"It's the end, the end of the Seventies... it's the end, the end of the century".
Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby present for your perusal, the fifth and final part of: FOR MY COUNTRY, a fanzine serialisation, detailing the joys of supporting the England football team, between 1975 and the end of the decade.
This post originally appeared in one of the later issues of: A MAN FOR ALL SEASON.
To date, I've narrated the tale of attending six international matches during my formative years, spanning a record of five wins and a draw thus far.
By the time Part 5 has run it's course, I would have left school and got a job down t'pit... I even started paying to use British Rail train services. Well, sometimes I did... there's no need to be too extravagant and run the risk of ending up becoming the next Viv Nicholson, is there?
Whenever I tell people that I started going to watch England games in my teens and never saw them lose a single game throughout the Seventies, the stock response I get, is usually something along the lines of: "Well, you didn't go very often then".
Point taken... but there is only so far that pocket-money, paper round wages and the generous Xmas tips from some of the posh houses I delivered to will stretch, y'know.
It's long been a national pastime, trait and tradition, to run down our own national football team.
But that's the prerogative of the miserable bastard cynics, who seem to get a full erection about every single game England lose and each and every purported failure on the international stage.
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| He's only the manager FFS! Somebody, get the man a tracky top that fits him |
Well you go ahead follow the misery guts flock with a sheep like abeyance, if you really must, but I'll make up my own mind on such matters and will continue to follow and support England. My England!
I never wanted to share them with dullards like you in the first place.
They'll never be the best football team on the planet and will probably never win the World Cup again in my lifetime (I was only three years old when they achieved that feat 1966... so I can't recall a damn thing about it). But football loyalty, regardless of results or how good/bad your team(s) of choice is/are, is something that you either understand, or you don't. I get it, to the nth degree... and consider it a privilege to be able to absorb and get involved in the plethora of strains of the subculture attached to the various levels and different variations of the game... but I won't hold it against you if you don't.
It's your loss!
Wednesday 7th February 1979
Euro 1980 Qualifier Group 1
at Wembley StadiumEngland (1) 4
Kevin Keegan, 25
Bob Latchford, 46, 64
Dave Watson, 50
Northern Ireland (0) 0
Attendance: 92,000
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England:
Ray Clemence, Phil Neal, Mick Mills, Tony Currie, Dave Watson, Emlyn Hughes (C), Kevin Keegan, Steve Coppell, Bob Latchford, Trevor Brooking, Peter Barnes
Northern Ireland:
Pat Jennings (C), Pat Rice, Sammy Nelson, Jimmy Nicholl, Chris Nicholl, David McCreery, Martin O'Neill, Sammy McIlroy, Gerry Armstrong, Billy Caskey (Derek Spence 54), Terry Cochrane (Chris McGrath 82)
Northern Ireland fielded a side full of what would've been familiar household names to the majority of the Wembley crowd. In fact. they even included three players apiece from both Arsenal and Manchester United, who it transpired would be playing in the next game I would see at Wembley Stadium too, the FA Cup Final... such was my resourcefulness for procuring tickets and getting myself organised on the travel front (eventually), since I'd been left to my own devices vis. such matters, once my granddad had stopped going to England games, because, in his own words: "They're not worth the bleedin' effort and heartache. They'll never amount to being anything more than a bunch of under-achieving nearly men". Well I can't say I wasn't warned then, eh!?
To this end, I hadn't actually missed a televised England game since I'd attended the England 2 Italy 0 fixture in November 1977. But that also meant that I hadn't actually been to watch them play in person for fifteen whole months.
I humbly beg for forgiveness to this end and accept that such a dereliction of duty must've qualified me for a lengthy stint of sackcloth and ashes repentance in the Wembley Stadium car park, over the course of several wet, windy and cold nights.
I had been back to Wembley during the interim however; for the 1978 FA Cup Final, having secured myself a ticket while also discovering that East Midlands transport ran coach-trips to all England games and cup finals at Wembley, from Mansfield bus station...
but that if you booked in person at their office in Retford bus station, they were duty bound to pick you up locally to take you to Mansfield and provide transport back at the end of the trip too.
It was an arrangement that suddenly ended without explanation (but I suspect that it wasn't financially viable) once the Retford depot was closed down, but it had been good while it lasted. Tonight, when we got back to Mansfield, they'd laid on a double-decker bus, that I had all to myself (apart from the driver of course) once two other lads had been dropped off in Shirebrook. My kindly personal chauffer even stopped off outside my house, to save me having to walk home, because it was on the scheduled bus route. Luxury!
Some of the methods we'd been using to get to league football matches across the length and breadth of England (and even a few games in Scotland as well) over the last year or so, merrily ticking off as many different grounds as possible as we went on our merry way, are best left dead. Lest this should start to read like some kind of a confessional statement, best suited to accompanying a charge sheet in a police station, that could land me in a lot of trouble and incur a large bill in unpaid rail fares.
Sometimes we had valid train tickets but others: fare-dodging, or train jumping as it is also known, was becoming a very popular pastime on Saturday services.
The practice doesn't actually entail jumping over trains, just jumping on and off of them at various stops to avoid the guards and/or the police constables who occasionally manned the carriages when large numbers of football fans were on the move together.
Although, at times it would seem as if they were turning a blind eye to a lot of this widespread fraudulent and criminal weekend activity, just as long as you didn't draw too much attention to yourself. Probably because it's too much like hard work and a whole load of unwanted aggro to chase and apprehend the participants and process the endless reams of resultant paperwork.
We got caught red handed once, but claimed to have had our tickets and money stolen from us by 'some big lads in football scarves' and we were issued with return tickets on the spot, on the proviso that we gave the guard our names and addresses, so they knew where they could forward the bill.
I wonder if anybody ever gave them their real details... we certainly didn't.
Some might say that the train fares are so high, to offset the losses British Rail makes in its revenue, because scores of little scrotes like us don't always paid our way. Though I would counter that argument by claiming that we wouldn't need to resort to such skulduggery, if the travel costs weren't so bloody expensive in the first place. There are several open stations across this green and pleasant land, where you don't need to present your ticket upon leaving, but if you look hard enough there are plenty of other unofficial exits at most of the other ports of call on the network too. Retford itself has three such emergency egresses... or so I'm told :-)
My seventh England game, was as straight forward and academic a home win as the final result suggests.
Even though they did only score the once during the opening forty-five minutes.
Kevin Keegan in particular was running amok and was virtually unplayable. Having been runner up for the Ballon d'Or (European Footballer of the Year) in 1977, Keegan scooped the first place award in both 1978 and 1979, while playing his club football for Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (AKA either Hamburger SV, Hamburg or HSV, for purposes of brevity) and was at the height of both his powers and popularity around this time.
When the opening goal duly arrived in the twenty-fifth minute, it was almost inevitable that it would be Keegan who added the finishing touch, heading Steve Coppell's cross into the visitors net, in spite of physical presence of the legendary Irish goalkeeper Pat Jennings.
After the game, Danny Blanchflower, the Northern Ireland manager growled: "I know that football is a game of physical contact, but England took this to extremes. There were times when I was surprised they wanted a ball to kick." Perhaps he was looking the other way whenever Keegan was 'man-marked', but merely got back to his feet, brushed himself down and just got on with the game, while shrugging off the 'rough and tumble' that comes with the territory.
When Bob Latchford's glancing header sneaked in by the foot of the right hand upright via Jennings outstretched hand, inside the opening minute of the second half, it hardly needs saying who'd provided the left-wing cross that set up the chance following a well weighted pass from Pete Barnes... but, in case you're wondering, he had a perm and a red number 7 on his back.
A Keegan back-heel put Brooking through on goal, but Jennings got his body in the way and deflected the ball wide at the expense of a corner, that Brooking delivered towards Dave Watson who scored England's third with a downward header, that bounced up into the roof of the net as the Irish defence desperately tried to clear the ball off the line.
Keegan provided the flick on from a Trevor Brooking corner that provided Latchford with the opportunity to volley the ball past Jennings at the near post, from close range, to double his tally on the night and put England four goals ahead just after the hour mark.
FT: England 4 v Northern Ireland 0
On a night that the Wembley pitch was visibly cutting up and strewn with divots, Northern Ireland had been sliced apart too as England moved to the top of Group 1, while an appreciative crowd sang them home to the strains of: "When the whites go marching in".
There were those within the game who doubted the Brummie striker's international credentials and said that he carried a few too many pounds, but on this particular night at Wembley, Latchford had the last laugh and final say to silence his critics. Centre-forwards are employed to score goals, any which way they can, when all is said and done.
On three successive days in May 1979, a chronological order of events saw: i) Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister. ii) I left school... and iii) My attendance for the second year running, at the FA Cup final.
Typically, the East Midlands bus company coach that I'd travelled down on, developed an engine fault and we were subsequently the last people to leave the Stadium car-park that night, when a replacement coach finally arrived nearly two and a half-hours after the the thrilling climax to the game.
Typically, the East Midlands bus company coach that I'd travelled down on, developed an engine fault and we were subsequently the last people to leave the Stadium car-park that night, when a replacement coach finally arrived nearly two and a half-hours after the the thrilling climax to the game.
By heck! It was getting late when I got home that night.
Fast forward to the end of the month and I was at Wembley again, but decided to 'let the train take the strain' this time.
England (1) 3
Peter Barnes 45, Steve Coppell 63, Kevin Keegan 70
Scotland (1) 1
John Wark 21
England:
Ray Clemence, Phil Neal, Mick Mills, Phil Thompson, Dave Watson, Ray Wilkins, Kevin Keegan (C), Steve Coppell, Bob Latchford, Trevor Brooking, Peter Barnes
Scotland:
George Wood, George Burley, Frank Gray, John Wark, Gordon McQueen, Paul Hegarty, Kenny Dalglish (C), Graeme Souness, Joe Jordan, Asa Hartford, Arthur Graham
Attendance: 100,000
A John Toshack hat-trick had seen Wales beat Scotland 3-0 the previous weekend at Ninian Park, on the same day that a goal apiece, within the space of three minutes, by Dave Watson and Steve Coppell, had seen Ron Greenwood's side start off their Home International campaign with a 0-2 win against Northern Ireland at Windsor Park.
A solitary Arthur Graham strike was enough for Scotland to narrowly beat Northern Ireland on Tuesday night, while England played out a goalless draw with Wales twenty four hours later. Wales remained unbeaten during this years tournament following their 1-1 in Belfast on the eve of this Wembley showdown, while England took the title after beating Scotland 3-1. If this last game would've ended in a draw instead, then the Welsh would've finished top on goal difference.
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The Scotland fans were more subdued than on their previous 'wrecking spree' visit to London and there was a notable changed in the dynamic of the crowd too, with more people both visibly and vocally getting behind the home side, while out and about in London itself there seemed to be a combined 'effort' on the part of the visitors to show more restraint and the English fans to be better prepared and more 'up for it' should any kind of disorder occur.
One Scotland fan did encroach onto the pitch this time, but it was only to lambaste his own side's goalkeeper: George Wood, who'd had a less than brilliant afternoon at a stadium that has an unofficial nickname of 'the Scottish goalkeeper's graveyard'.
At one point during the morning, I'd seen two fairly large groups of England fans arriving simultaneously at Kings Cross, from the adjoining roads at either side of the station, who'd charged headlong into the Scotland fans on the forecourt in a 'pincers movement' type attack, sending many of them running for cover down the stairs to the Underground.
It's a wonder some of those who were falling down the stairs weren't seriously hurt as they got trampled as the people from behind them fled right over the fallen among their own ranks.
The mobbed up England fans then headed off along the Euston Road to meet and greet the Scotland fans whose trains were due into Euston a while later.
The Scottish supporters were out in good numbers, but not as many as on previous occasions and what appeared to be happening was that the tide was turning in the yob stakes... and the English hooligans had decided that the time had finally arrived, to return fire and stand up to those who had been taking liberties on their streets for years. I must stress, that I am not taking sides at this juncture, or any making judgements to such an end either, I'm merely calling things as I saw them with my own eyes. For my part I was a mere bystander.
The game itself was fairly even from the outset, but England put the squeeze on their visitors in the second-half to deservedly win 3-1 and hold onto the 'British Champions' title that they had won the previous year, in my absence.
Scotland's opening goal was simplicity itself, when Arthur Duncan got free on the right and crossed beyond the far post, to where Kenny Dalglish knocked a square ball back across the face of the goal for John Wark to tap-in from close range into an unguarded net, after Ray Clemence had followed the flight of the cross in anticipation of the Scottish captain having a shot himself.
Possibly Clemence was still mindful of the crafty goal that Dalglish had squeezed between his legs back in 1976. But to all intents and purposes, Clemence's club-mate, signed as a replacement for the England captain: Kevin Keegan (when he left Liverpool for Hamburg), had just 'done him' again.
Engalnd equalised on the stroke of half-time, when Trevor Brooking flicked a forward pass from Keegan into the path of Peter Barnes, who controlled the ball at the second attempt, before deceiving Wood completely with a scuffed effort that just about had enough power behind it to trickle into the bottom right hand corner of the net. They all count.
In the sixty-third minute, Wood spilled an angled shot by Ray Wilkins and Steve Coppell pounced to force the loose ball over the line, to give England a lead that they never looked like surrendering now.
Keegan extended the hosts lead with a goal that typified his gut-busting efforts for the England cause, when he charged forward from the halfway line with the ball, before laying it off to Brooking who played a one-two exchange with his captain, who continued his run and rolled the ball under Wood, who'd advanced from his line to try and limit Keegan's options.
FT: England 3 v Scotland 1
The train journey home was much quieter than we'd anticipated, but we did hear some of those heading back over the Border complaining about how some: "Innocent fans, just having a bevvy were attacked, unprovoked, by a gang of English hooligans, loads of the bastards!"
Two wrongs don't make a right, they never have and they never will, but... I was far too shy and reserved to suggest that: some people didn't like getting a taste of their own medicine and they weren't so keen on mob rule when the shoe was on the other foot as in previous years.
I have a lot of Scottish friends, especially a group of lads I know up in Edinburgh who follow the Hearts, but I think even they would've agreed with me when I mentioned the station incident to my granddad the next morning and said to him: "I hope one of those lot who got bashed about on the stairs at Kings Cross yesterday, was that coward who punched me (and stole my rosette) when I went with you four years ago".
He laughed and gave me some sage advice: "If you turn the other cheek in these situations... you'll only end up getting punched on both sides of your face, sometimes you have to stand up for yourself".
But that wasn't the advice... he continued: "I was starting to think that the 'nutcase gene' in this family must have skipped a generation, but I was wrong... I was your age once, just don't get bloody caught!"
The more I pleaded with him to believe me that I hadn't been involved, the louder he roared with laughter, to the extent that he almost had me believing that I'd actually been a part of it all along.
Excuse me while I nip off and polish my halo
Footnote (June 2020):
The final issue of A Man For All Seasons included a pull-out 'cheat sheet', full of handy hints pertaining to: how to avoid paying train fares, how to get around the away fans blanket ban at Luton Town, where to get hold of European railcards and travel warrants... and how to guarantee getting your hands on cup final tickets.
I inserted it as a flyer rather than printing the details in the actual fanzine... because I didn't want a paper trail leading back directly to yours truly.
None of that dodgy-stuff works anymore these days, so you find your own bloody scams and don't be asking me for any pointers... but we sure as hell made hay while the sun shone back in the day.
Enjoy your football!