City Psychos: From the Monte Carlo Mob to the Silver Cod Squad by Shaun Tordoff

Author:Shaun Tordoff [Tordoff, Shaun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Milo Books Ltd
Published: 2011-11-28T23:00:00+00:00

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By 1983, clothes labels like Le Coq Sportif and the craze for wearing cycle shirts were well worn out. They were surpassed by the classier French designs of Lacoste and the like. Everyone had their own personal favourites: Pringle, Lyle & Scott, Tacchini, Armani, Fila, Hugo Boss, Valentino, etc. I preferred to seek out the more obscure Italian clobber, and one of my favourites was a label by the name of Nanni Bonn. I had half a dozen of their jumpers, they were all one-offs and that gave you the exclusivity of knowing nobody else had that jumper.

Everyone was wearing Farah slacks. A number of shops in Hull must have shipped them in thinking the trend would last, and their storerooms are probably still floor to ceiling with boxes of Farahs, hoping they will one day be de rigeur again. The main shops in Hull for designer gear were Leonard Silver and James Wright, but for the really serious gear a lot of the lads had to travel to Manchester, London and other cities. I had shopped in Manchester since the mid-seventies. My favourite haunt at one time was a shop called The Last Picture Show. There you could buy clothes which no one else in Hull was wearing and that was half the battle.

The eighties casual scene was aided by an unlikely source, Persil, whose cheap travel offer in conjunction with British Rail helped to mobilise firms all over England. Wives and mothers up and down the country must have wondered what was going on as their partners or offspring started taking a great interest in which soap powder they were using. The Psychos were riding high.

It came against a backdrop of high drama in the boardroom and dressing room. Our first season in Division Three had seen us flounder near the bottom and gates were some of the lowest ever. The club was leaking money due to expensive signings and big wages, and finally suffered the ignominy of having to call in the receivers. Hull City’s very survival was threatened and the manager and his team were sacked, but suddenly things on the pitch began to gel. By the spring of 1983, we were hot on the scent of promotion.

Local derbies against Grimsby and Lincoln during this period always provided us with an extra stimulus, especially against the Codheads. Grimsby always turned out for us and had a good solid bunch of lads, yet apart from a few skirmishes on the seafront at theirs and a couple of minor incidents at home, the games between us were usually kept quiet by a heavy police presence. They once turned up in Hull on a normal Humberlink double-decker and caused a few heart attacks among the Old Bill.

A funny incident at Lincoln in the early eighties occurred during a League Cup tie at Sincil Bank. After the game, four Hull lads found themselves separated from the main firm. They were spotted and chased by a large mob of Lincoln boys who ran them into the fire station behind the ground.

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