Hi gents. What would you say are the best and worst away days you have been to? Any particularly good or bad experiences?
January 1991 Blackpool away...3rd round of the FA Cup. There were severe gales and the Blackpool away end was like the North Face of the Eiger with no shelter do we were hit in the face with bitterly cold driving rain and wind for the whole game. The match was awful as a result. At one point the spurs keeper in front of us took a goal kick and it almost went out for a corner! I wore trackie bottoms under my jeans, 2 jumpers, a coat, 2 pairs of socks and 2 pairs of gloves and was still bloody freezing. I spilled my hslf time cuppa on my hands and didn't feel it! But we won 1 nil...paul stewart scored so the trip home was ok.
Result wise has to be West Ham on Dier's debut. Unknown lad signed from Sporting Lisbon, started at CB, got moved to RB when Naughton was sent off and then somehow ended up at CF to score a last second winner against one of our rivals on the first day of the season. Best in terms of day out was Wolves. Supermarket right next to the ground so tons of fans were going there and buying crates with their mates and just getting on it in the car park, proper good laugh. Decent game as well IIRC, was 3-3 and both teams paid tribute to Dean Richards. Worst I've done is City. Was 2-2 and Balotelli stamped on Scott Parker's head and never even got a booking, then they got a last minute pen which he scored. Loads of fights after the game too, was just a **** day.
Best away day for me was at White Hart Lane. December 1997. Tottenham 1 - 6 Chelsea 1-1 at Half time too
Worst was Villa away. That was a day that went from bad to terrible in the swing of a bottle. Bad times.
Best away day at WHL Littlewoods Cup semi final replay 1987. Spurs had been 2-0 up in the tie (yes they ****ed up a 2-0 lead again) and their stadium announcer had came on and started telling Spurs fans how they could buy their tickets for the final at Wembley. Anyway after pegging them back to 2-2, we went behind again in the replay with Clive Allen scoring. I remember thinking then that it we were ****ed and with around 10 mins left we were still trailing. The spurs fans were singing about going to Wembley and giving us **** in the away end. Then Ian Allinson equalised and in the dying moments David Rocastle scored the winner to take us to our first final in ****ing yonks. Don't remember much about seeing the goal as I was only 15 at the time and squashed into that away corner at WHL, but I remember the fans going absolutely ****ing mental and when we'd calmed down I remember looking up to see the stadium had already 2/3 emptied and the Spuds couldn't get out of there quick enough We went on to win that final with Charlie Nicholas scoring the winner, and that kick started a really successful spell with us under George Graham after years of being in the doldrums.
Worst away days, the old Stamford Bridge. ****ing **** hole ground, terrible sight lines, **** hole fans and away fans used to get locked in for around 2 hours after the final whistle whilst the old bill tried to disperse the Chelsea hooligans.
Nah I was born in 83 and didnt attend my first match at the bridge till the early 90's, when i was like 8 or 9, by that time the East Stand had been sorted and the running track was gone.
It was a ****ing awful ground. Massive fences because of the hooligan problem and curved terraces so you had to watch the game from an angle and from a distance because of the running track. Tube ride over there was quite nice, but that's where it ended.
I read somewhere that Bates wanted to pen the fans in with an electric fence to stop pitch invasions, but London Council went mental and sent him a cease operations warning under threat of arrest
That's true. The Hooligan element back then was really bad. It was always a risk as an away fan going to any ground really, but SB, The Den, Upton Park, and WHL were particular hot spots in London.
The worst was the old Den where they had piss running down the terraces because the couldn't be bothered to go to the toilets... but they were good times
Thats probably why my dad waited until I was a bit older and **** had died down before taking me to watch my first game at SB. I am ashamed to say but my first live football game was at Highbury, Arsenal vs Man united in a FA Cup match a few years earlier. Arsenal won 2-1, Brian McLair fluffed a pen in injury time. (my mum and brother are Gooners)
Yeah my old man used to take me back in the day. He was a Charlton fan, and used to watch them in the 60's so he wasn't really aware of the hooligan stuff tbh. One of the games he took me to was V Millwall at Highbury 87 or 88 I think, in an FA cup tie. It kicked off big time with Millwall fans on the pitch and police forcing them back. I was in the Junior Gunners enclosure which ran right down the front of the West Stand next to the away seats and the clock end. It was funny really as I don't remember either me or my old man being particularly worried about the sight of hundreds of frothing hooligans trying to get at us
Am so glad all that **** had ended by the time I got into football. Football hooliganism is the most pointless, braindead bullshit I have ever seen.
I saw some horrible **** back then. I started going with my mates when I was about 16 and I admit at the time that I thought it was quite thrilling the whole Hooligan thing. There were a few people I knew on the North Bank who were up for a scrap and used to go and seek it out after games. I never got involved with it myself but I could have easily ended up going down that path. Worst thing I remember seeing was some bloke getting his front teeth smashed out on the edge of a kerb outside a pub near Upton park. The sound of that will haunt me forever. Proper brutal as well he had two blokes kicking and punching him and when he went down another bloke grabbed his head and smashed his face into the kerb, poor **** didn't stand a chance. ****ing animals.
