horses on the motorway etc

We got ushered onto a double decker bus, and the stokies were trying to tip it over...nice

It took us to the station, we got there before anyone else, more blues started to come through, and i remeber a lad appearing on the oposite side, looked well up for a scrap, acting dead cocky - more stokies then turn up, verbals exchanged across the track

This lad then unzips his coat, to reveal a city shirt! it goes right off, stokies running under the track to get to our side, it was mental

Fucking hell, sounds like a pretty eventful mid week evening out that mate!! - Did you get home in once piece or did you take a bit of a kicking?

-- Mon May 20, 2013 10:42 am --

Villa ,can't say why ,they are the worst ***** you can come across.

I've been to villa the last two seasons and never had any trouble, or seen any trouble...

Agreed, Villa must have calmed down a bit, I walked out of the City end this season at their place and ended up in the middle of hundreds of em with city shirt on, nobody said a word or did anything remotely violent... Good job too as I was with her indoors and she would have battered em all ;-))