There were a lot of football grounds that you didn't look forward to visiting back in the early 80's, proper dumps in the rougher area's of England.
Millwall for a start, either of the Merseyside clubs, West Ham and even going to City as an away fan at Maine Road was pretty daunting and many many others.
Old crumbling relics of yesteryear surrounded by shitty pre-Victorian era housing, with dark alley ways and streets that surrounded the ground like a maze making it all too easy to get lost and not a very inviting proposition for the ordinary footy fan out on a day trip.
Ayresome Park home of Middlesbrough FC was one of these such places situated in the North East of England, not a pretty town at the best of times but on a Saturday afternoon it was a particularly sinister place to be.
Anyway I first visited Boro, back in the 83/84 season with Man City, as usual we travelled up on Yelloways coaches and as we were there quite early a few of us (10 or 12) decided to find a pub to have a drink or two or three or more.
We found a pub called the Wellington, it was empty and looked harmless enough.
We went to the bar to order and the landlord immediately knew we weren't locals due to our superior Mancunian accents.
"Look lads I know you're City fans, you should just have a quick drink and move on, I had a few Barnsley fans slashed in here the other week"
The thing is about the Yelloways mob is that they weren't hooligans, just lads who passionately followed City and liked a drink before and after the match. We very rarely looked for trouble, but having said that, we certainly wouldn't walk away should it arise.
Anyway while the older lads were ordering their ale me and another "young 'un" Tony Rutter decided to walk across the street and get some food from the chippy.
"Meat and potato pie and chips please love" I requested.
"Sorry pet" she replied "we don't do pies here, we only have fish and chips"
"No pies? Really?"
"Aye pet, really"
We were gutted, no pies, I mean what fucking philistines, what a shit hole this Middlesbrough was. I even felt sorry for the locals, although my sympathy was soon proven to be short lived.
Anyway, we ordered our food and left the chippy.
The street that was empty when we walked in was now buzzing as 30 or so Boro lads stood in between us and the pub.
"Fuck" said Rutter "Head down, say nowt"
We walked through them
"Who are you?" one asked
"Are you's City?" said another
Fucking Manc twats"
"You's are fucking dead"
We got a few bumps, kicks and digs for our troubles while crossing the road, but nothing to write home about.
Charming fuckers these Middlesbrough supporters.
We got back in the pub and informed the other lads of our welcoming committee.
"There's fucking loads of Boro waiting for us outside lads"
Everyone looked towards the pub doors and windows, now full of inbred Boro faces, many sliding their fore finger across their throat for the benefit of any deaf and dumb City fans in our party indicating their intentions towards us.
The lads took their time drinking and it seemed every few seconds the Boro numbers outside increased.
The landlord was really nervous at this point and called the police, within seconds a couple of vans speed through the Boro mob scattering them.
The street was now pretty empty, but we knew we hadn't seen the last of them.
Alan Garforth the oldest blue amongst us stood up.
"Right lads" he said "everyone buy two bottles of (Holsten) Pils each, we're tooling up"
We all followed his direction, made our purchase, necked them down in one and stuffed the empty bottles into our coat pockets.
Then we all exited the Wellington and turned towards the ground.
I was only 16 and don't mind admitting that I was shitting myself, sure I could look after myself and sure I was with a few older lads, but at one point there was about 150 locals outside waiting for us and we only had about a dozen in our group.
We were marching to the match in our small group trying to look inconspicuous but failing miserably, a few of the older lads had been through this many times before and knew the score.
One of them came up to me and had a friendly word "It's going to kick off, don't shit it and fucking run you little twat"
Most of this lot were good mates of my uncle Jonah so I knew they'd look out for me.
"Don't run" hissed one of our group in my ear.
"Stick together lads" whispered another.
We turned the corner, we could see the ground just over a 100 yards down the street. Out of a ginnel (alleyway) in front of us about 20 lads suddenly appeared. They looked at us, but carried walking towards the ground. Ayresome Park was very similar to Maine Road with plenty of hiding places, I knew what was coming next.
As we passed another ginnel the Boro lot stopped in front of us, turned, and their mouth piece shouted "Howay the lads, c'mon then you Manc cunts, let's have yer"
I distinctly remember thinking at the time "Howay the lads? I thought only proper Geordie's said shit like that"
Then I was kind of appalled by his obviously cliched choice of language.
While I was pondering the inferior north east dialect another 60 or so Boro boys appeared right behind us, this minor detail didn't go unnoticed by the older lads in our group
"Right lads" shouted Alan, "this is it, fucking stand City, no runners"
I was determined not to let the side down, young twat or not, I was more concerned what my uncle Jonah would say if word got back to him that his nephew legged it rather than my own personal safety.
I was immediately confronted by 5 or 6 Boro, in incidents like this time kind of stands still, you lose all awareness of anything going on around you, it's fucking surreal really, quite a buzz.
"Come on you cunts" I shouted as I pulled my bottles out of my coat.
One threw a punch at me and I dodged it, this gave me a bit of confidence and I hit him across the head with a bottle. I threw the other one at the group and as I did I was punched in the back of the head, fell to the ground and was set upon by god knows how many of them.
I instinctively curled up and tucked my head into my hands, while I was kicked to fuck by several pairs of Adidas and Puma trainers, it seemed to go on for a while but in truth was probably less than a minute.
I remember thinking that it it really didn't hurt, just a few dull thuds and in fairness to the Boro boys they really could have gone to town on me, I was just grateful that this clearly wasn't the same lads that had sliced up Barnsley fans earlier in the season.
The Boro either got bored or legged it with the Police now approaching.
I jumped up, looked towards the ground, there were still loads of Boro lads blocking my way, I looked around for my older City comrades, I first saw Les Jones, bottles in hand walking to the ground surrounded by a group of Boro, but unmolested.
I looked to the other lads for back up and saw them well in the distance legging it back towards the pub. "Don't run you little twat" my arse.
Millwall for a start, either of the Merseyside clubs, West Ham and even going to City as an away fan at Maine Road was pretty daunting and many many others.
Old crumbling relics of yesteryear surrounded by shitty pre-Victorian era housing, with dark alley ways and streets that surrounded the ground like a maze making it all too easy to get lost and not a very inviting proposition for the ordinary footy fan out on a day trip.
Ayresome Park home of Middlesbrough FC was one of these such places situated in the North East of England, not a pretty town at the best of times but on a Saturday afternoon it was a particularly sinister place to be.
Anyway I first visited Boro, back in the 83/84 season with Man City, as usual we travelled up on Yelloways coaches and as we were there quite early a few of us (10 or 12) decided to find a pub to have a drink or two or three or more.
We found a pub called the Wellington, it was empty and looked harmless enough.
We went to the bar to order and the landlord immediately knew we weren't locals due to our superior Mancunian accents.
"Look lads I know you're City fans, you should just have a quick drink and move on, I had a few Barnsley fans slashed in here the other week"
The thing is about the Yelloways mob is that they weren't hooligans, just lads who passionately followed City and liked a drink before and after the match. We very rarely looked for trouble, but having said that, we certainly wouldn't walk away should it arise.
Anyway while the older lads were ordering their ale me and another "young 'un" Tony Rutter decided to walk across the street and get some food from the chippy.
"Meat and potato pie and chips please love" I requested.
"Sorry pet" she replied "we don't do pies here, we only have fish and chips"
"No pies? Really?"
"Aye pet, really"
We were gutted, no pies, I mean what fucking philistines, what a shit hole this Middlesbrough was. I even felt sorry for the locals, although my sympathy was soon proven to be short lived.
Anyway, we ordered our food and left the chippy.
The street that was empty when we walked in was now buzzing as 30 or so Boro lads stood in between us and the pub.
"Fuck" said Rutter "Head down, say nowt"
We walked through them
"Who are you?" one asked
"Are you's City?" said another
Fucking Manc twats"
"You's are fucking dead"
We got a few bumps, kicks and digs for our troubles while crossing the road, but nothing to write home about.
Charming fuckers these Middlesbrough supporters.
We got back in the pub and informed the other lads of our welcoming committee.
"There's fucking loads of Boro waiting for us outside lads"
Everyone looked towards the pub doors and windows, now full of inbred Boro faces, many sliding their fore finger across their throat for the benefit of any deaf and dumb City fans in our party indicating their intentions towards us.
The lads took their time drinking and it seemed every few seconds the Boro numbers outside increased.
The landlord was really nervous at this point and called the police, within seconds a couple of vans speed through the Boro mob scattering them.
The street was now pretty empty, but we knew we hadn't seen the last of them.
Alan Garforth the oldest blue amongst us stood up.
"Right lads" he said "everyone buy two bottles of (Holsten) Pils each, we're tooling up"
We all followed his direction, made our purchase, necked them down in one and stuffed the empty bottles into our coat pockets.
Then we all exited the Wellington and turned towards the ground.
I was only 16 and don't mind admitting that I was shitting myself, sure I could look after myself and sure I was with a few older lads, but at one point there was about 150 locals outside waiting for us and we only had about a dozen in our group.
We were marching to the match in our small group trying to look inconspicuous but failing miserably, a few of the older lads had been through this many times before and knew the score.
One of them came up to me and had a friendly word "It's going to kick off, don't shit it and fucking run you little twat"
Most of this lot were good mates of my uncle Jonah so I knew they'd look out for me.
"Don't run" hissed one of our group in my ear.
"Stick together lads" whispered another.
We turned the corner, we could see the ground just over a 100 yards down the street. Out of a ginnel (alleyway) in front of us about 20 lads suddenly appeared. They looked at us, but carried walking towards the ground. Ayresome Park was very similar to Maine Road with plenty of hiding places, I knew what was coming next.
As we passed another ginnel the Boro lot stopped in front of us, turned, and their mouth piece shouted "Howay the lads, c'mon then you Manc cunts, let's have yer"
I distinctly remember thinking at the time "Howay the lads? I thought only proper Geordie's said shit like that"
Then I was kind of appalled by his obviously cliched choice of language.
While I was pondering the inferior north east dialect another 60 or so Boro boys appeared right behind us, this minor detail didn't go unnoticed by the older lads in our group
"Right lads" shouted Alan, "this is it, fucking stand City, no runners"
I was determined not to let the side down, young twat or not, I was more concerned what my uncle Jonah would say if word got back to him that his nephew legged it rather than my own personal safety.
I was immediately confronted by 5 or 6 Boro, in incidents like this time kind of stands still, you lose all awareness of anything going on around you, it's fucking surreal really, quite a buzz.
"Come on you cunts" I shouted as I pulled my bottles out of my coat.
One threw a punch at me and I dodged it, this gave me a bit of confidence and I hit him across the head with a bottle. I threw the other one at the group and as I did I was punched in the back of the head, fell to the ground and was set upon by god knows how many of them.
I instinctively curled up and tucked my head into my hands, while I was kicked to fuck by several pairs of Adidas and Puma trainers, it seemed to go on for a while but in truth was probably less than a minute.
I remember thinking that it it really didn't hurt, just a few dull thuds and in fairness to the Boro boys they really could have gone to town on me, I was just grateful that this clearly wasn't the same lads that had sliced up Barnsley fans earlier in the season.
The Boro either got bored or legged it with the Police now approaching.
I jumped up, looked towards the ground, there were still loads of Boro lads blocking my way, I looked around for my older City comrades, I first saw Les Jones, bottles in hand walking to the ground surrounded by a group of Boro, but unmolested.
I looked to the other lads for back up and saw them well in the distance legging it back towards the pub. "Don't run you little twat" my arse.
Apart from Les Jones, I was the only fucker who stood my ground.
I was pretty skinny and fast as fuck back then so rather than take my chances with Les, I legged it off towards the others. I caught up to them just as they made it to an off license, with dozens of Boro still in hot pursuit.
We all made it inside.
"What the fuck are you's doing? Get out of my shop" screamed the bloke behind the till.
"Shut it you cunt" shouted one of our group and with that we dead bolted the doors behind us
Luckily for us the windows were protected with steel mesh grills, because we were trapped in the shop and the massive Boro mob would have just smashed the glass, walked in and easily annihilated us.
There were loads of them outside screaming that they were going to "Kill us" and other such pleasantries.
"If you lot don't get out of my shop right now I will call the police" shouted our reluctant host
"Yeah, why don't you fucking do that grandad?" replied Alan
After a few minutes the police did arrive and moved the Boro out of the way.
"Right you soft Manc cunts, come on, we'll take you to the ground" said the pig with the biggest truncheon.
Outside was a Police van and an empty police mini bus.
"Brilliant" said one of us "they're giving us a lift to the ground"
"Oh no we're fucking not" replied PC Plod "you can bloody well follow us"
And with that the police vans set off at a snails pace towards the ground with us following them with dozens and dozens of Boro 20 feet behind us watching our every move, practically begging us to leave the confides of our escort.
We made it to the ground with no further incident and the first face we saw was Les Jones who got in unscathed, adding that the Boro lads didn't touch him.
Inside Ayresome Park I was finally successful in my quest for a pie in Middlesbrough and treated myself to a steak and kidney and a meat and potato at the snack bar, all that running certainly gives you a healthy appetite.
The match ended in a riveting 0-0 draw and apart from a lot of mutual posturing between City and Boro nothing else happened until after the game when the locals treated us to a contest of "Throw darts at the Mancs" and my own personal favourite, "Dodge the flying bricks and bottles"
Outside the Police were firmly on top of things and didn't let us out until the area was fully clear of the inbred locals.
Back at our coach we discovered one of the windows had been put through with a brick by some considerate Boro fan, a chilly drive home ensued, but we lived to drink another day and regale each other with tales of our skirmish all the way back to Middleton.
I was pretty skinny and fast as fuck back then so rather than take my chances with Les, I legged it off towards the others. I caught up to them just as they made it to an off license, with dozens of Boro still in hot pursuit.
We all made it inside.
"What the fuck are you's doing? Get out of my shop" screamed the bloke behind the till.
"Shut it you cunt" shouted one of our group and with that we dead bolted the doors behind us
Luckily for us the windows were protected with steel mesh grills, because we were trapped in the shop and the massive Boro mob would have just smashed the glass, walked in and easily annihilated us.
There were loads of them outside screaming that they were going to "Kill us" and other such pleasantries.
"If you lot don't get out of my shop right now I will call the police" shouted our reluctant host
"Yeah, why don't you fucking do that grandad?" replied Alan
After a few minutes the police did arrive and moved the Boro out of the way.
"Right you soft Manc cunts, come on, we'll take you to the ground" said the pig with the biggest truncheon.
Outside was a Police van and an empty police mini bus.
"Brilliant" said one of us "they're giving us a lift to the ground"
"Oh no we're fucking not" replied PC Plod "you can bloody well follow us"
And with that the police vans set off at a snails pace towards the ground with us following them with dozens and dozens of Boro 20 feet behind us watching our every move, practically begging us to leave the confides of our escort.
We made it to the ground with no further incident and the first face we saw was Les Jones who got in unscathed, adding that the Boro lads didn't touch him.
Inside Ayresome Park I was finally successful in my quest for a pie in Middlesbrough and treated myself to a steak and kidney and a meat and potato at the snack bar, all that running certainly gives you a healthy appetite.
The match ended in a riveting 0-0 draw and apart from a lot of mutual posturing between City and Boro nothing else happened until after the game when the locals treated us to a contest of "Throw darts at the Mancs" and my own personal favourite, "Dodge the flying bricks and bottles"
Outside the Police were firmly on top of things and didn't let us out until the area was fully clear of the inbred locals.
Back at our coach we discovered one of the windows had been put through with a brick by some considerate Boro fan, a chilly drive home ensued, but we lived to drink another day and regale each other with tales of our skirmish all the way back to Middleton.
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