Wembley. At last.

Tringy ( Uncle Al to the Herd) has contacted me to say that he was also at all the England games, including the final at Wembley in 1966.
He also mentions that he spent a month in Mexico for the tournament in 1970.

A month? In Mexico? In 1970?
Flash bastard, I could just about afford 2 weeks in a caravan in Herne Bay then!!!!

                                                         Season 1967-68

The team was now looking good and we could finally be optimistic about a coming season.

Off the pitch it was pretty hectic because the North Bank reputation had spread far and wide and more fans from other clubs were now coming en masse to Highbury.

The first that season were Stoke on the opening day and about 30-40 of them were waiting in Avenell road afterwards as some of them had been hit with coshes earlier on the North Bank by the usual suspects.
What they never realised was that hundreds of Arsenal fans were waiting in Drayton park for them and had already smashed the windows of their coaches.
As these Stoke fans walked down Gillespie Rd they were caught in a classic pincer movement that General Patton would have been proud of.
They got absolutely battered and one of their main blokes was even chased as far as Holloway Road by an Arsenal fan carrying a shotgun. This incident made the front page of the papers.

Next up were Liverpool and as usual they brought good support, that didn’t matter as by now away fans entered the North Bank at their peril.

Against Liverpool. 

Against Liverpool.

They forgot Walking Sticks!!

So many North Bank boys had suddenly developed a limp. 

George Graham got married in the morning of the home game against the team from the Lane with Terry Venables as his best man. Arsenal celebrated with a 4-0 win and looking back this was when Arsenal started their almost complete domination of North London football for the next 45 years. 

Headline says it all. 

Man City arrived with a strong team on and off the pitch, they’d be champions that season and fierce fighting ensued throughout the game and carried on outside afterwards in Avenell Rd. 

Even some of the “Big Highbury “ who stood on Clock End got involved. 

It was only October and we’d taken on Rangers - Stoke - Liverpool - Man City. 

Although the fans from the Lane became notorious in later years, apparently they never came in the North Bank until the early 1980’s.

Against Man City. 

Not many of us went to Old Trafford in October because tickets for away fans were hard to get as this was the season United won the European Cup and their home games had capacity crowds. 

Ian Ure greeting his future fans!!

Arsenal in Dark Blue shirts. 

Running out at Old Trafford. 

Best, Law & Charlton. 3 Legends. 

Ure & Law sent off. 

Some Arsenal fans enjoying a few beers afterwards. 

In December Arsenal played away at Burnley and the game was shown on Pay TV as a trial, which was only available in 2 areas of London. Luckily my mum’s flat was in one of the zones. 

So about a dozen of us watched it and saw McLintock, Storey & McNab get sent off. 

Off they go. 

Boxing Day 1967. 

We went to Chelsea on a Boxing Day,

Left’em all dead now, after the fight.

Bow street on a Monday,

That’s all right. 

Oooh we are the North Bank,

Yes, Yes, Yes 

We’re the mighty North Bank. 

(Adapted from Autumn Almanac by the Kinks)

As we came out of Fulham Broadway tube station we could hear the Arsenal fans who’d got in the Shed end early singing the Beatles song (Hello, Goodbye). The words had been altered to 

“You say Hello but we say Fuck Off. 

Fuck Off, Fuck Off, I don’t know why you say Hello, we say Fuck Off. 

The police had formed 2 lines with 1holding back the Arsenal fans and 1 holding back Chelsea’s. 

All sorts of objects were being thrown back and forth but only occasional fist fighting was possible despite some desperate surges from both sets of fans. 

Next season it would be very different!!

I think this winter was when a game at Highbury had a low attendance due to the access to the terraces being restricted as they were frozen but the pitch was playable thanks to under soil heating. 

In the FA Cup we were drawn away at Shrewsbury. We’d never heard of any trouble at their Home games before. So it came as a complete surprise for us to be bombarded with stones, bricks and lumps of concrete from their fans on the roof of the covered terrace behind the goal. 

Some Arsenal fans climbed up the drainpipes to fight them and I’m amazed the roof never collapsed. 

There was one very aggressive bloke running around grabbing Arsenal supporters and Rod M clumped him, it turned out he was a plainclothes copper from London who’d been sent on the special train to help the local police. 

A few coppers helped him load Rod M into a police van and took him to the nick. On arriving there they couldn’t put him in the cells because Bonnie and some of his mates were already locked up. 

The sergeant asked where the arresting officer was and a copper said that he’d returned to the ground. 

So Rod was released without charge after the game. 

Luckily, a Shrewsbury fan who’d also been arrested led Rod back to the waiting coaches. 

Next stop Swansea away. This was the game where someone tried to saw the goalposts down. 

Don’t ask why?  It wasn’t anyone I know. 

There was some serious fighting in the streets outside before and after the game with a department store being looted and the till stolen. 

Then we get our old friends Birmingham again in the 5th round, but at home this time. 

Their fans reversed what we’d done the year before and got in the North Bank early, almost filling the central section. Despite our best efforts we couldn’t budge them and had to listen to them singing “Keep right on to the end of the road”

Swansea goalposts sawn. 

Jim Furnell’s last game as Number 1 keeper. 

Birmingham at home. 

I went to the replay with Bootsie and not many others did. 

Jim “Fingers” Furnell was dropped and Bob Wilson replaced him. 

League Cup. 

Arsenal had reached the semifinals of the League Cup and after beating Huddersfield at home played them away in the 2nd leg. This game was also shown on Pay TV. So it was back round my mum’s flat again. I think about 20 squeezed in her tiny front room. 

Hoyboy says he remembers coming out of Huddersfield’s ground and sitting on a coach not believing he was finally going to see Arsenal play at Wembley. 

20 blokes at my mum’s were feeling exactly the same way. 

When I was a kid I used to watch Real Madrid & Benfica winning the European Cup and thinking I don’t suppose I’ll ever see Arsenal in that competition, never mind the final, because only the champions and holders were allowed in. Unlike the money spinner it is today with the top 4 entering. 

So, although winning the League was an unlikely scenario, at least maybe I’d see Arsenal in an FA Cup Final one day, as the League Cup hadn’t been invented then, Even that dream was disappearing every season. 

Like most of my generation, we were so excited to be going to Wembley to play Leeds in the League Cup Final that it didn’t matter it wasn’t the FA Cup Final.

 Apart from England games I’d only been there for two Amateur Cup finals. The first was in 1959 with my Uncle Bill. 

The other was Wimbledon vs Sutton in 1963. 

                                                                            Great night.

1st Leg ticket. 

Wembley, Wembley here we come!!

One Dream fulfilled, sort of.

Still no trophy though. 

Next post Saturday 2/5/20.

High Ho High Ho!!

Comments- oldgunnersandgooners@ gmail.com

Thanks for all the nice comments from those who’ve contacted me. 

I’m glad so many are enjoying reading this and also bringing back memories for the Old Gunners.