Читать книгу Rolling with the 6.57 Crew - The True Story of Pompey's Legendary Football Fans - Cass Pennant - Страница 8

‘THE NECESSITY OF LIVING IN THE MIDST OF THE DIABOLICAL CITIZENS OF PORTSMOUTH IS A REAL AND UNAVOIDABLE CALAMITY. IT IS A DOUBT TO ME IF THERE IS SUCH ANOTHER COLLECTION OF DEMONS UPON THE WHOLE EARTH. VICE, HOWEVER, WEARS SO UGLY A GARB THAT IT DISGUSTS RATHER THAN TEMPTS.’

GENERAL JAMES WOLFE (1758)

Far from flattering were Wolfe’s comments on Portsmouth, in a letter he wrote to his mother, shortly before sailing from Portsmouth to Canada and his eventual death on the Heights of Abraham, in 1758.

I caught the London Waterloo train bound for Portsmouth, for a journey to Portsmouth Football Ground where I was to meet up with Rob Silvester. As I looked up at the departure board – Fratton, Portsmouth and Southsea, Portsmouth Harbour – I remembered Rob had said Fratton. Fratton Park was their ground and I just couldn’t believe I had never been there in my football-going days of travelling around with the West Ham boys. Never ever remember playing them, but Rob was to pick me up on that point later. I said something about it couldn’t have been a row game. Rob said one word – Swallow. I said, ‘You’re kidding, I don’t remember much said on that.’ ‘No, it was mainly Under 5s, all them. It’s not a problem, Cass, there’s never been no real animosity between us. We later got to know some of them well from the rave scene, Downham Tavern and Centreforce and all that.’ Suddenly, I remember there’s a lad they won’t hear a bad word against who’s been coming to West Ham for a number of years, but they only ever call him Pompey. And I can go back further, right back to the seventies. Whenever we came down to Southampton, a few Portsmouth would wait at the station and would want to join us. At first we were a bit surprised as back then, away from London, West Ham only ever had a small travelling firm, nothing like the firm that went away in the eighties. Even then we were used to being hated by all. You had this Pompey geezer that acted like one of those loners, but he was bit of a hard-nut kitted out like those dudes in A Clockwork Orange. He would join our escort, making these grunting and growling noises. People didn’t take kindly to it and thought he should know. When a few decided to challenge the loon, a few of us had to step in. Even though the kid looked ready to defend himself, it became obvious he was a deaf and dumb mute – it would have been a liberty. No sooner had we befriended him, shouts went up that Southampton have made their showing. Fuck me, he was gone, out the escort, through the Old Bill and straight into them. People like to say we’re mad, but he was proper mad. He didn’t give a fuck. Later, we thought we had lost him, but in that shit ground they called the Dell, back then you could have the odd row in that Milton Road end, where they had solid concrete parts of the ground that reminded you of the old war-time pill boxes placed along Dymchurch and St Mary’s Bay. Anyway, believe it or not, in those early times you could get a little off going with the Southampton lot and you would have to be showing your age to remember that. But only when you first went into the ground, mind, when no one’s really mobbed up fully. Once everyone got together it would only be the Old Bill’s dividing human wall before they had fences that would save them, but that wouldn’t deter matey. You looked up at the other end, and it would be full of Southampton. I remember you see a small gap on the terraces appear, not big enough to register a mob going in. You wonder what West Ham are up there and then you see Old Bill pull him out and ’cause he’s deaf and dumb the Old Bill don’t know quite what to do with him yet he seemed well known to them, all right.

As we marched through the seventies he became a familiar face for a few seasons. People would tell others that hadn’t made the trip before that a band of Pompey would be waiting to join us and to look out for the deaf, dumb, mute, he’s OK, well mad, certainly in his hate for Southampton and he wasn’t alone. Another trip we had a proper firm of Pompey meet us unannounced as usual. Now this was pushing it. For a start we didn’t need anyone and by now this was bigger than any Southampton crew we were likely to find. To us, Southampton was a nothing day, just one of those away trips you had to make. Then someone spotted that they all had brand new West Ham silk scarves on the wrist. Now that gives the game away on what period we’re talking here, but with them going as far as wearing brand spanking new West Ham scarves, any thoughts of hostility between the two groups went right out the window. Whatever anyone in the know thinks of Southampton fans, there’s something far more going down with the Portsmouth lot when it comes to their local rivals. Other London clubs that went there told similar stories and of the period no doubt it was the same Pompey crew. And coming out of the seventies into the casual-era eighties. During which times you couldn’t give Southampton a mention, those that bothered going only ever found what can only be regarded as a family club.

Rob just shrugged his broad shoulders. I had gone past the amusement stage and it seemed to be me mentioning Southampton that was doing it. We were round by the ground now and his blue eyes seemed to sparkle and now he would do the talking, but first by way of polite explanation he tells me quite warmly nobody says the word Southampton round here. ‘Nobody can bring themselves to say it, Cass, and I ain’t just talking about football supporters. It’s Scum – we call them Scummers, Cass. That’s what they were called before me and it will be the same after me.’

Silvester is taking me an away supporter’s route around his home team’s ground. As we walk and talk I notice Rob’s leather Burberry bomber-style jacket, he raises his builder’s arms silently pointing to graffiti further along some turnstile wall as we momentarily pause in this alleyway. ‘FUCK OFF SCUMMERS’ is written in classic Rolf Harris paint style.

‘They’re your nearest rivals, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah, 18 miles away. Anyone in between, Aldershot?’

‘Yeah, but with Aldershot, Portsmouth outnumber them five to one.’

‘How far away is Aldershot?’

‘About 45–50 miles. You’ve got Bournemouth one side, 50 miles; Brighton the other, 50 miles; Southampton, 18 miles; and you’ve also got Reading. But as you’ll find out later when you see the headlines after Portsmouth played Reading, the first time was Pompey animals. Run up there, pitch invasions, fucking chaos. These fucking square terraced houses are almost backing on to the ground. Some big games you get people getting on their roofs where the scaffolding is. Another good game I can remember getting thrown out, against Huddersfield, Spring 1980. That one I had actually been working on the roof of one of these houses, so I gets thrown out and I tries to get up this wall adjacent to the away end, when I see this bloke come round the alley with a Crombie on, dragging two crates full of empty milk bottles, sees me and puts them down right there. “Here y’are, have one each.” Straight over the back there is where you’ve got the away support gathered and totally exposed in an open end. And it’s these alleyways where the away supporters used to come in. But further along and over where that big yellow building is, that’s where the coaches came in and there’s plenty of places round here for just heads down walking, and just appearing, not in an ambush but frontal attacks. Or you could just mingle in with ’em like you was Joe Nobody … Then smack, or you just spanked. You can have this away end sort of surrounded, ’cause the away end backs on to an alleyway.’

‘What was it called, the away end?’

‘The Milton End. It’s sort of surrounded by the North Stand one side and the South Stand the other. I think it holds about four and a half thousand.’

‘When the away supporters come unstuck here, I bet there’s a few jumping over them gardens, then?’

‘Well, they’ve been sort of run – what’s the word when you can’t escape – you run the gauntlet. Anyway, they run. If they run that way, they’ll be coming out with all the Portsmouth fans emptying out. They’ll all make their way round this way, and at the same time you had the other half of the Fratton End emptying – ambush. And in the old days, if you never went round the away end, you could still wait at train stations.’

‘So what was it like when the Jocks came?’ I asked.

‘It was a money-raising game,’ came Silvester’s reply. ‘Celtic lot weren’t up for aggro. The police were there and just let them get on with it, stand in our end singing their songs. There wasn’t many, but they still brought a good 800–1,000. Just walked straight into the Fratton End. I think it was ’76. At the time, Pompey nearly went out of existence. They did the normal things like sell bits of turf, anything to keep them going, really. They just about survived. That was in the mid-seventies. Somehow they just survived it. Portsmouth is an island, isn’t it? The actual city is Portsea Island. It’s not man-made, it’s an actual island which is why there’s no major crime down here, just sort of three roads. Any bank robberies or big bits of work like that, they just stick their roads up and that’s it, you can’t get off.’

‘Has Portsmouth got a major criminal community?’

‘No, it’s got its fair share of drug problems, thefts, you know. It’s nothing like London. In the South London Press there’s probably more crime in that than there is for like a year here. Portsmouth I always associate with being a hard area, probably the sailors and the docks … the way it’s laid out, it’s well dodgy. Everyone’s in the same area, full of alleyways and side streets?

‘Yeah, it is really, very run down. It was blitzed in the war, flattened. That’s the roads where the away coaches would always park, even today. They would have had to leave the coaches, come down here and walk up past sort of two roads and then into the alleyways, even though there was a police escort. As for the main route in, any minibuses, vans, people making their own way, they all come down and then they found out there’s two main pubs full of Pompey always waiting there. You’d get exceptions. Preston turned up here last season, about five-to-three, and fucking done a few straggling Pompey. Coachload pulled up here somewhere.

‘Like any, we have a couple of main pubs, strongholds of Pompey lads, the main two really being the Brewers and the Milton Arms. The Milton’s got a little extension on it, which is called the Barn. Match days you’d have the Old Bill there with the camera, videoing everyone. The pubs are only about five minutes from the ground, so they’re ideally placed for everyone to meet up. I only live a bit further back where you can actually hear the roar when they play at Pompey on a match day.

‘This is the pub the lads ambushed Leicester in the play-offs. Riotous game … 2–1 up there and we drew down here, which wasn’t enough. All Leicester give it, they came flying out of the away end and run into Pompey right here, and Portsmouth was all over the place, run them back down into Carisbrooke Road where they were just getting ambushed by everyone that had come up from all the alleyways and cut them off from the park across Priory Crescent.’

‘In the annals of the terraces, who had the big name? Any leaders who stood out?’

‘There was never really a guv’nor over there, it was a bit independent, always had been down here, never been one person who’s the main man or something. It was always sort of, on the day, everyone together. One name that always sticks out, and they said he was hard – Bob F. I don’t know him myself personally, but one of the best stories about him was, in the days of them taking places … Portsmouth fans were in the rival’s end. He couldn’t get at them, so he climbed up, went across the girders at the top of the roof of the stand and got down behind them. Just done it solo, on his own, and he was well renowned for it. He was a character and we had a few of those – the legend Fish, Ray G, even in what you could call ordinary supporters we had some mad support. People like Westwood with his flaming bugle who would never miss a game, home or away, become a landmark to Pompey fans when travelling away. There was the legend of Fooksie’s coaches; back then he was the first to book our own train travel, before the club saw money to be made and took it over from him.’

Fooksie was the older generation of Pompey lads and a must to interview ’cause he remembered the early lads. When I met up with Fooksie, I asked the same question, his reply was,

All right, there was Ginger Howard from Paulsgrove. When Millwall came down the first time they tried to drown him in an ornamental fishpond at the station along Goldsmith Avenue. Big mop of ginger hair he had, from Paulsgrove, and, personally, the way I look at it, the way the City Council treated them people from Paulsgrove and Leigh Park was politically disgusting. The City Council let those people down terrible. It’s one of the biggest housing estates in Europe and is just outside Portsmouth, that’s also where you’ve got Paulsgrove which is on the hill that overlooks it. This is where the hardness of the city comes in. They got bombed out and they stuck them up there as a short-term thing and they’re still there. The war finished in ’45 and they’re still there. The same as those Leigh Parkers, which is further out. It was only put up in 1946 for all the sailors who lived in prefab houses after the Second World War. You’ve still got them people up there. It was meant to be a brand new thing that’s going to be a sensational way to develop, house ’em, get people out into the country, fresh air. Stuck them there with no amenities at all. They’re council tenants living at Leigh Park, so they’ve got an attitude an’ all. They feel nothing has gone forwards for them.

Fooksie has a point, suggests Silvester and reflects some more. ‘I guess we have this feeling we’re on our own down here, no one’s going to help us … Take Paulsgrove, that’s where they had those paedophile riots, that estate up there. That’s some estate. Fucking mad screaming women coming out and wanting to kill you, but that’s a hard place. Dads know the dads and kids know the kids, it’s very close up there. So think about it, if you’re a Grov’ner, if you’re brought up on Paulsgrove, you’ve immediately got the chip on the shoulder. You’ve got the chip and you’ve got the Grov’ner walk and you’re anti-everything, and you take that to football. The Portsmouth area is bit of a hard place and it weren’t the only place to be blitzed in the Second World War. If you take it, Coventry got whacked in the war and it got all rebuilt up lovely. But this city of ours never got rebuilt. It still had bombsites on it up until 1980. It’s taken Portsmouth years and years. It’s the last to be rebuilt. It sort of gives you an inner toughness.

‘Relating it to football, especially when we played away, we was never afraid. We’d go Millwall, we’d go Newcastle, we’d go Birmingham, we’d go anywhere, we weren’t scared. We didn’t have a fear even if we were a bit naïve as a firm. We didn’t used to question whether or not these teams we were playing had a firm, and whether they would be waiting for us and that, that didn’t come into it. It was, “C’mon then, let’s get up there, and we’ll sort that out when we get there”, you know, if there’s aggro to be had and whatever’s going to be done.’

According to Silvester, the other characteristic, which was not the norm when it comes to the elite of any top hoolie firms, is something Fooksie picked up on in the days he’d put on the travel arrangements – the fact Pompey never used to go tooled up on their travels. Fooksie recalls:

Something I used to find in some ways frustrating, never a little 2lb hammer in the top pocket or a little Stanley. They never ever went with that in mind, even though we’d be going away and there would be thousands of ’em. I could never work that one out with our boys. They would come back to me saying they’d got into a rumble, bit heavy [and then the shattering equation] – ‘They was all tooled up, Fooksie’ – I’d say, well, you know I can’t help you. If that’s what they are doing, that’s what they’ll do and you’ve got to make your own mind up about it now. But they never did it.

‘We had to be the most disorganised, organised firm ever. There was no leaders but we had a firm, always had a firm, often firms within firms, ’cause the firms would be pubs. I was from Stamshaw and we would leave Stamshaw and come and associate with the Air Balloon mob, that was our pub, that was our firm. The Eastney boys would go in the Milton Arms, that was their local and the Somers Town lot would come from the Sir Robert Peel pub. There was the Fox over on Leigh Park. Years ago, all these pubs ran one coach to the away games, which was the Fox. This became legendary as it was famous for going straight into our rival’s end. We’ve come unstuck, we’ve had little firms and gone and done some right big firms, but we’ve had big firms come unstuck with little firms. I remember being in Chesterfield’s end, about 1981. We were being stupid. Had a few beers before we went to the ground, got split up from the rest of the firm. There was about four of us left. We’d gone straight in their end thinking, We’ll have a go, see what’s what, just take the piss and if it comes on top, we’ll just fuck off. Well, within two minutes, and the funny thing is, I was with three boys who all had ginger hair, and a geezer comes up and looked at me. “What, you all fucking ginger round your way?” I said, “Well, it looks that way, don’t it?” But we was round their end and you know when the old bottle goes a little bit, you’re thinking, Fucking hell. And I think the Old Bill knew we was Portsmouth and they let the crowd get close to us and it’s not a nice sight when you’ve got 50 or 60 geezers wanting to fucking hurt you as well. You’ve got your backs to the wall and you’re thinking, Do I turn and do a bolt – or what’s the next move? But the adrenalin buzz and the feeling that goes through it is, I mean, it’s second to none. You know it’s probably how them First World War soldiers felt: Do I go over? Well, it’s a case of having to, the only difference is they had the orders to go over the trench and steam in, where when it was us we had our own choice, and there were some hairy moments, coming across geezers and that. But, as someone young, free and single, it took you on a journey and the crack in going football with your mates was like no other.

‘The first time I started going regularly to football I was about 16 and you know all the home games were obviously easy to get to, and the odd away game, you could always jump in a minibus or one of Fooksie’s coaches from the now defunct pub called the Monkton in Copner Road, which is situated two miles north of Fratton Park. There’d always been big turnouts from Pompey fans and the main firms in the town at the time were from Stamshaw, North End, the Eastney boys always had a minibus going, maybe two. There were firms from Somers Town, Portsea, Landport and these were all the sort of areas that largely consisted of council estates or rows upon rows of houses, you know, like the opening scene of Coronation Street-fucking houses, because Portsmouth is one of the most densely populated cities for its size. The main pubs round this time – the Landport Boys had the Havelock, which is on a housing estate. The Somers Town Boys, they used the Peel or various pubs on their estate, the Robert Peel later became famous as a meeting point for the 6.57. Just north of Portsmouth out of the city is a place called Cosham – their firm incorporated the Paulsgrove Boys and a lot of these boys were really game. Their main pub at the time was called the Clacton or the Beacon or whatever one they were allowed in at the time because various pubs used to bar a lot of people for the sake of barring them and the rest of the crowd used to follow to another pub.

‘In this season, ’79–’80, when I started going away, Pompey had always been renowned for violence at away grounds, even going back to the sixties, you know, they were famous for having skinheads and Blackpool seafront in the ’69–’70 season, which you’ll read about in the book. But, anyway, the ’79–’80 season kicked off with what had sort of become a regular thing – Swindon Town – home and away in the Football League Cup. Anyway, I can remember being 16 getting a train up there. I met some boys from Fareham, which is another place just outside Portsmouth, and they always had a good firm turning up, and we got the train. We arrived at Swindon – normal thing, straight into the nearest boozer. It was already full of Pompey, mainly from Cosham, Leigh Park – and sort of dribs and drabs of, you know, official supporters’ coaches and people who’d made their own independent way up there. As normal – well, it wasn’t normal at the time – this football-going era was just losing the old routine of taking people’s ends, but Swindon looked like an easy touch. I think Pompey had been there the year before and cleared it out, so it was just sort of carrying on the tradition of going in and taking Swindon’s end. Got in there and there must have been about 150 of us from all the firms that I’ve mentioned and within 10 minutes of getting in there, it had kicked off. Swindon just sort of backed off. Because they had a big old end in them days and they sort of backed off. There was a little bit of fighting, mainly scuffles. The Old Bill came in and broke it up and marched us to the opposing end. This was the first time I’d been involved in anything like this, but I sort of just carried on with the crowd I was in and ended up in their end.

‘That season saw away violence: at Hartlepool away and, bearing in mind how far that is from Portsmouth, you know, to go up there and kick off wasn’t a bad thing. I think there was Wigan away that season. Bournemouth away on a Friday night – that’s 50 miles up the coast for us. Bit of a liberty getting in their end, 50-handed. Same thing – within 10 minutes, clearing it out, the Old Bill separating people. Even though there wasn’t really anyone firm-wise at Bournemouth to get separated from. There was a few big games that year and at home games Pompey were capable of pulling in 15,000 which in ’79–’80 was good for Div 4 status and wherever they went they had good turnouts. But there wasn’t any really big teams in the Division 4 as you can imagine at that time. Portsmouth’s got Southsea seafront and with its clubs and nightlife, etc., so everyone at the time used to meet up there weekends. If we were going away the next day or if we were at home, people used to talk, you know, about what the firm was like that was coming down. But, as I said, in Div 4 ’79–’80 there wasn’t a lot of teams with organised firms to come down and even nearly have a go.

‘That year, the ’80–’81 season, we were promoted to Division 3. Now this turned out funny because we ended up again in the League Cup First Round, first leg away to Plymouth. Now Portsmouth hadn’t played there for a while so that was something to look forward to. I think we left Friday night and we had a boy called Guffer to take us in his Mark III – a yellow Mark III Cortina. And it was always boys from the Air Balloon pub. It’d be me, Trev, Mayley, Fish, Guffer driving and always one other, but it’d always be from the Air Balloon Pub, good Stamshaw Boys. It was summer, 9 August, this away game and we got into Plymouth early, as you do when you’re at a new place, you go round the town centre looking to see if there’s any firms about. Outside Plymouth’s ground they had a big park. So, after we’d had a look around the towns and seen that there was nothing about for us, we all decided that everyone would meet back at the park, you know, the various groups you’d seen in the town. When we got to this park, there must have been a good 300–400 Pompey already there, all turned out in minibuses, the same firms again who I’ve mentioned, all there, all deciding what to do. Some people went back into the town, and there was a normal carry on of – Plymouth must have had a firm of about 50–100, but it was the same old thing. Bit of aggro during the day.

When we all got back to this park before kick-off, everyone was sort of hanging around the cars and just waiting to see if Plymouth would turn up. I think they did turn up but only in twos and threes and got into their ground. When we got into the away end, it was a baking hot day. I can remember it must have been in the seventies which, you know, for British summer time that is warm. Everyone stripped down to shorts and what have you, just bare-chested. Plymouth’s away end was behind the goal and on the right-hand side, and that’s where their firm started getting all together and started the normal thing – bit of baiting, you know, a few hand gestures, them baiting us, us baiting them. Well, all of a sudden that was it. A hundred Pompey – same people, same faces – straight over the top of the advertising hoardings, straight into Plymouth’s sides. I can remember someone – I think it was Fish – picked up the corner flag and he was one of the first straight in over the hoardings, straight into them, backed them all off, swinging this flagpole like Richard the Lionheart with his great big sword holding off about 15 of them, giving enough time for the rest of the boys to get over the hoardings – bang, straight into them. I give them their due, Plymouth tried to have a go and with the police’s help we all backed off, back over the hoardings, which delayed play by about five or 10 minutes. A funny thing happened that day. When we were all up – we all got pushed back into the end and we had a mini Hillsborough. You know, they had so many Pompey trying to get into this corner to have a go again at the Plymouth, and all of a sudden the hoardings collapsed at the front. All right, being as there was only 50–100 of us, I don’t want to compare it to Hillsborough because that was, you know, there were fatalities. But the same sort of thing happened, the crushing was only 10 deep which, believe me, if you were at the bottom of it, wasn’t very nice. Same old thing as normal happened after the game. Police escorting everyone back to the cars and coaches that were in the car-park. And we made our way home along sunny coastal roads all the way back to Portsmouth.

‘This was the ’80–’81 season when we drew Liverpool, just coming out the 4th Division and only in the 3rd. It was like we’re playing Liverpool and there was a real buzz for this game, you know, plenty nationally in the papers. Everywhere in Portsmouth, people would ask not if you were going, but how you were getting there. The football club laid on a couple of specials. There were untold coaches. Anyway the estimate at Anfield on that Tuesday night in October for a Football League Cup 4th round was a good 14,000 Portsmouth. Everywhere up from Portsmouth was heading north up the A34. Coaches and cars, minibuses, Luton vans, furniture removal lorries – any means of transport to be had – Portsmouth fans were on it. They even put a special edition of the Portsmouth Evening News halfway up at Birmingham or somewhere to pick it up en route, wishing the team good luck. Anyway, when we got there, you know it was the first time for Liverpool and, because there was so many Portsmouth there, the firm was all split up, you know, none of the firms were together. There was every firm you can imagine plus more because it was a big game, it was a one-off. Portsmouth was in the 3rd Division and we’re playing mighty Liverpool, so by any means people were getting up there. Anyway, we didn’t know what was in store for us up there. So many people got picked off by those Scousers. I mean, we all know what they’re like and what they’re capable of. But on a cold northern night up there a lot of Portsmouth fans got picked off. I think even the specials got raided by the Scousers – cleaned it out, picked up all the fags, drinks and crisps. Everything they could get their thieving hands on, they took. Anyway, a big thing at Portsmouth at the time, when the Portsmouth team came out, was a tickertape reception, you know, I think a few clubs did it but no one ever did as good as Portsmouth. So, with these 14,000 fans in the crowd at the Anfield Road End, when they came out, the whole Anfield Road End – there’s photographs of this – the whole Anfield Road was just one mass of tickertape. Anyway, predictably, we got done 4–1, but, you know, we scored a goal which was good enough up there. And we all had a good laugh. Scousers as normal took liberties on a lot of people. I think one boy got concussed and was taken off the special halfway home with a serious head injury.

‘As well, ’80–’81 was the first time we came across Millwall. The first time we played them was the day after Boxing Day. We – as normal for a London game – would always take a minimum of 3,000 – a minimum. And it’s a lot of people who don’t normally go to games, but for the casual fan it’s easy to get to, you know, if you’re driving or if it’s the coach it’s straight up the A3, or if it’s the train it’s Portsmouth to Southsea, one line straight up to Waterloo. We knew the way to get to New Cross where the ground was. We all got off the train. We all met – Portsmouth and Southsea, all the firms were there, normal boys. No one was ever in charge of Portsmouth’s hooligan element. There was never one person up front – you know, a lot of people have said who was Portsmouth’s main man. But on the day, like at this game, whoever was first off the train at Waterloo, you know, it was follow them and, you know, if there was Millwall waiting for us, let’s have it with them, which was a common occurrence going to Waterloo. The Millwall game – I give them their due, we were all in that side bit penned in at the Den, penned in that sort of corner bit, surrounded, with them in the seats and the others in the side at the away end, but it was all fenced off. And I give Millwall their due, they had about three or four boys who actually got in with Portsmouth. There was probably about 1,500 Portsmouth in this corner bit. All the fans, it wasn’t just the hooligan element. It was everyone – every fan, season tickets, supporters’ club, everyone was in this away section at the old Den. And these Millwall started giving it, but within seconds they were just overpowered, pinned up against fences and had the shit kicked out of them. The police came in, chucked them out and that was the end of that. After the game, normal thing, Millwall trying to get at you, but I don’t think they just had the numbers that day and it was a shock to them seeing as it was the first time we’d played them for a couple of years and seeing the numbers we had up there, I think they were impressed with what we had and what we were capable of, which led to a lot of later confrontations.

‘It was the same thing this particular season. We’d been promoted from Division Four to Three and there still weren’t any teams with big firms. Portsmouth were virtually untouchable at home and at a lot of away games there were more than average support turning up.

‘And this was at the same time when the clothes were adjusting. Now people had come out of the trendy fashion of big collars and paisley pattern shirts, people were now starting to take note of what was being worn at football. Even people wearing cords and sweatshirts and training shoes, which was unheard of a couple of years previous. All the pubs were still the same. You still had all the boys in town meeting at certain places, their local pubs all on their estates. All up the seafront on a Friday night, Saturday night, to the discos and clubs. And there was a general sort of bravado and comradeship that we stuck together and there was very little internal fighting, even though it did go on and it escalated years later over the drugs scene and that. Portsmouth people always got on together at football, and the planning and the organisation was always there. Even from the people outside the city, you know, you got from Fareham, Salisbury, Leigh Park, Havant, even Bognor, Hayling – Portsmouth supporters, you know, virtually right across the south coast, as far as Chichester, Hayling Island. And there was some good boys come out – and they were always welcome in certain area pubs, like the boys from Fareham could go down the Air Balloon or the boys from Leigh Park were welcome down the Havelock, you know, it was a good sort of bonding and everyone got on.

It was about this time as well that the skinheads had come – arrived back on the scene, when a lot of people were mods, skinheads. I mean, the Havelock was famous for its skinheads. It became the number one skinhead pub in Portsmouth at the time. Some of the boys in there used to go and watch when Madness, Specials and Selector were all on tour together, and there was even a picture in the Melody Maker of Pompey boys and the legend Fish giving it his stuff. At the time Portsmouth was quite run down because the dockyard was closing down and that was a major employment place. You know, a lot of places in England in the early eighties were sort of run down. Portsmouth was no different. At the same time, everyone was going out, everyone was into the music, the ska bands and what have you, The Jam and they were all the main bands at the time. The fashion sort of coincided with the music, which coincided with the football. You know, people were sort of going to football as mods, you know, with the Fred Perry gear on or they were going as skinheads, rude boys, you know, it was a big fashion at the time with the parkas and the Harringtons, tonics, everyone used to get from Shirt King. Everyone used to think they looked the bollocks and that. Then Madness kept changing their fashions with their box jackets and, you know, Pompey was getting on the scene of what the Millwall fashion was, Lois jeans, Adidas kick trainers, the leather jackets you used to get up Carnaby Street for 30 quid, with the bomber jacket with the vertical pocket, or the safari jackets. Portsmouth was up there with it, with what they used to wear. They always looked smart at games. I think there was a thing in The Face magazine later on or in a lot of these magazines, whenever football fashions in the early eighties began starting to take a hold, Portsmouth was always mentioned one way or another. As I say, the dockyard was slowly closing down. There wasn’t a lot of work about. Apprenticeships were coming to an end. But people were still going out, you know, beer was cheaper then. You could earn yourself a couple of quid doing some casual work or whatever – some people took that road, but we were all still there. Always out, always turning up for football, always looking smart and always giving it to any team that came down here.

I missed the ’82–’83 season because of my Borstal training. I missed the whole season, but I remember receiving a lot of letters from fans, even ones saying that in early ’83 there’d been a letter written to The Face magazine or one of those saying that we were now the 6.57 crew and infamously named ourselves as that. Being that the 6.57 is the first train you can get to London if you’re going to a far-off northern place, which we did. Like I say, I missed the whole season but there was a lot of carry on that season. We had Millwall again home and away. I think there was trouble at quite a few games of this season, the main one being Plymouth away with another big turn-out by Pompey – last game of the season. Had to win the game to win the 3rd Division championship, which we did, and of a crowd of 14,000 there must have been 10,000 Portsmouth up there. And they’d left Friday night again, for Plymouth, and just caused a trail of destruction from Portsmouth. This included Stonehenge being sprayed up with “PFC – KICK TO KILL” and sheep being sprayed blue and white. People making their way down there were buying cars for £25–£30, driving them down there and leaving them there, knowing full well they’d get on a coach or train back because the police, as it worked out, were just glad to see the back of Pompey that day.

‘As I say, Portsmouth won it that year – ’82–’83 – so that put them into Division Two. Not forgetting, a lot of people know of the 6.57 firm, you know, because being a genuine football fan, whatever you’re going to call it, there’s people who’ve had aggro from Pompey because basically they’ve been and played in almost every division in the last 15 years, except the Premier League. They’ve been in the old First Division. So somewhere along the line we’ve had it with you.

‘Season ’83 –’84 – now this was the season when Pompey were clued up. We had a big season in front of us. We had big teams – for once we had a few big names, you know, teams above us had been demoted from Division One or due to money problems or whatever, they were still in Division Two. And there was some big clubs in there. And looking through the season, we had the mouth-watering fixture list in front of us, and we were looking at teams like Middlesbrough, Man City, Cardiff again, Palace, Newcastle, Brighton, Sheffield Wednesday, Blackburn were on their way up, Huddersfield, Derby, Swansea, Chelsea. Now all these games that people spoke about, there was aggro there and this is when it was established that there was a 6.57 crew. I think even the police were stamping down on it and the power that the Portsmouth magistrates’ court had was that anyone caught and being convicted of any football hooliganism was going to prison and that was it. Which they did enforce.

‘The first game of the season was a big ’un – Middlesbrough at home. Now we lived in Stamshaw, and our main pub was the Air Balloon. It’s right at the end of the motorway that comes into Portsmouth. I had a phone call about half-past nine in the morning saying, “You won’t believe this, but there’s a minibus full of Middlesbrough at the top of the motorway.” They must have come down and they’re all crashed out on it. So everyone on the manor’s got the phone call. About 10–15 of us have gone up to see what’s going on. By the time I’d got there, the minibus had been totalled, every window had been put through, every Middlesbrough geezer had been dragged out that hadn’t run away, and was given a severe beating and told to fuck off, which was a bit hard considering they had no windows and windscreen left on their van. They thought themselves clever, they’d come down, they were well out the way, but they didn’t know they were on one of the worst manors they could have ever fucking thought of. Two of the boys received 12-month sentences for this affray, which they served at Guysmarsh Youth Custody Centre down in Dorset.

‘Pompey was looking good at the time as well. More and more fashion was available and they would try to be seen out with the Armani stuff and the Pringle jumpers and everything everyone else had. Every main bit of fashion used to end up in London and it was only an hour and a half up the road for us to go and get gear and everyone started looking smarter and smarter, more and more colourful, you know, the Burberry, Aquascutum gear, that all came out, you know. We was all well aware of it and who wore what and who done what.

‘One of the big games after Middlesbrough at home was Man City at home. Now we always thought Man City was big and they’d have a big firm and they’d do something when they were down here, but I think they sneaked in under the cover of darkness, ’cause all of a sudden we went to the game and the whole away end was full up with them. And that’s the first I’d seen of them the whole weekend and the last. I think they were escorted back out – escorted in, escorted out, and that was it. I don’t know if anyone’s got anything to say about that, but I can’t remember a lot of aggro that game.

‘Just after that, we went to Cardiff away – it was the first time for me. We went down there and I think there was 60-odd arrested. Didn’t get the 6.57 because that train only went north and we were going west. I think there’d been a few bits of trouble the year before, but this year we went down for it again – we got straight off the train, same firms were there. The 6.57 then was well established and people knew what the score was, everyone knew what time we were leaving and there were enough pubs round town to find out who was going where and when, which, you know, if it was a 10 o’clock train, everyone would be meeting at half-nine or whatever. And when we went to Cardiff, there must have been about 350 – 400 on the train firm-wise and, when we got there, I think there’d already been a bit of trouble the night before. I know there’d been a stabbing – someone, a Cardiff fan, had been stabbed with a screwdriver. A couple of boys were already nicked. There’d been the normal thing, I think the Paulsgrove boys were up there early in their van and Cardiff was all plotted out in their pub, which got turned over. There were 60 arrests that day.

‘The next big ’un – Newcastle United away, 1 October. The 6.57 had about 250 – same lot, well, the 6.57 consisted of everyone who was about at the time. If you were on that train, that was it, you were, you know, like it or not, you were 6.57. And not a lot of people make the numbers up but there was a good hardcore of 100 there. And going to Newcastle, you know, Portsmouth again, were a bit naïve, didn’t know the score. Heard they had a firm up there. Well, fuck it, let’s get up there and have it with them then, innit. Silly Geordie bastards. I’d seen in the papers a couple of weeks before that some of them wear kilts, so it says a lot for an Englishman. We got the 6.57, and got to Waterloo twenty to nine. Normal thing, I expected Millwall waiting for us. Might have been a bit early for them, they might have been somewhere else anyway. We didn’t see anyone. All on the Underground. Northern Line ’cause we’re going to King’s Cross. Straight to Newcastle. When we got to King’s Cross, there was a big mob of Chelsea waiting for us. I think they were going to Leeds or Sheffield it could have been. All I can remember is, well, they’re Chelsea, we’re Portsmouth, we get it on with them but we’ve got a train to catch. Come on, we’ve got to make this connection. Don’t forget we’re going to Newcastle. We’d already come two hours up the road, do we have it with them or not.

Then, unbeknown to us, another mob of about 50 Pompey came out the tube station, so we’re sandwiching Chelsea, so we just went straight into them, give it to them. All they could do was fucking leg it, and they were gone. Someone shouted, “Quick, hurry up, hurry up,” and we’ve run through the station to see the other half of the Pompey on the train already going to Newcastle. So we’re just shouting to them, “Hang on up there, we’ll be there soon, don’t panic. Just hold your own at the station. We’ll be on the next train behind,” which was 20 minutes or half an hour later. Anyway, I think Chelsea tried to give it the fucking large one again because we’d lost half our men on to the train going to Newcastle to have it with who we were originally going to have it with. It was like something out the film The Warriors trying to get back to Coney Island, you know, there was just people waiting for Portsmouth everywhere. And, knowing that we hadn’t even got to Newcastle yet and we’d already had a ruck, we knew that coming back Chelsea would be waiting for us. And so would Millwall, they always made a show, ’cause they knew we were coming down back in the south, and they’d always be at Waterloo ’cause they knew we’d always have a firm on the train.

‘We finally get to Newcastle and there’s 250 Pompey at the station. The Old Bill were there saying, “There’s two ways to the ground – town centre or that way. Don’t go through the town centre ’cause they’re waiting for you.” “Oh, are they? Well, let’s go to the town centre then.” So we’ve all marched down there, all running. Got to the town centre, first pub we see, straight into the pub, held them off, done their pub. Unbeknown to us there’s another pub opposite. As we came out of the pub they steamed us, so we’re having aggro with every fucking pub in Newcastle High Street, running up and down. A couple of boys nicked. Anyway, they didn’t do us, we had the better of them. The Old Bill came in, normal lairy Geordie bastards. “You’re not in fucking Portsmouth now” is how they said it and, you know, kicking you in the back of the heels and smacking you round the head. They escorted us to the ground. Portsmouth got fucking smashed 4–2. Time to come home. Herded to the train station, rounded up together, put on a train. “Fuck off, don’t come back.” Normal thing from Geordie policemen. They don’t like us, we don’t like them.

‘Anyway, when we’re flying back down south, we get off at Doncaster, and who do we bump into? Chelsea, who were waiting for a connection at Doncaster. One man first off the train Portsmouth 6.57’s Derek steamed straight into them. He had them on their toes on his own, but by then we’re all getting out the doors, big bottleneck trying to get off the train – fucking running everywhere. “Fuck off, Chelsea, you’re nothing.” Jump back on the train, down to King’s Cross. Chelsea were back before us and waiting – here we go again. The Old Bill marched us back on the tube. “Fuck off back to Waterloo.” When we get back to Waterloo, Millwall’s waiting for us, but not enough Millwall. They had a little scouting firm, but they were not going to touch 150–200 battle-weary troops. We’d had aggro all day long and when you get to Waterloo sometimes all you do is have beer – Casey Jones (at that time), get on that train, wake up and you’re home.

‘That season when Newcastle played the return game at Portsmouth, we did the same as normal. When we thought a firm would be turning up, everyone met down the shopping precincts or the town centre waiting for them. And for some reason those Geordies stick out, don’t they, because they wear their black and white football shirts and you can just see them everywhere. Apart from that, we had a lot of naval personnel in the city at the time and a lot of them were obviously from the north-east and a few of them were hanging about. There’s like a precinct, you cross over the road – Edinburgh Road – but, as I crossed, we got fronted up by about five or six Geordies and they were already pissed and it was only about half-past ten. Told them to fuck off, we’d go and get a proper ruck, not taking it out on you fat bastards. And one’s punched me in the head, so I’ve had a go back at him. Straight away the Old Bill’s on us. “You fuck off.” Yeah, OK, I’m away. Go on, you go that way, we’ll go that way. Which we did. So, anyway, half-past two, my mate’s giving me a lift from the town centre to the football ground. About quarter to three, blue lights, police cars, motorbikes, vans, dogs, you fucking name it have pounced on our car and there’s only four of us in there. Fuck me, what’s going on here? They’ve done the normal, got the driver out, turned the car off, and then they arrested me. What for? Threatening behaviour. OK then. Arrested me, cautioned me, took me down the Central Police Station. And it’s amazing what powers the police had at the time. Anyone found guilty of football hooliganism was automatically going to prison. Well, I thought, I’m in the cells for a couple of hours, let the game finish. Threatening behaviour. Fucking Mickey Mouse charge. I’ll be out at 10 o’clock and see what happened in the game, what the result was. Anyway, because of the seriousness of the charge, as the police put it, “We’re going to apply to have you remanded in custody.” You know, I thought they were having a fucking joke. But no, this was the powers the police and the Portsmouth Magistrates had. You know, I don’t think paedophiles and fucking rapists get this treatment and it’s not on a par with what goes on now. And I’ve ended up in Portsmouth magistrates’ court on Monday morning, half-past ten. Looked in the gallery, there’s a few of my pals there, and everyone’s stunned, they can’t believe it. What they’re going to try and do is remand me in custody for threatening behaviour. It doesn’t make sense. So the Magistrate says, “Stand up.” Name – all that bollocks. “Well, Mr Silvester, we’re remanding you in custody for seven days.” Seven-day remand. Anyone who knows the law knows that’s what they do. You get remanded in custody for the first week, seven-day remand, and then it gives you time to sort out all your legal team and see what the fuck’s going on and at least have a chance to talk to a few people ’cause I’d had no visits, nothing, over the weekend.

‘The following Monday, going back to court, I thought it was just a production of seven-day remand to see how my case was getting on, bearing in mind I hadn’t spoken to a solicitor, hadn’t seen any witnesses, hadn’t spoken to any witnesses. The only letter I’d had was off my mum and dad and a couple of mates in that week. I go up in front of the magistrate and the magistrate says, “We’re going ahead with the case today.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, last week you were remanded in custody for a week just to see what’s going on,” and it’s another stitch-up by the Old Bill/magistrates’ court with this football hooliganism thing. So I’ve had to get a duty solicitor on the day and this is not easy. Don’t forget, I’m being produced by the prison and thought, All I’m looking at is another seven-day remand, have a chance to have a chat with a solicitor and get my head round things. No, they’re going ahead with it that day. I said, “Well, how am I going to get hold of my witnesses?” And they gave me a duty solicitor who gives it the normal, “Why don’t you just plead guilty, get that lot over and done with? Portsmouth sees it as a good act.” And I said, “No, no, if you can get a message to my mum, she should have my phone book with a couple of names in it. The boys who were with me at the time when I was assaulted first by this Geordie might come up and say their bit in the court.” Which they did do. But nevertheless I was found guilty in the normal course of magistrates’ kangaroo courts and sentenced to 90 days in prison, which I’m still stunned by even to this day. The only good thing – well, nothing good about going to prison, but the only decent thing that happened was, the week before, Portsmouth had played Southampton in the fourth round of the FA Cup and there was something like 90 arrests at this game. I think three or four of them ended up in the jails, so I knew a couple of the boys already up there. And the same thing happened the next week and the following week with Leeds United. All of a sudden, four or five Leeds boys turned up on remand, shitting themselves, miles from home, wondering what the fuck’s going on. I’ve only gone to football and got involved in a bit of pushing and shoving and now I’m on remand. You know, and there’s rapists and monsters getting bail all the time. I’ve served 60 days out of the 90, so as you can imagine, I missed a few games. There were a few big ’uns involved in it. Leeds United at home, and Sheffield Wednesday away was a big one where Pompey turned out in force. We ran them all up and down them seven hills.

‘This was also the season that we played Cambridge away. And it’s funny as you see in Cambridge or any sort of university place like Oxford, everyone’s flying about on bikes. So what do Portsmouth do? Everyone who gets on the 6.57 makes sure they’ve got a pushbike with them. And we show them how to ride a bike. Anyway, that was the scene at Cambridge everyone – about 50 of them – all on pushbikes. They were taking them from Waterloo, Liverpool Street, that’d do me. You’d never seen anything like it according to the photographs – it was one of them funny ones where you’ve got 50–60 Pompey all pissed and pedalling pushbikes. It was just for a laugh, never been done by anyone else, I shouldn’t think.

‘First game back when I got out was away to Charlton. And, with Charlton, sometimes they got a mob, but sometimes they haven’t, but I think on this day they did. It’s easy to say that someone said there was Millwall with them, Chelsea, this and that, but I don’t give a fuck, at the end of the day, you know, you don’t turn up for another club. We’ve never done it and I don’t see why anyone should. But anyway the battle’s raged on all day, we got in their end. Same thing again when Portsmouth’s playing in London, you’re looking at 3,000 minimum and there was probably about that amount for this game. But before we got to Charlton, we turned up at Stamford Bridge, about 100 of us. All right, it was half-past one and there weren’t much Chelsea about, but at least we made a point that we will turn up places even if we ain’t playing you. Oh, we just give them a little show, I think a couple of Pompey boys got nicked, but we just let them know that we’re about. And someone from Chelsea opened his big mouth saying if Chelsea hooligans are so bad, why did a team who are playing Charlton 20-odd miles away turn up at Stamford Bridge. Well, I think the answer was in the paper that we got on the wrong tube and somehow we ended up paying you a visit.

‘Also in the summer of 1984, it was Ritchie’s – one of the Somers Town boys – 21st birthday so he hired a coach and it was decided we’d go to Brighton for a peaceful Saturday night out. Well, we’ve all got on the 52-seater coach and I think there was about 72 of us, so obviously the driver lost his bottle and decided that some had to get off, which – lucky bastards – they did. I wish I was one of them because what was in store for the rest of us was fucking mental. Anyway you’re talking about 60 6.57 geezers on this coach going to Brighton for this 21st birthday. Everyone’s having a laugh, taking the piss, everyone’s got mad clobber on. It was a fucking giggle as far as we was concerned. We’d go down to Brighton, surprise them one night. I was sitting at the front and, when the coach pulled up along the seafront somewhere, I was one of the first off. And as a geezer two or three behind me got off, he just went and chinned the nearest geezer to him, a Brighton geezer. He said, “What you do that for?” He said, “’Cause we’re Portsmouth, and we’re here.” And that was it.

‘There were a few minibuses followed up as well, vans and cars, so we’re looking about 85–90 in total. Anyway, we’d got off and the idea was that we’d all split up, go our own way, have a couple of beers, meet up again later and try and get in a nightclub somewhere. Well, it never happened because all that happened was just full-scale fighting all night long, with geezers coming out of pubs, coming at Portsmouth because we were all split up, you know, we were having bundles all over with this lot. The Old Bill turned up, and we were running all through the narrow streets and alleyways, and bumping into other Pompey lots who’d just had aggro with other geezers. So they were going up the road having the aggro with the lot we’d just had it with, and we were going to have it with the geezers they’d just had it with.

‘One of the funniest stories was a bit later on in the night. We didn’t last that long, but about 10 o’clock there was about eight or 10 of the Paulsgrove contingent and all these bouncers came out of a doorway and this bird said, “Here y’are, they’re Kung Fu experts. Now you’re in trouble.” Well, at the end of the fight, two of them had broken legs and what was left of them was smashed to fucking bits. You don’t mess with them Paulsgrove boys because they’re a fucking evil bunch. Anyway, no matter, there was just aggro everywhere. We couldn’t go anywhere. People were trying to steam us. We were having fights with everyone and more people were trying to attack us, from young kids to older people, and people who probably weren’t even Brighton fans, they were all just trying to fucking get at us. And so the police must have got hold of the coach driver and said, “Look, tell them all to meet here, get them on the coach and fuck off out of it.” Well, this is Saturday at about half ten. We’re all outside one of the clubs on the corner of the road. All sat down against the wall, all had enough; everyone’s got fucking lumps and swollen hands, teeth missing. It just resembled a battle zone. The coach pulled up and the police got us all on it and said, “Right, we’ll escort you out the town.” The only place they escorted us to was Brighton Central and one by one we were all taken off the coach. So what everyone did was start getting to the back of the coach, so you had the police going, “Right, next.” Shouts were coming from the back: “Come and fucking get me then, you cunts,” and abusing them, everyone having a laugh, taking the piss, laughing at them. But it never paid, because whoever were the last 10 off, they got a severe hiding from the Old Bill, as they do. Anyway, I think there were about 70 people arrested that evening and I think about three people got charged in the end. We were all locked up and some were sort of slowly let out in groups 24 hours later. What a horrible weekend that was.

‘The Cardiff game next year in ’84 was another first done by any firm. The 6.57 decided that we would all wear our blazers, ’cause everyone had Daks, Burberry blazers or just cashmere blazers, anyone who had one, wear it and we’d say to the Old Bill on the train that we were going to a wedding at Bristol so they’d leave us alone. So that was the plan. So we got firmed up, all having our photos done, everyone looked the bollocks in their Crombies and smart in Aquascutum ties and cashmere blazers, Farrahs, you know, imitation croc shoes and loafers. Everyone looked the bit. We got off the train at Bristol as we said we’d do, about 20 of us. Said to the Old Bill we were going to a wedding anyway, so they left us alone. Went and had a couple of beers, got back on the train. No one on there, just us lot, the blazer firm, and we got left alone. Got to Cardiff but funnily enough the Old Bill were waiting for us. And they seemed to say we had out-foxed them a bit and they put in their little police newspaper that we all hired morning suits. Well, being dressed in a blazer and Farrahs and shoes compared to a morning suit, you know, that’s how the police get confused easy because they don’t know what they’re talking about half the time. And I think there was a lot of police on duty this year because the year before in October ’83 there was something like 60 arrests at the Cardiff game when we steamed their pub.

‘The ’83–’84 season saw Bognor Regis Town, one of Pompey’s junior teams, do well, I think it was in the Ryland League and they had a good Pompey support and a few Pompey supporters actually played for Bognor. Bognor played Swansea in an FA Cup 3rd round and police intelligence said there’d be no connection between Portsmouth and Bognor – I don’t know why ’cause 90 per cent of Bognor will regard themselves as Portsmouth fans. The police had no idea that the 6.57 would be turning up on behalf of Bognor at Swansea, which they did. This caused the Swansea Police some enormous problems. The match was drawn and so the replay was at Bognor and with the carry-on at Swansea there was sort of violent scuffles on the terraces and Swansea couldn’t believe that Bognor would have a firm as good as it did. There was a coachload of about 60 6.57 turned up at the game and give it to them. But Bognor drew some of their support from a place called Littlehampton and so a bit later on in the game, what was left of the Bognor fans who didn’t support Pompey sort of joined up with these Littlehampton, and some might have been Brighton fans, and they started turning on the 6.57, so there was a bit of a battle again. Portsmouth had to have it with two different fucking firms in one day again. But it was nothing new to us really.

Hallo, hallo,

Play up Pompey

Kaiser must go

Offside is he

Sung in the trenches, 1914 – 1918 and possible origins of Play Up Pompey.