George.... when did it all go wrong?

Here....




(number two was against dem blades)

 

I thought goal number six was the best of those ten. Number two was against Sheffield Utd at the Lane if my memory serves.......Sweet

 

Hmmm most of those goals started off with a "hoof" down the pitch. Some on here wouldn't be happy with that. No 2 was at Old Trafford, Sheff U were in the away kit.

 

No that goal number two was at Old Trafford and I was there to see it. I shouldn’t have been in the ground but I had a huge stroke of good fortune.

I had travelled from York with no idea about what kind of crowd was going to turn up and was caught in a crush outside with the gates already closed. Luckily I was right next to the wife of Man Utd’s centre half, Steve James and she was obviously feeling sorry for me, or something. She escorted me to the officials’ entrance and up to the back of the stand where the cameras were. From there I stood and watched the match and was privileged to see a genius score that fabulous goal.

Paddy McCourt’s against Middlesbrough was better though!

 

Well I did question my memory!
Ps only just noticed the ‘dem blades’ comment on op

 

One word - alcohol.

 

Cousin from Donny, who was a season ticket holder at Old Trafford treated me to a game for my birthday.
United were playing Sheffield Wednesday and a large crowd was anticipated. One of my birthday gifts from
my parents was a pair of stylish slip on shoes.

After the game we needed to get the bus back to the railway station and got swept up in the crowd, to the
point that I got sandwiched between some large blokes and was lifted off my feet. As that happened, one
of my shoes fell off and presumably got kicked along by the crowd. I felt a right pillock on the train with
only one shoe on and was dreading telling my parents. I shouldn't have bothered, they were very understanding
and we're just glad I hadn't tried to retrieve my shoe and had opted to keep myself safe instead.

 

My story dates back to around 1972 - I can’t remember the exact date. I was in the RAF at Linton on Ouse and not going home that weekend, hence my crazy decision to go to Old Trafford for the first time ever. Even though I was 20 at the time it never occurred to me that there might be such a huge crowd that the gates would be locked an hour before kick off. There was no need to get tickets in advance in those days so you just paid at the gate, provided you got there on time I suppose.

The crush outside the ground was quite frightening and I still don’t know to this day what Mrs James was doing getting caught up in it. Imagine today’s pampered WAGs being in that situation! I wrote to thank her the following week, c/o Old Trafford of course, for getting me into the ground. She replied, sending me a programme, telling me that she was really grateful that I had been there to protect her as she was pretty scared out there. She thought at the time that I was a policeman!

This kind of crush situation was commonplace in those days, in and out of the grounds. You could say it was only a matter of time before people were seriously hurt, or killed. We all know what followed in the 80s.

I suppose your losing a shoe wasn’t so bad in the circumstances.

 

One, two buckle my shoe.

 

I saw him play at Bellend Rd, must have been just before he left United. He was stood by the ball just before kick-off when a Man U fan ran onto the pitch and kneeled down in front of him to kiss his boots.

 

Tony Pulis says , a couple of simple one two’s , a few hopeful punts , the rest lucky bounces

 

Shame he never got to perform on the world stage. Sadly flawed individual though despite the magic in his feet.

 

Do some people really consider him the best ever? I'm not being funny (and I suspect I might be opening a can of worms here) but I was expecting better goals than most of them (although 6 is fantastic).

 

As it turned out it wasn't the worst outcome. My cousin explained to me later what might have happened,
if I had gone down on the floor looking for my shoe. It seemed a daft suggestion at the time, but he's quite
right I could have easily have been trampled on and the outcome could have been too horrendous to think
about. Thinking back, there was no way we were in control at any time of the direction that the crowd took
us. We had to wait for it to thin out, before we could retrace our steps and join the road we needed, to get
the bus back to the railway station.

 

Number 10, chopper harris sliding in like an excocet missile from stage right catching his back leg, Today they would have gone down like a sack of spuds instead of carrying on and scoring, but then again chopper would have been jailed for GBH these days.

 

Crazy wasn’t it! I’m no great fan of all seater stadiums and advance ticket sales but there’s no doubt that football grounds are safer places these days.

I think the last crush that I suffered was that awful cattle pen terracing at the Victoria Ground, Stoke when we drew 3-3 in the cup. Exciting stuff on the pitch but potentially disastrous where we were crammed together

 

Yeh, they opened the gates to let us in - what possibly could have gone wrong?

 

I got there early and got myself a nice spot on the half way line, back against the wall of the stand that was not very much higher than the terrace we were in. By kick off time though I was regretting my choice because 50,000 reds fans decided to head for that pen and there was no one to stop them. It could have been a tragedy. Ok, I exaggerate- no more than 10,000....

 

The last crush I was involved in was at Hillsboro 1984, FA Cup game. nearly crushed in the centre tunnel under the Leppings land stand heading for the terracing. I vowed never to go through there again - and 5 years later the unthinkable happened