by Amy Lawrence
I just loved it. There was something about the atmosphere that added intensity to an otherwise dull week. So there was nothing that could have kept me away, but I was getting aware of the fact that it wasn’t such a smart thing to do. I remember being invited for dinner somewhere in Finsbury Park and this woman saying, ‘Oh, do you know the street?’ I said yeah, yeah and she said, ‘Well how come?’ I said, ‘I walk down there a couple of times a week pretty much because I go to the football’ and she said, ‘No really, why?’ Ha ha ha. She couldn’t believe that anyone that she talked to about anything at all, politics or books or films, would go inside a football stadium.
ALAN DAVIES:
People didn’t go to football because there was fighting. Because it was disgusting. Because people were urinating everywhere. There was considerable bad language and that was what football was. It was just: if you like football, you like football and it was a bit sad. Socially, to be a football fan then was to be generally not treated very well. That was the general experience and you got treated worse and worse and worse. If you were an away fan you got treated particularly badly.
You were herded into horrible grounds with terrible facilities and the travel was an experience. Going on trains was quite fun, but you’d get the worst trains that were pulled out of some yard somewhere and labelled ‘football special’. It was great to go to the big grounds because you’d seen them on TV. You wanted to see them for real. Anfield. Goodison Park is my favourite. Villa Park is amazing. Maine Road. But you’d quite often have to go through Crewe and when you got to Crewe there’d quite often be two or three football specials all in the same station. I remember once there was some banter with a train full of Wolves fans that got quite ugly. Once going back to the train station at Nottingham Forest there was some bloke just going around punching Arsenal fans. Just running up and punching them in the head and people saying, come on then. Walking to the station after a game it was the police you were frightened of. The police would throw you up against a bus shelter without a second thought. You were frightened of the police. You couldn’t trust the police. If you saw something happening, you couldn’t go to the police and say there’s something happening because they’d say, bad luck.
I remember coming out of Stamford Bridge and they shut the road outside on the way down to Fulham Broadway station. They insist on having all the fans on the pavement queuing for the Tube even though the road is empty. So in the road there’s a load of police horses and coppers standing about and on the pavement you’re just hemmed in and I remember having my hands up against the shop window, a plate glass window, thinking, I’m going to go through this in a minute. Because I’m using all my strength not to be crushed right up against it. I come out the other end and there was a copper with a cap. I’m middle-class. I never had any fear of the police. I never had any dealings with the police. If I thought the police were misbehaving, I’d jolly well say so. I went up to this copper and I said, what’s going on? You’re crushing people against the shops. I’ve nearly gone through a window. He goes to me, ‘Do you want to be nicked?’
Going away, it was the first time for me hearing any of these accents. I remember going to Anfield and hearing a programme seller and thinking, oh my God. What did he just say? You didn’t speak to anyone and you were terrified of anyone asking you for the time or asking for a light.
NICK HORNBY:
I wrote in Fever Pitch that one of the first times I went to football I can remember someone shouting at one of the players, ‘A hundred quid a week! A hundred quid a week!’ in disgust and disbelief because he was earning 20 quid a week. So there’s always been that mismatch. The really big thing that’s changed in football is how much you pay to get in. In the 80s the price of admission to the North Bank was never a factor in going to football. It would have been the same as a packet of fags or a couple of pints and everyone could afford to go. So there wasn’t that sense of expectation in quite the same way. I don’t think the fans felt owed in the way that they do now. If you’re paying £1,000 for the cheapest season ticket you’re going to feel let down all the time by players you know actually are substandard before the season even starts. Back then what the fans wanted for their not very much money was honesty and they got that from that team in particular. They worked their socks off and they were young and hopeful. David Rocastle, Michael Thomas, Paul Davis, Tony Adams, Paul Merson, the people who had come through from the youth team, were very loved. Even the players they bought for not very much money came from not very glamorous teams.
ALAN DAVIES:
I was a season ticket holder on the North Bank and I’d go to away games when I could. Back then it was all terraces and there were quite a lot of fences. When Arsenal started to do well a lot of away fans would go, and the opening day of the 88–89 season we were at Plough Lane. Plough Lane was tiny. Wimbledon’s old ground. The best view at Plough Lane was from inside the toilet, which was a Portakabin. So if you got to a urinal, there was a little window and from there you had a clear view of the whole pitch. So people would go in there and urinate for 45 minutes and then they’d come out, get a pie and go back in. So I saw quite a lot of the game in there. Out on the terrace you couldn’t see much but we won 5–1 and it felt very significant that we’d done that. Because they weren’t a bad side, Wimbledon. They’d won the cup the year before and they had some decent players. But we really took them to the cleaners.
AMY LAWRENCE:
The 1988–89 season was my first going away. It felt like a notable rite of passage, that you somehow proved your worth as a supporter by travelling, by being outnumbered in someone else’s domain. At the back of the narrow terrace at Villa Park I accidentally kicked one of the line of policemen behind us by clicking a bad knee, which made my Dr. Marten boot catch him on the shin. Suddenly I felt a threatening hand on my shoulder, whose owner probably wouldn’t have given me the benefit of the doubt had I not been a teenage girl. I recall going to the Baseball Ground, Derby’s home, and searching for the ladies’ in the away end at half-time only to find there wasn’t one.
NICK HORNBY:
It felt actually much cooler to be supporting Arsenal than a lot of other teams. Arsenal felt quite a safe and tolerant place compared to watching teams where you knew that the fans gave black players fearful abuse. Arsenal had had black players for a few years by that stage. Viv Anderson, Chris Whyte, Raphael Meade. Brendon Batson was at Arsenal you know, right at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 70s, and it felt like Arsenal were streets ahead actually in that way.
AMY LAWRENCE:
An incident at Goodison Park in 1989 remains seared on my mind. It was not known as particularly liberal-minded in those days but what we heard from the Everton fans was shocking. Arsenal played with Rocastle, Davis and Thomas, full of zest and invention in midfield, and Gus Caesar got a rare game in defence. When the team went ahead the response from the home support was to start a chant in repulsive language about (and I will leave the terminology to your imagination) shooting black people. The communal disgust from the away fans was obvious – manifested in lung-busting songs in honour of our players. The noise was angry and defiant as everyone bashed their wooden seats down on the frames in the seated section. Afterwards, hanging around the players’ entrance in the hope of an autograph, I remember an exchange with piercing clarity. David Rocastle came out and an Evertonian, while asking for a signature, asked, ‘Rocky, why don’t you come and sign for a big club?’ Rocky looked him in the eye and quick as a flash replied, ‘What, and get shot?’ before walking calmly off to the team bus.
Arsenal’s crowd were not angels but it did feel more mixed, more cosmopolitan, than the sights and sounds encountered elsewhere at the time. There were always plenty of faces from various communities who were rooted in North London. Everyone could belong, which was not the case around football generally then. Although football was a male preserve it was not a big deal for a girl to take up position on the terraces – although you
would have to be prepared to brush off ‘while you’re down there’ comments if you ducked down to clamber underneath a crash barrier.
DERMOT O’LEARY (SUPPORTER):
I grew up in a very Irish, very Catholic family, pretty much all Arsenal fans, and it became linked with my identity. There was something very identifiable about the Clock End, which was sort of different to the North Bank as well. Possibly because you were so close to the away fans, there was a siege mentality about the Clock End and I just fell in love with Highbury. In terms of the demographic of our fan base, we are a very black club, we are a very Irish club, we are a very Greek club, we are a very Jewish club, and I loved that. Where I sit now I’ve got a High Court judge here and a plumber there and we’re an all-sorts club really. I’ve always really been proud of it.
PAUL DAVIS:
I did feel conscious when I started that I was probably the only black player in the first team squad. There were some older players that had some jokes or some behaviour that I didn’t really agree with. So I had a couple of run-ins. I actually confronted one of them. But other than that I didn’t have any real issues at Arsenal. The fans at the club in general were fantastic. I didn’t feel as though I wasn’t welcome or there were any problems around my colour. Obviously playing other teams as a black player was horrendous sometimes. You would go to some of the grounds and be really singled out because of your colour. Places like Sunderland, Everton, West Ham, Chelsea; so that was a big thing at the time for me because that’s something that you can’t get away from.
Stamford Bridge was particularly tough for a black player back in the early 80s. To have 40,000 really having a go at you for your colour wasn’t great but I was trying to work it all out and deal with it because you can’t shut those things out. You can hear it. Then I saw one of their players, Paul Canoville, was warming up on the touchline and they were giving it to him and I thought, wow, that is really pretty strong. Because I couldn’t imagine if I was playing at Highbury and I got that from my own supporters how I would have been able to deal with that. I felt for Paul Canoville. Consequently he wasn’t able to deal with it. His career and his life went on a different trail.
MICHAEL THOMAS:
I grew up at Chelsea from the age of 11 and I was there when Paul Canoville was. I was in the stands. I felt the abuse. I was only little, a teenager, and I’m seeing this. I remember when John Barnes came along the abuse he got. That was tough and that was part of my big decision – when I left Chelsea and came to Arsenal. Arsenal were very stable and when we played in the first team with Dave Rocastle we thrived on it. Intense. Playing at Millwall, West Ham, Newcastle. Everton had no one and when we played at Everton we used to get so much stick. We didn’t care. We loved it. We just enjoyed the fight in us, to put one over on these people.
PAUL DAVIS:
I felt a big responsibility. I took it on myself to think that for the younger guys coming through I know what they’re going to face and I want to be there supporting them if they need that support. I just wanted to help the younger guys to feel comfortable in the team. Michael Thomas and Dave Rocastle came from South London, which is where I came from. I felt a bit of a bond towards them because I knew their backgrounds, the areas they grew up in, and they did turn to me for support, advice or just watching, seeing what I was doing. It’s quite nice because they used to call me Pops. I was a little bit older than them so they saw me as their father figure within the football world.
Mickey grew up a couple of miles from where I grew up. Mickey loved his football. Loved his flair. He wanted to play. He wanted to go forward. He wanted to show what he could do. He was hard to get to know; he would think about things very carefully before saying things freely. David on the other hand he was always bubbly. He was always somebody that wanted to be in the middle of what was going on. Had a lot to say. He had a great smile. He could do anything. He could dribble, he could defend, his mental approach to every game was: there’s nothing that we can’t do here. We’d be 2–0 down and we could still win it 3–2 as far as Dave was concerned. There was nothing unachievable. He had a fantastic mindset. Between the two of them they were great lads to be around. Fantastic enthusiasm for football, for Arsenal. Together they came into the squad with something new. Inner city boys.
IAN WRIGHT:
Seeing that was massive. When we were growing up in the 70s and early 80s you had Cyrille Regis, Brendon Batson, Laurie Cunningham, Viv Anderson breaking through, but in the main it wasn’t happening. In black communities you would support the teams with black players in them. You would naturally gravitate to that. West Brom. Luton. When you fast forward and Rocky and Mickey and Davo were a focal point, right amongst it, and doing well, it is very inspiring stuff. This is where my Arsenal allegiance came from. They gave people a chance. They gave my little mate a chance.
MICHAEL THOMAS:
Obviously being a black player I used to look at all the great teams at the time and think, how many black players have they got in the team? Spurs had Chris Hughton, Crooksy. Fantastic. Used to look at Liverpool. You know, they had no black players but then Howard Gayle came on to the scene. Man United, Paul McGrath. Paul Davis came through at Arsenal while I was only a schoolboy. He lives round the corner from me. I used to walk through the bus garage, then go to the sweet shop and Paul was there in his sky-blue Escort. He plays for Arsenal. It was like wow. To this day I still look up to Paul.
ALAN DAVIES:
I do remember Paul Davis punching Glenn Cockerill. It’s difficult to talk about because to this day none of them will say what was said. He was my personal favourite player and one of the reasons was because he was prepared to do that and he would never say why. I thought: that shows a lot of class. But something had happened because he never punched anyone else in his whole career. David Rocastle and Michael Thomas and Paul Davis were not to be trifled with and we loved them for that and Davis was the most mild-mannered, a quietly unassuming but tough player. It was unexpected that he did what he did.
LEE DIXON:
I remember he was on News at Ten. This was sensational, the first time a player had got done by trial by television. It was just so out of character for him to do something like that. We all knew something had happened for him to do that. Because Davo was tough. He would look after himself. How he never played 50 games for England I will never know. He was just a sublime footballer. But he suffered because of such a long ban. Nine games then, it was a record, and he struggled to get back into the team that season.
PAUL DAVIS:
I think I am calm generally speaking but I can look after myself as the guys in training will know. Any footballer that gets to that level has something deep inside them that’s going to do something ultimately if it comes to it. That was my moment where I saw some injustice going on, happening to me, and the referee didn’t see it and wasn’t taking any action against it so basically for me I felt I was being trampled on, elbowed, stood on and there was nothing, there was no retribution being taken by the referee in terms of yellow cards for Glenn Cockerill. I took it upon myself to pay some retribution, which isn’t the right thing to do.
I hit him in the face and he went down. This was off the ball. The ref didn’t see it but obviously Glenn Cockerill is on the floor. The game comes to a stop and he gets attended to by the physios. Everybody’s thinking, who has hit him? Why is he on the floor? I’m about 10 or 15 yards away. The referee doesn’t see it so he doesn’t book me or send me off and the game goes on. At this stage we’re winning the game but all their players are after me. We got a penalty. As we were taking the penalty someone came up behind me and gave me one whack behind my back on the back of my legs. To be fair to George I think he recognised what was going on and he just pulled me off.
GARY LEWIN:
The Southampton physio had two players to treat at the time as someone else was down and I went on to treat Glenn. I said, ‘I think he’s broken his jaw.’ He said, ‘Nah, he’s all right,’ threw s
ome water on his face and Glenn carried on. We had an X-ray machine at the club at the time and after the game it transpired he had broken his jaw in two places.
PAUL DAVIS:
I remember coming out of the FA hearing feeling very, very, very despondent. Nine matches is a long, long time to be banned and £3,000 was a lot of money back then. The fact that I missed those games had an effect on me. I would have loved to have played more games in this particular season but it is what it is. That was probably the hardest situation in football for me to deal with personally because it did change my footballing career. I was on the verge of the England set-up at that point and after that my England situation tailed off.
SIX
Oh What Fun It Is to See The Arsenal Win Away
ALAN SMITH:
We started the season at glamorous Plough Lane. The dressing rooms were about five foot by five foot. You got crammed in there. The pitch wasn’t the best. The old stands. They had John Fashanu up front and the Crazy Gang and you had to compete with them physically. We conceded the first goal as John Fashanu snuck behind Steve Bould on his debut. Tony said afterwards, ‘Everyone’s thinking, God, who’s this we’ve bought? He’s just let his man go and score!’ But we came back and I got a hat-trick, which I was delighted about. We were up and running. I always remember being interviewed by the press in the little poky corridor just outside the dressing room. ‘Alan, do you think you’ll be top scorer this season?’ ‘I don’t think so. I’m a back-to-goal kind of player. I’m not really one of those who’s going to get 25 or 30 goals.’