This was my first ever game never mind first derby! Went on coach from Rochdale and parked on the Kippax car park. United fans bricked the coaches even though many of them had rags fans on them!72/73 season, Colin Bell should have been credited with a hat-trick but one was given as a Buchan o.g.
Wasn't my first derby but remember one from the 60's at the sty. 3 or 4 of us with our united pals all together in the Stretford End. I could check this out but going from memory definitely a City win with an Alex Harley winner at the opposite end. Much celebration by us very young ones! I do remember an older rag fan grabbing my mother knitted bobble hat and then ramming it back down on my head as we continued to celebrate.1976 at home got beat 3 1 to make matters worse i was in the scum standing, as I was only allowed to go with my mate and his mother now that was a shit day
Wasn't my first derby but remember one from the 60's at the sty. 3 or 4 of us with our united pals all together in the Stretford End. I could check this out but going from memory definitely a City win with an Alex Harley winner at the opposite end. Much celebration by us very young ones! I do remember an older rag fan grabbing my mother knitted bobble hat and then ramming it back down on my head as we continued to celebrate.
More happy days. If a certain City fan is reading this he will remember that episode.
This was (nearly) my first derby - I'd gone from Reddish on a charabanc from Melba Motors (part of North Western by then) rather than my usual Raleigh Blue Streak bike. By the time we arrived the gates were closing and I couldn't find an entrance - I heard the roar as Alex Harley scored but decided not to stay and caught a bus home - arriving home more or less as Denis Law kicked Harry Dowd in the head to win the penalty.
Still, that made the Denis Law backheel all the more poignant a few years later.
However, I also went to a youth derby, a Youth Cup Semi-Final at Old Trafford, there were a couple of Reddish lads playing - Mike Doyle and Phil Burrows, Phil was a couple of years older than me and lived next door but one. We often had a kick around on North Reddish Park or in our cobbled back entry. We lost but the match was memorable for Mike Doyle "chinning" George Best without the referee seeing! It was an ill tempered game and was probably the start of a chain that led to that awful challenge by George Best on Glynn Pardoe.