Att.: 5.095 in the old Div. 2 Despite a hat trick by Alan Warboys, a dead rubber feel about this one save one incident when a Millwall fan ran on the pitch and attempted to assault the referee who had evidently made an incorrect decision to incur the wrath of the away fans in the sparse crowd of 5,095.(We got relegated that year). IIRC, John 'Antiques' Hawley tried to apprehend the ****, and as the invader was being led away towards the SW corner, some Well spectator leapt onto the track and tried to assault the Millwall miscreant and was then himself nicked Crazy times, crazy people but all real fans and no plastics back then.
I was at that game. I remember the hat trick a lot better than I remember some toe rag running on the pitch. The former was a rare occurrence. I think Ourgentlemen (to give him his non-Geordie name) scored in only two games all season - these three and two in another game (Mansfield?). Smash and Nip, at best.
Ever since Chilly and Waggo retired, we had been trying unsuccessfully to recreate that big man- nippy poacher template. Phil Holme, Alf Wood, (even Peter Fletcher and Alan Hoult) in the Chilly role, with Hemmerman cast as the Waggo player after the great man retired in autumn 75. Clearly Warbsy and Banners were past their best when we got em, but we still surely had a right to expect more goals than the paltry amount they managed between them. Smashy and Nicey, more like
Always recall the 2-1 game, when Wall fans arrived on the train at BP halt at h/t...with the score 2-1...How we laughed. The 0-1 game at BP when they went up and on f/t some numpty played 'congratulations' over the PA, cringe worthy and extremely embarrassing.
I also recall that game and it wasn't dead rubber at all. Ken Houghton had just been appointed manager and the win led us to think we might get the 'new manager bounce' and avoid relegation. I think we won about once in the rest of the season and went down. Start of a slide which only ended about 4 years later when Don Robinson arrived in town.
Hull Fc also relegated that season, Emma Bunting's dad, Arthur, got appointed and the next season the Old Fickle won every game and their bandwagon just grew and grew. Think they got 10,000 for every game in 78/79 (13 home games?). City meanwhile floundered....
I knew the miscreant. Don't think it had any repercussions for him. Not like what would happen nowl Went to the funeral a couple of years ago if the lad who decided to cool the excitement of the Bristol Rovers fans who ran over the pitch at the end of the gamr when he got the water bucket from the dugout and threw it over them. He hopped back in the Well with not so much as a flicker of interest from the coppers there. It would have been court appearances, fines and banning orders nowadays,
The Millwall fan who ran on the pitch became a mate of mine some years later although he always played down the incident that earned him a six month sentence, what I did get out of him was that he was pissed and the ref was dire causing him to totally lose it and go over the top and confront the ref, he reckoned he could had got away by jumping back into the crowd but the fact that he had a red mohican haircut at the time would had hindered his attempted escape. I lost touch with him around 20 years ago and i've not seen him at any games since so presume he doesn't go anymore.
I went to that match and about 5 of us were giving it to the Millwall fans - a bit of junior argy bargy - there was only a handful there - I remember the silly sod running on from our North Stand next to us and he tried to Kung Fu kick the ref - I certainly don't remember him having a red mohican and I seem to remember he only got 3 months, although memory sometimes plays tricks - like most of these stories of bravado they usually get embellished
He definately had a mohican of colour, from memory I'm sure he said it was red but I could be wrong, 6 months is what I remembered him saying but it could had been 3 months. My memory of it was that I was watching World of Sport waiting for the full time results to come in(I was 13 at the time and too young for long awaydays) when Dickie Davis announced that 'the referee had been attacked by a Millwall fan' which I thought was well funny as thats how people of football rolled at the time.
Talking of London clubs in the 70s, they all used to come to BP and you knew, just knew, at some point, they would give us a rendition of that old vaudeville classic "Maybe its because I'm a Londoner". Orient, Fulham, Chelsea....they all puffed out their chests to that one. Then, at some stage in the 70s/80s, they stopped. Nowadays it's "We pay your benefits" Where is the love?
I remember that game well. I'm sure the panorama (?) documentary on the Millwall firm was shown a few days before (?), so it was really edgy in bunkers that afternoon. There were a few pockets of millwall who had smuggled in there, so several skirmishes throughout the game. At the time, some were adamant 'Harry the Dog'(?), the main man in the documentary, was one amongst them, but seemed to be a very obvious embellishment. Some where're convinced That's how I remember it, but my fading memory does play tricks, it could be the Millwall incidents all merged into one?
F troop, that was it. So you reckon the documentary was the year before the ref incident? Ok. I'm absolutely sure we played them at home the Saturday after the documentary though ( even if it wasn't the ref game)?
The documentary was 1977 but I remember the Harry the Dog spotting going on until the early 80's whenever we played them. Did the psychos take a double decker down there one year?
That had to get a black cab to lead them to the ground, and the obliging cabby lead it to the home turnstiles.
As the Millwall youth was being led along the perimeter of the pitch by a couple of coppers Garry Harrington (RIP) who was stood with me and a couple of others jumped over the fence and clouted him. He was duly arrested too and received 3 months borstal for his troubles. A year or two earlier Millwall had come to Hull on the back of the F Troop documentary . After the game some lads I was with from the monte carlo days came across a Millwall fan in all the skinhead gear cowering near the ticket office in Paragon Station. He'd got separated from his own in the skirmishes around the station and missed the train home. He was a big lad too. He expected a thumping when we came across him but we were not into that, and understood the lads predicament. I'm sure we took him with us on a night around town and one of our lads put him up for the night.
