Fanatical by Gary Edwards

Author:Gary Edwards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2014-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

Members Only

OUR game at Millwall on 8 November 1986 was an 11am kick-off and Leeds fans had been travelling down all through the night. A couple of hours later after a 1-0 defeat we were all sat on a stationary coach. Stationary because it had broken down only yards from the ground.

We were still sat on this coach at 3pm surrounded by a few very nervous policemen. The pubs began to close and Millwall fans spilling out instantly spotted us – a sitting target and about 100 of them swarmed around the coach, totally ignoring police instructions to move on. It was an uneasy stand-off. They wouldn’t come on board (luckily) and we certainly weren’t getting off.

Eventually a mechanic arrived to fix our coach. He was drip white and shaking like a leaf, as were some of the police I have to say, at the prospect of an almighty punch-up. He managed to do a quick bodge-job to get us moved out of harm’s way but not before we had a pool ball thrown through the window.

I can still see my mate Stevie hanging out of the bus where the window had been and with the aid of a sweeping brush as a paddle he began singing the tune of Hawaii Five-0 as we made our way back up the M1. We even had our branch flag, which was a Jolly Roger, confiscated from our coach because, according to police, it could be seen as provocative. Provocative at Millwall? I ask you.

Football is a funny old game and even Leeds fans had cause to chuckle when we travelled to Stoke City in December 1986. The previous season Leeds had been hammered 6-2 by Stoke and when we returned in 1986/87, manager Billy Bremner announced, ‘We were trounced here last season 6-2, I can assure you, that won’t happen again.’ Billy, God rest his soul, was right – we were beaten 7-2!

The Leeds goals by Ian Baird and John Sheridan, however, were easily the best of the game. Sheridan’s penalty kick was amazing. Undeterred, after the game Bremner said, ‘Forget the result, did you see and hear our fans today, they were truly magnificent. They sang throughout the game to lift our team, they are without doubt the greatest supporters in the country. I just wish my lot could have done them justice.’

The opening days of 1987 soon came around, a year in which Terry Waite, the special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury in Lebanon, was kidnapped in Beirut, U2 released their album The Joshua Tree, The Simpsons first appeared on TV screens in America and the first Rugby Union World Cup took place in New Zealand with the hosts becoming triumphant.

Maggie Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in office as Prime Minister while the Great Storm occurred on the south coast of Britain, with hurricane winds killing 23 people.

Uruguayan football genius Luis Suarez was born in 1987, as was another great, Lionel Messi, England’s goalkeeper Joe Hart and tennis Grand Slam winners Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Maria Sharapova.

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