Old Gunners and Gooners : Glory Days Begin.

49 years ago today.

I will do a post on this momentous occasion tomorrow 4/5/2020.

Glory Days Begin.

In 1968-69 many of us had started playing for the Arsenal Supporters Club football team.

We had won 3 trophies in our first season but due to some of the players poor disciplinary record, the Committee decided to ban them. So we all walked out and went to other teams.

It was many years before they won another trophy.

We were used to front and side view photos in mug shots.

The other teams were booing when we received these!!!

Season 1969-70.

Arsenal decided to play Swindon in a friendly before the season started, I don’t know why either?

Memorable only for Putney & Spooky, due to drunkenness, to be the first fans to be incarcerated in the new cages under the East stand.

On Monday 25th August 1969, Someone had the bright idea of going to West Ham and doing what we’d done previously in the Shed, to their North Bank.

Now, West Ham were and always have been a formidable firm, never shirking from anyone, and I don’t think any away fans had ever been in their end before.

The usual suspects met early, wearing no colours, and entered their North Bank about 30 minutes before kickoff.

We charged in to them from one side and they were caught completely unawares and retreated across to the other side blocking people coming in from that entrance. When we were about halfway across I remember a giant of a bloke turning and shouting “ there’s only a few of them “. This was the signal for them to regroup and charge at us. That’s when I found out there were no exits at the back of that terrace. Their anger at someone having the audacity to enter their territory knew no bounds and culminated in the biggest retreat since Dunkirk.

We managed to get out and into the terrace on the side but knew they’d be waiting afterwards.

Luckily for us, someone knew the alley ways that led through to Plaistow station.

Unfortunately, Arsenal fans were getting beaten up all over the place, busses, pubs, streets and Upton Park tube station.

We dispersed, and Granty & me managed to get on the tube at Plaistow, but there were people getting done on there as well.

I went to get off at Mile End to change trains but Granty held me back as he could see dozens of Hammers fans waiting on the platform, they knew Arsenal supporters would be changing trains there.

I think we decided it was safe to get off at Tower Hill and get a bus home.

The next time we played them at Highbury, they filled our North Bank and were waiting at the top of the terraces by Avenell Rd when we left the gunners.

Putney suggested we should go around to the Gillespie Rd entrance and enter that way.

We got in but Hammers were right in the middle of the North Bank.

They had a big blonde fella marching up and down offering to take on all comers. ( Someone said he was one of the Baker brothers from Stratford).

Anyway, despite being vastly outnumbered, Putney runs and head butts him. I can’t believe my eyes and run and grab him before they realise what’s happened.

We then disappeared through the crowd. He later said he “had to do something for our pride”.

Forest.

Forest away in a hired van and we’re drinking in a pub near the ground by bridge over the Trent.

When we realised that there was a large group of Forest fans gathered outside. Because it was a lovely day and although they knew we were in there, they couldn’t see us but we could see them silhouetted against the sun.

When we saw Big Bob before he died in 2014, he said he remembered the Forest day because he thought it was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen.

After a while one Forest fan decided to enter the pub to check us out but we were all standing in the shadows watching him step by step. When he was almost in someone grabbed him and knocked him spark out with a knuckle duster, then dragged him to a corner.

A few minutes later another Forest fan came looking for his mate and suffered the same fate.

After the next one disappeared they left us alone.

One man clears North Bank.

At one Saturday home game we’re all in our usual spot on the North Bank, in the middle, two thirds of the way up, when Alfie S arrives. Hoyboy asks him why he’s so late and he reply’s that he’s been working on a building site that morning and had an accident.

Hoyboy asks “ what sort of accident?” and Alfie says “I shit myself “ Some of us are listening by now and start laughing. Alfie says “ it’s not funny, look” and pulls his underpants, full of dried shit, out of his coat pocket. He then starts twirling them around his head and there’s bits of shit hitting anyone near him. Well, the largest gap seen on the North Bank since the Rangers game opened up, with blokes crouching down and running with their hands on their heads. The police couldn’t work out what was happening as there weren’t any away fans in there that day.

Funny now, funny then!!

What we gonna fucking do now?

We hired a van to go to Stoke. There’s 3 in the front and 6 or 7 in the back as usual.

Nothing eventful happens until after the game.

We’re calmly walking back to the van, not say anything in case they hear our accents, when a couple of Stoke fans walk past saying how boring Arsenal are.

Terry K remarks that they don’t know what they’re talking about and now it’s the Alamo.

They shout to those behind them “they’re Cockneys” and point at us.

When I look back I can’t see the end of them, hundreds and I mean hundreds, are pouring out from the Boothen End. We start to leg it and decide to take the next street to our left. As we turn the corner we realise it’s a dead end and there’s just a brick wall facing us.

So I now say to Putney the immortal words “what we gonna fucking do now?”

He replied “form a line and all hit the first ones who come around the corner “.

This we did and as they fell down, there was that many, the others behind were tumbling over them.

This gave us time to get going again but as we were running down the road some of them were actually overtaking us and I remember a fella alongside me shouting “ let’s get the Cockneys “

I shouted back “yeah, yeah”.

Another lucky escape, for now.

When we regrouped at the van we decided to have a night out in Birmingham as we obviously couldn’t stay in Stoke.

So off we went, I remember Whitty was driving and decided to mount the kerb where a large queue outside a cinema were waiting to see the film “battle of Britain “.

As he parked the van some blokes who’d got annoyed by his driving came up to his window to remonstrate with him but at that moment the back doors flew open and we all jumped out. The blokes went back in the queue.

Now we’re in a pub, I think the IRA blew it up a few years later, because we had to go downstairs to the bar. Tavern in the Town I think.

After a few beers we decide to go somewhere else and as we’re leaving a bouncer tells Granty he can’t take his beer with him, so Granty pours it over his head and hits him with the glass.

Now we’re legging it again and can hear police sirens coming our way. So some of us run to the railway station and I jump in the first taxi on the rank, the driver says “ where to mate “ and I reply “ anywhere. He says he needs a destination and the doors fly open and coppers are dragging me out.

Granty has jumped in the taxi at the back of the rank and is rowing with the driver because he’s telling him to go to the taxi at the front. He’s dragged out also.

We’re now sitting in the nick and all the others are being brought in one by one.

Most of us were wearing overcoats, sheepskins or raincoats and we decided to swop them about.

After a while the Bouncer was brought in with a big bandage wrapped around his head.

The coppers made us line up and asked him to pick out who’d hit him.

He walked along the line and pointed at Granty saying “I think it was him”, he then pointed at someone else and said “ but it was that coat”.

We all started laughing and after taking our names, took us to the van and escorted us to the M1 and told us not to return to Birmingham for a year.

Chelsea again.

We met early at Chelsea again and went in the “Rising Sun” pub opposite the ground.

Somehow, Chelsea blokes heard we were in there and gathered outside. They probably still had the hump from the previous season. As there was only one exit it was obvious we’d have to fight our way out. Sammy W had broken his ankle a few weeks before and gave one of his crutches to Eddie H.

To his credit, Sammy W hobbled out waving the other crutch and we all formed up around him using anything we had as a weapon and made it to the ground.

As we entered the Shed the police were waiting and escorted us around the pitch to the other end where they’d put all the Arsenal fans.

After losing an FA cup 3rd round replay at Blackpool, I went with Lenny T.

Arsenal bought Peter Marinello from Hibs for a record fee of £100,000.

Many of the current players were dropped and eventually sold as Bertie Mee and Don Howe put their faith in the younger players.