Old Gunners and Gooners : Red Hot Lane

Charlie Mc has contacted me regarding a story about when Fred L - Jonah - Hoyboy & Him went by car to an away game up North.

After the game, they drove to the nearest city for a night out, asked a local if anything was happening that night and were advised to go to the Town Hall as there was a band booked.
As they parked in a side street next to the hall, there’s a bloke standing outside. He asked if they were the band? Fred L said yes. So the bloke says as you’re early grab a couple of beers and warm up backstage. They got backstage and they can hear the audience through the safety curtain. They start bashing the drums and plucking the guitars for a while. Then hear a commotion by the stage door. They decided to leave and there’s the real musicians arguing with the doorman who won’t let them in.
Happy days!!

Season 1970 - 71.

We are the Champions, for starters.

After the Fairs cup triumph we’re all looking forward to the new season so Putney & Spooky join other Arsenal fans at Everton for the opening game.
They wait for the team coach to arrive and call out to Charlie George, he tells them to wait 5 minutes and then reappears with 2 tickets for the main stand. He signs a few autographs for some kids and goes back inside. Spooky then takes the kid’s books, autographs them and hands them back before walking off with Putney, leaving the kids wondering who the fuck he is?

Inside the ground the pair of them are sitting in the main stand and Spooky is telling all around them that the Everton goalie, Gordon West, is useless. 2 fellas in front get upset as Gordon West is their brother. Charlie George broke his ankle after about 15 minutes.

In case anyone forgets what Charlie G looked like.

Our generation’s favourite team.

As the season progressed we were at all the home games and many away also.

The only major incident that I recall was after a game up North, we’d gone in a hired van as usual, and gone to Manchester for a night out. We were in the Portland bars near Piccadilly square having a nice drink and chatting to local girls.

When a bloke starts verbally abusing Fred L for some reason.

The bloke is wearing a patterned tie, so Fred L goes to the barman and asks if he’s got some scissors he can borrow for a couple of minutes?

Strangely, there are some and Fred L takes them, goes back to the bloke with the tie, says that’s a silly tie and cuts it off just under the knot. Fred L then goes and gives the scissors back to the barman.

Meanwhile the bloke with hallf a tie is gathering his mates together and they wait outside for Fred.

As we come out it’s a madhouse with fists and boots flying and even Greek D charging them waving a scaffold pole from a nearby site.

Tie man and his mates soon disappeared and we went back to the van to go back home.

We all climbed in and then the van wouldn’t start. We couldn’t call the hire company as we were only supposed to be in the London area.

Big Alex then pulls out his dad’s AA card and the patrolman turns up, walks over, lifts the bonnet up and says I don’t fix hired vans.

Putney walks him around the back of the van, opens the back doors and says “ you tell them that “.

There’s 8 blokes looking at him. The van got fixed and we went home

Nothing else much happened until later in the season and the FACup games as we were doing so well on the pitch in the league.

Every game at Highbury was like a Cup Final with the North Bank noisily getting behind the team.

German.

Although there was a funny incident in the home game against Cologne in the Fairs Cup, when with about 10 minutes to go, Spooky said he was going home as he had to get up early the next day for work. He left and a few minutes later a bloke comes crashing backwards through the crowd being punched repeatedly in the face by Spooky.

We separated them and asked Spooky what had happened. He replied “as I went past this bloke he said to his mate, the Germans are leaving early”. I ain’t a German!!

More laughter!!

Leeds, Leeds.

The title race now looked like it was down to a midweek game against Leeds at Elland Road.

There had been a lot of animosity growing between the two sets of fans since they got promoted and in the first season came to Highbury and kicked Geordie Armstrong and George Eastham relentlessly.

This carried on over the seasons up to Wembley in the League Cup and beyond. We’d previously fought them in the Peacock pub behind the ground and their players had been pelted with coins when parading a trophy before another game.

Arsenal fans travelled to Leeds in their thousands that night, without me, I was working too far away to get to Kings X on time for the special train.

Apparently, the train was constantly stopping on the way and the train driver said fans were pulling the emergency cord. At an inquiry later, the train driver admitted he’d been stopping the train as he was a Leeds fan and didn’t want all these Arsenal fans to get there.

Although as time was getting closer to kickoff, it wasn’t all ticket either, as the ground appeared across a field on the approach to the station, Hoyboy, pulled the cord as he knew they’d never get there in time. A few others jumped out with him and they started running across the field towards the stadium. After a few minutes he says he turned around and there’s nobody left on the train.

They’re all running across the field and luckily for many it’s the only way they would have got in.

Putney & Laney had hitch hiked to Sheffield to collect Charlie Mc’s car which had been left there since he’d been arrested at Hillsborough in the FA Cup semi final and was out on bail.

They got the car but on arriving at Elland road got locked out.

Maybe, they shouldn’t have bothered as Arsenal lost 1-0 to a debatable goal.

Youngsters coming good.

High hopes!!

Nearly there.

Red Hot Lane.

Monday May 3rd 1971.

For some idiotic reason the last league game at the Lane that season wasn’t All ticket.

I got there at 4pm with Granty, George H, Danny S, Charlie Mc & Fred L.

The queue was already out in the High road.

They never opened the turnstiles until about 6pm and there were massive surges and squashed crowds when they did. I have never been in such a crush since and could hardly breathe.

I know how those scousers at Hillsborough must have felt before dying.

We were nowhere near the turnstiles and could see it was getting hopeless, so we shoved our way out, got some breath back and burst into a second hand furniture shop that backed onto the ground.

We told the elderly owner that we weren’t going to nick anything and ran through the shop to the back yard. Bollocks, there was a 30 foot high wall topped with barbed wire facing us.

The crowds were now besieging the ground on all sides, so we returned to the gunners pub and crowded around car radios listening to the match commentary.

Only the goal was later shown in the news on tv. At least we could celebrate with a drink.

Hoyboy and Spooky had climbed through a window and entered the terraces from an office.

Putney & the others got in at different turnstiles.

They all got on the pitch afterwards and one of them got Bertie Mee’s tie.

My brother got in, and at the end, as everyone was on the pitch, he climbed on to get some air and a copper told him to get back on the terrace.

There were hundreds of Arsenal fans running amok behind the copper.

My brother would always cry with laughter when telling that story.