Читать книгу Steel City Rivals - One City. Two Football Clubs, One Mutually Shared Hatred - Steve Cowens - Страница 21

The trouble with running and playing for a football team was the fact it made me an open target for Wednesday. It fucked me off no end that Wednesday could stoop as low as to come to the Sunday football for trouble; they knew I had standards and I certainly wouldn’t lower myself to visit houses or workplaces or phone people’s houses or mobiles. To me, the game we were in should have been left to the streets. I had four Wednesday lads visit me at my work saying that someone claiming to be me had been phoning their houses threatening them. They knew that was not my style and, to be fair, they said the same but wanted to know if I had any idea who might be responsible. On the flip side, one of their lads called Belly was followed home in a taxi once by three of United’s lads and was jumped outside his home, so I suppose the argument can swing both ways.

Anyhow, in 1985, my Sunday team had some great characters – Shotgun, Mitch, Nobby, Kav, Norm, Housey, Sainey and Nudge – who were all involved with United’s firm at the time and this often led to trouble.

Wednesday’s main actors had a team called the Shakespeare, who used to meet on the steps just outside the Penny Black, while we used to meet inside the pub via the back entrance. It was a recipe for disaster really. Then, one Sunday morning, outside the Penny Black, they attacked a car being driven by one of our team which was the last one to set off for our game. Bats were used and the car was badly damaged. It was unfortunate for the lad behind the bar, as he’d lent us the car because we didn’t have enough transport to get us to the ground and he wasn’t impressed when he saw the state of his car when we returned.

The following week, I told everyone to bring a bat as we were going to do Wednesday in. It was quite funny as all our lot turned up with straight arms, as everyone had a bat up their sleeve, although not half as funny as when Nobby walked in the pub carrying a six-foot boating oar.

‘It’s the only thing I could find,’ he said smiling through the gap in his teeth.

Wednesday didn’t turn up, which was lucky really, as our team would have been looking at a few reprisal attacks from their firm and, being based at the Penny Black, we were sitting ducks. They never met there again.

Three years later, our team was again targeted, although I think they had come to teach me a lesson as I was bang at it on Saturdays and had got myself a reputation, which was either good or bad depending on how you look at it. Most of the same lads mentioned earlier were still playing for us, so, when a Wednesday lad let me know that their firm were planning to attack me and the team on Sunday morning, I had to let the team know. It was a no-brainer really, as we were playing the Arbourthorne Hotel, a pub that a lot of their lads drank in.

I got asked by quite a few of our lads if I wanted them to turn out. I thanked them but said that I didn’t, first, because I didn’t want a pitched battle on my behalf and my team kicked out of the league, and, second, if it did kick off, then we would be targeted even more. I believed it was totally out of order.

The Sunday morning came along and our team were not their usual jovial selves as we walked into the changing rooms at Arbourthorne playing fields, which was not surprising really. Because I’d punched an opponent a few weeks earlier, I was suspended for the game and had to stand on the sidelines.

My team talk went along the lines of winning the game and letting me worry about the off-the-pitch activities. I wasn’t exactly carefree but I’ve always had a ‘what will be will be’ attitude. If I was going to get it, then someone was going with me, as I had placed an insurance policy in our medical bag.

We quickly took a three-goal lead as Arbourthorne concentrated on legs rather than the ball, and it was obvious that some of their players were in on what was about to go off. One of the Wednesday lads called Gossip had been down earlier on a recon exercise accompanied by his Doberman. I’d walked straight up to him and made small talk.

As half-time approached, I glanced up at the Vulcan pub which overlooked the pitch, and saw around 30 Wednesday come down the hill towards the pitch with a Rottweiler and the aforementioned Doberman in tow. My dad was standing next me and he was my first thought. I knew he wasn’t going to stand there while I got mullered but he is just a normal bloke and trouble is not his forte; my mum’s harder than him! He pleaded with me to fuck off as we were a good 100 yards away across the pitch.

Wednesday sauntered down to pitch-side. Just as they got to the touchline, Holder, a Blade lad who played for us, chinned one of their players because he was giving it the ‘you’re dead now’ shit. A lot of players got involved and Wednesday ran on the pitch making strange caveman-type noises.

Without thinking, I ran across the pitch to help my team-mates. The referee restored order by repeatedly blowing his whistle like he was about to self-combust. He sent Holder and one of their players off. Holder is one game lad and I’ve never seen him take a backward step. He actually went and fought a Wednesday main face in a one-on-one in Norfolk Park one evening. No one knew about it but he was truthful enough to tell us after that Errol (the Wednesday lad) had won the fight, albeit by shoving his thumbs into Holder’s eyes.

Anyhow, Wednesday started pointing across the pitch at me and a few started to walk around. My dad was getting very distressed so I walked away from him towards the oncoming foe. I wanted to get some distance from my dad because of the beating I thought I was about to get. There was no way I was going to run. Fuck that! The old adrenaline was pumping as I approached the first few Wednesday. One of Wednesday’s main geezers greeted me with ‘wanker’ – nice.

Another lad booted me on the back of my legs from behind and, as I glanced back, he shouted, ‘You’re shit.’

I shrugged my shoulders and replied, ‘I’m shit? Thirty of you lot for me?’

As I continued to walk to the main bulk of Wednesday, and to a Wednesday lad called Chirpy in particular, they must have been stunned by my front. Chirpy was a leading Wednesday lad, with whom I would later share a police cell for the night, although at this stage I’d never spoken to the man before. I thought, if I was going to get it, which was a very good possibility, then I wanted to know who we would be dealing with at a later date.

‘What’s happening, Chirpy? Thirty of you for me?’

‘We’d heard Shane and Luey played football for you,’ he said.

‘They don’t play football, for fuck’s sake, man.’

They looked a bit perplexed about what to do next. I couldn’t help but think that they had dropped two of United’s main lads out of their arses to excuse turning up.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ Chirpy said.

Fair play to Wednesday, they could have smashed me into the middle of next week but chose to go and for that I was grateful. I walked back around the pitch to my relieved dad.

‘Jesus, son, what did you say?’

‘Just forget it, Pop, it’s sorted.’

Just another day in life on the edge of a city totally divided by football.

Some 10 years later, my Sunday team had become a very good side and we progressed to the best standard around. The faces in our team had changed completely but we still had a few United lads who liked a bit of terrace dancing.

Our first game in the Meadowhall League, as luck would have it, was away at the Sportsman against a team from Stannington. I knew a Wendy lad called Mack had something to do with running them and that they were mostly of the blue and white persuasion. In the build-up to the game, we’d heard rumours that Wednesday were turning a firm out for us, even though we had a few Wednesday lads in our side.

It left us with a predicament; do we go up to Stannington firmed up or do we just take the team? It was our first game in a new league and I could see the lot kicking off and us being kicked out of the league before we’d even begun. So much hard work had been done in the pre-season to get us into a position where we could compete, not only on the pitch but also financially.

A lot of United’s lads had got wind of Wendy turning out for us and my mobile received quite a few offers of help including one from our main man Lester Divers who offered to bring his team up, as he called them.

In the end, we decided to go up with just the team and to just treat it as another game. Well, almost … On the day of the game, every one of our players had a rounders bat in his bag; I’d told them that they were for protection only and not to pull them out unless they had to.

It was a Thursday-evening game and we had to make our way across Sheffield in the rush hour. Their ground was 12 miles from the city centre, and, although we tried to keep together, I lost the rest of the lads and then got lost on the way to the ground. I pulled on to a side road just after Stannington to try to get my bearings as we headed out of Sheffield towards Dungworth. The side road had around six riot vans and two dog vans parked in a line, but I didn’t think anything of it, as the area wasn’t familiar to me and I thought there must be a cop shop on the road. I later found out those bizzies were for us.

I read my street map and got my shit together, then started to drive the two miles to the ground. On the way my mobile went. ‘Steve, you better get here quick, there’s loads of them and a few are tooled up.’

Good job we’d got the bats, I thought. I pulled up into the car park of the ground and quickly got out of the car, my bat up my telltale straight arm.

Our opposition stood 30-handed on a bank and some numpty was stood there swinging nunchuks around like a pissed-up dickhead Bruce Lee. I stood in front of them posing like Eubank used to do. A few motioned my way, so I prepared for kick-off.

Suddenly, Bolly shouted, ‘Steve, watch it.’

I thought some more were coming up behind but, no, it was the plod who were hiding in the trees filming us with a camcorder. Then police came from everywhere, it was well over the top.

Raggy and a few others walked up to my car and threw their bats on to my back seat, which was good of them. The referee had heard about the impending trouble and had decided not to come. The police were keen to get the game out of the way so one bobby offered to ref it for us.

I didn’t fancy playing with more police than spectators around the pitch, and, to be honest, I wanted out of there as my car was full of bats.

‘We’ve had to set up a special operation for this,’ one copper moaned to me.

‘I can’t help the fact that these divs have forgotten we’re supposed to be playing a game of football,’ I replied.

We set off back to Sheffield with an escort Kenneth Noye would have been proud of. Every time I went around a bend, I threw another bat out of the window, much to the amusement of our two Wednesday-fan team members who were in the car behind me. So, that was that, our first game called off and an eight-vehicle police escort back to Sheffield. Sound!

Back at the pub, I phoned the Sportsman at Stannington and asked for Macky. Someone came on the phone and started having a chirp.

‘Look, just because I run the side doesn’t mean all the lads are BBC, far from it. Don’t forget you’ve got to play at our ground; we’ve come in this league to play football, nothing else. Let’s make sure that, next time we play, there’s none of that shit, OK?’

He agreed.

When we played them at home later in the season, the police came but kept a low profile. There was no trouble and they came and had a beer after the game. The ice had been broken and we could get on with the football again.