Читать книгу Steel City Rivals - One City. Two Football Clubs, One Mutually Shared Hatred - Steve Cowens - Страница 9

The infiltrating or ‘taking’ of Kops was now becoming commonplace. So Sheffield Wednesday’s visit to the Lane in September was expected to see them infiltrate the Shoreham End in big numbers and that intrusion had to be met with some serious resistance. A Blades meet was arranged for midday at the Howard Hotel across from Sheffield’s train station. Fifty or so Blades stood outside the pub with a lot more inside. Half a dozen Dronfield Blades joined the throng.

The Blades lads were buzzing; their hatred for Wednesday knew no bounds. Word was out that Wednesday were meeting up at the same time in Fitzalan Square, around 800 yards from our meet. A few lads who turned up confirmed that there was indeed loads of Wednesday in the square. In those days, it never entered our minds to go up and confront them; the fighting was to take place in or around the ground.

After half an hour, we set off to the ground; it was considered important that we got in before the Owls mob. On the journey an assortment of weapons were picked up: bricks, iron bars and lumps of wood all collected from building sites along Shoreham Street. On arriving at the ground, 30 or more Blades sat on a wall outside the turnstiles on John Street. Yet more Blades arrived in ones and twos, swelling our ranks to 150 or more. The turnstiles weren’t open yet, so all we could do was wait.

Word soon came through that a big Wednesday mob had been seen walking down the Moor end of the city centre. This meant that they would arrive at the ground via Bramall Lane at the opposite end of John Street. Sure enough, a mass of blue and white appeared at the other end of John Street and slowly walked towards us. Judging by their numbers, it was equal.

Blades leaped to their feet as one and sprinted towards them. Both mobs reached the players’ entrance which was halfway along John Street. At this point, as the two mobs squared up, Wednesday turned and ran! Nobody chased them far, nobody said, ‘Let’s do this,’ ‘Let’s go back to the Kop’; there were no leaders, no one was in charge. United’s mob looked to have an average age of 18 as none of the older suities or rockers was with us. Maybe it was the fact that Wednesday were invading our territory or just the sheer hatred we had for them, but it was the first time our young lads had ‘done’ Wednesday; we were coming of age. We calmly walked back to the Kop and sat back down. We were defending our Kop, kids playing war games. It never entered my head I might get hurt.

The Wednesday mob didn’t go far. They appeared again soon after; this time they didn’t get as far as the first time as we chased them again. The turnstiles opened at 1.30, we piled on our Kop and, instead of heading for our usual place at the front behind the goal, lined up at the top of the steps at the back of the Shoreham. I didn’t have a clue what would be going through Wednesday lads’ heads. Did they have leaders? And, if they did, would they still come on, having already been run twice? Sure enough, they emerged and started queuing outside the Kop.

From our vantage point, we could see out on to the street. Everyone stood waiting for them to come walking up the 100 or so steps that lead on to the top of our Kop (or ‘angina hill’ as it was commonly called). The first 20 or so that emerged were greeted with a hail of rocks and bricks. They hid behind a wall at the bottom. They could actually enter the Kop in the bottom corner via the kids’ enclosure but no matter which way they tried they were fucked in our opinion, as we held the higher ground and pelted them with anything to hand. Where were the coppers? you ask. Nowhere is the answer; they didn’t fancy the prospect of trying to get in the middle of hundreds of armed-to-the-teeth rampant teenagers. Four, five, six times, the pig fans tried to get to the back of our Kop but each time they were beaten back.

Finally, after an hour of chaos, the police arrived and surrounded the Wednesday mob and actually walked them up our Kop! We charged down and threw everything we had at the two sets of pigs. The coppers were just as bad as their newfound mates but they also turned and fled under the barrage. Ten minutes later, more plod arrived. This time they mingled in with us and watched for any missile throwers who were immediately arrested. This allowed the police to bring up the Wednesday mob without it coming under attack. They were then placed at the right-hand side of us. The ground was about full now with both groups being swelled by more lads joining their ranks. Wednesday had obviously gathered a lot of the missiles we had thrown and returned fire. The Kop became a missile battlefield.

‘Mcduff’, the eldest of the six Cordell brothers (three were Blades and three were Owls), wore a hunter’s white pith helmet with the words ‘Blades’ written on the front. He’d borrowed it from me after my mother had purchased it at a jumble sale. It was lucky he had it on, as a large rock crashed into it causing a big dent on the side. Lads from both sides were led away with head injuries to be treated by the St John Ambulance volunteers stationed pitch-side.

There weren’t many black lads around at the time but one black lad called Mick Grudge hung around with the Heeley mob. Mick was a Wednesdayite and was at the forefront of the Wednesday mob dishing it out to any Blades that came near him. His fellow Heeley mates, Herman and the rest of them, had seen enough and, even though he was a mate, laid into him, forcing him back into the crowd. I can only remember one black lad with the Blades at that time; his name was Arthur, he wasn’t really black, just dark looking.

I’m ashamed to say it now but in our ignorance we were terrible racists at the time and used all sorts of names we wouldn’t use now. Parents even told you if you didn’t behave the black man would get you. We even sang awful racist songs. But, in our defence, we really didn’t know any better. It wasn’t until the very early 70s that we began to meet and get to know black lads in pubs and clubs in town. I began to realise that we were all the same and in all walks of life some were good, some were bad, no matter what colour the skin.

The game kicked off before 36,000 crammed into the ground. The fighting continued and both managers made loudspeaker appeals for calm. No one gave a fuck, we were having fun! With the game well under way, things calmed slightly but still the odd missile hit the target and some lad who couldn’t be treated on the spot was whisked off to hospital. Most Wednesday fans had left the ground before ‘iron lungs, legs of plastic’ John Ritchie scored the late winner for Wednesday (their last victory at beautiful downtown Bramall Lane by the way). We left the ground, pissed off at the result but proud that we had successfully defended the Shoreham. We did our usual walk up The Moor into the town centre but no mobs of Wednesday were around.

Front-page headlines read: ‘SIX HOSPITAL CASES MAR RITCHIE’S DERBY WINNER’ and all the information in the detailed report had been gathered from lads who took part! Their names and addresses were added on to their accounts – imagine that now! Everything was detailed from the meeting place of both mobs to the chase along John Street. United’s chairman played it down as high spirits! The national newspapers picked up on the story on Monday morning and, according to the tabloids, Sheffield United topped the league table for arrests and disorder, fuckin’ great stuff, top of the League at last.