Roughest grounds you've been too and biggest scraps!

[Tbilisi]

Apart from Millwall and Leeds (which I only saw from a distance) Chelsea in a midweek League Cup game in 1984 or so sticks in the memory. I was living in London and had just met my future missus, so I asked her to come to the game. It was her first football match. Got the best seats in the main stand where I thought we'd be OK. City almost scored and I jumped up, at which a neanderthal, a middle aged bloke not a kid, came over and said "iv u do that again u are fuckin' dead, wiv this', showing us a shiny little knife. Ten minutes from the end with City losing heavily a copper came to tell us "leave now or I can't promise you'll be safe." We left, the missus didn't go to another match for years.

city lad got slashed that night on one of the coaches.
1st ground i ever seen chips in that night!!!
They didnt like alex in net - bunch of bastards!!

Went that night from Liverpool where I lived at the time,2 - 0 down in about 10 mins.Its the game where Nevin took that awful penalty.

Right about Alex too!

 

[lancs blue]

7 pages in and at last someone mentions this fucking shit hole of a place. You get the train and your farmed off to Seven Sisters and have to do the fucking Long March where you get it from all sides up Tottenham High Road or whatever the fuck it is called.

Alternatively you get the coach and they land you on a bit of an industrial estate which leads you straight onto what Broadwater Farm or some other such fucking shit hole. You then wind up outside the Spurs end - nice.

Nothing but fucking chaos every time I've been to Spurs. Hate it with a passion.

Stoke is awful too. Remember going to the Boxing Day fancy dress. Horrendous!

And of course, the swamp.

Definitely agree with this. Spurs away about 1974/75 was the worst i've seen. The coaches parked on Broadwater Farm and after the game while we were queing to get back on a large mob of Spurs attacked us (the coach drivers locked the doors, bastards). Carnage for about 30-40 minutes like i'd not seen before or since. Half our coach had bad injuries including one lad with a split in his skull I can still remember now. After spending a few hours at North Middlesex hospital we eventually got back to Manchester about midnight. Rembember the home game later in the same season and Spurs got a right kicking in the Kippax, fuckin deserved it as well.

I was on those coaches that day ..... no coppers were around at the time ...... as you say , the coach driver deliberately shut the doors on a number of us as Spurs yobs arrived at the coaches , they weren't kids either , and about ten of us were forced to scarper up the street , and around a corner , but i think they had caught one City lad and were attacking him in a building doorway near the coaches ........ some of our group then clobbered some (unrelated) passing Spurs fans in retaliation , even though they'd done nothing wrong , and then we set about arming ourselves with anything we could find to return to the coaches ...... we could see the Spurs yobs waiting near the coaches for us to return , but we didn't have a choice , we HAD to get back , and we were forced to take the fight to them.

As we drew closer to them we pelted them with everything we had , and just at that very moment two motor cycle cops finally came haring around the corner from behind us , and forced us back against a wall ....... they then radioed for help and the Spurs fans were forced back down the street , away from the coaches , enabling us to return to them.

I remember one particular City fan on the coach being in a really bad way , probably the one that they had caught .... he was concussed, amongst other things , and had to dropped off at a local hospital.

That was a nasty little incident that was , and it overshadowed the game itself , which had finished in a 2-2 draw.

I probably know you by sight BM, I was one of those who was locked out of the coaches that day (75/76 it was, my first visit to WHL) and I also had to leg it around the corner to get away from that crew. I just remember a half-brick whizzing past my head and landing on the pavement and then I was off. As you say it was lucky that the cops turned up in time as we made our way back or fuck knows what would have happened. It had been bad enough inside the ground, no segregation and me and a couple of ex-schoolmates who lived in London ended up on the paddock underneath the old Shelf terrace, had to keep our mouths firmly shut for 90 mins.

 

[IOWBlue]

Marseille - England V Tunisia World Cup 1998

Off the scale.

One of my oldest friends was at the beach when it all kicked off. There was a picture of him on the front page of the Times the following day,with the headline "England hooligan confronts riot police". He was dressed in T-shirt,shorts,and flip flops, in front of a line of about 40 coppers dressed as extras in a Star Wars movie. Funny as fuck.(He was actually trying to reason with the police,but don't let the truth get in the way of a sensationalist headline eh?).

Worst violence I ever saw at an England game was the Euros in 2000. Charleois(sp) v Germany........ mental.Actually witnessed a tabloid reporter trying to pay some pissed up fans to throw bottles as well,just so they could get a picture for the ragtops. Despicable scum of the highest order. (the journos not the fans)

Talking of Charlois ( Belgium ) did anyone go to the pre season friendly about 2008/9. Went with the wife and kids, aged 6 and 7. Drinking in the square before the game and i could tell it was only cos i was a "family" bloke that i wasnt attacked. Got in the ground and a small firm of City had been at it with the belgians. One of them, a woman, had a huge black eye. Coming out of the ground, the City "firm" of about 20, headed off with shouts of " come on lets do the effing belgian bar stewards". I didnt hold out much hope for them though.

 

[poyntontom]

elland rd, is the worst ground i've been to, i'll never forget watching lancs v yorks either. madness is bred into these lunatics, i saw a man threaten a woman with a knife,as she refused him a ciggy.never been back to headingley since. elland rd i'll not forget too.

 

[Blue Streak]

Seen it mentioned elsewhere in this thread. The testimonial game at Bolton for Nat Lofthouse in 1989 was a mental battleground outside after. I was only 14 and we were all kept in for ages on that uncovered end at Burnden Park. When we were eventually let out all along Manchester Road it seemed every thug from Bolton was out for the event.

 

[skyblue1894]

you telling me it was worse than Friday nights on Yorkshire Street in Oldham back in the day then??

LOL

What about our trip to Euro 2000 and having to run the gaunlet of the Turks from south station all the way to the centre?

'stick together england' !!

haha, can laugh about it now, not at the time though!!

Forgot about that!!! Yep, that's probably No 2 mate..... But the England fans didn't bottle it... remember when we got back... and it was all happening under our window.... and you opened the window and let all the tear gas into the bedrooms... LOFL!

-- Thu May 23, 2013 2:25 pm --

you telling me it was worse than Friday nights on Yorkshire Street in Oldham back in the day then??

LOL

What about our trip to Euro 2000 and having to run the gaunlet of the Turks from south station all the way to the centre?

'stick together england' !!

haha, can laugh about it now, not at the time though!!

Forgot about that!!! Yep, that's probably No 2 mate..... But the England fans didn't bottle it... remember when we got back... and it was all happening under our window.... and you opened the window and let all the tear gas into the bedrooms... LOFL!

Taffy (Pete O) was with me, Willis and Dave Trow (rip) in Marseille... ask him!!!

all we could here walking up that road was (mainly) cockney voices saying 'stick together england' as Turks were trying to goad us down side streets.........then 30/40 decided to run at some down a side street.......only to re-appear 20 secs later being chased by loads of them.....funny as f*ck.
Yeh, grandstand view of the Turks/riot police outside our hotel.....until the tear gas arrived !!

Who's hotel? ... cheeky tw*t

 

[I'm no cynic but...]

St James Park in the FA Cup about 1977 I think, we won 3-1 and it was the first big following we took to St James Park after taking the place over in 1968 (which I was too young to have been at) - there was an overflow from the Gallowgate end so the coppers in their infinite wisdom let some young Geordies into our end - cue the masses of hard blokes (and I do not mean that sarcastically) pouring into our end and kicking fuck out of us. Worst violence inside an away ground I can remember. First ever police escort for me was after that match - we fucking needed it, it was murders. Think it was third round, early Jan, freezing - you could spot us Blues, we were all wearing coats, the Geordies just had short sleeved Newcastle tops on

I was at this game too. The cops could have put the Geordie kids back into the Gallowgate End at the far corner and that would have solved the problem, but no, the gormless twits just put them into our corner and, as you say, that was the signal for the thugs to get on to the running track only to be put into our section. It was threatening right from the off, and when we launched our first big cheer [I'm not sure if it was for a missed chance or a disallowed goal] it all kicked off behind us. That was the game where a City fan ran onto the pitch in protest though I didn't see it myself, being too busy watching my back. I can now say that this is the only game I have ever left a ground before the half time whistle, and I wasn't the only one either.

But what really pissed me off was that there was going to be a big inquest on these crowd disorders, yet nothing happened. Then, weeks later, Swales was commenting on drink being the cause of football violence and he used words such as [not exact quotes] "I am certain that alcohol is the cause of the violence that occured when CITY SUPPORTERS rioted at Newcastle." We were badly let down by this man in so many ways, not least of all in a comment like this.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Elland Road after the FA Cup 3rd round win.
Bullocks coaches were bricked - drove back to Cheadle with a force 10 gale blowing through the coach.
+
The New Den. Tuesday 29th September 1998. Thought I was going to die getting back to the Hilton Hotel where I was staying. Yes we were kept behind in the ground till 10:30pm but it was still a fecking nightmare getting away from the ground. Especially as the Police vanished by the time we got 400 yards away from the ground. I also left the main group of City fans making their way back to Euston at London Bridge and had the misfortune to be spotted by a couple of Millwall fans - I have never run so fast in my life. God knows if the rest were to get a train back to Manchester. It must have been 11:15 by the time they got to Euston.

 

[gkmcfc]

Just to point out that we had our yobs though ..... the biggest beating i ever saw was dished out to three Middlesbrough supporters who were punched and kicked senseless by 30/40 City fans as they lay in the road near the Maine Road souvenier shop ..... they had seemingly left the ground five minutes early to avoid any trouble and unfortunately (for them) walked straight into it !

Only the late intervention of other City fans saved them ......

Read on a Geordie forum recently that they found the Etihad quite intimidating and far from welcoming!


yes a lot of fans of other clubs used to say that Maine Road was a very dodgy ground for away fans

No danger of saying that about the Etihad is there..

 

[lancs blue]

The New Den. Tuesday 29th September 1998. Thought I was going to die getting back to the Hilton Hotel where I was staying. Yes we were kept behind in the ground till 10:30pm but it was still a fecking nightmare getting away from the ground. Especially as the Police vanished by the time we got 400 yards away from the ground. I also left the main group of City fans making their way back to Euston at London Bridge and had the misfortune to be spotted by a couple of Millwall fans - I have never run so fast in my life. God knows if the rest were to get a train back to Manchester. It must have been 11:15 by the time they got to Euston.

Some of us were making our way back to tube stations in North London where we'd parked the car, no way I was parking near the New Den. We were kept in that long I was starting to think I'd miss the last tube to Cockfosters. I remember when we got off the train at London Bridge there were two lines of cops in full riot gear waiting, as if we'd been causing all the trouble!