Bradford City away in October 81. We got there early and saw a load of Dinno Blades setting off to the city centre looking for some action. Youthful exuberance caused us to follow them as we knew a few from school. Then me a mate decided it might not be such a great idea so we broke away - big mistake! I got absolutely lamped and had a massive swelling black eye as I stood on the open end with half a good eye on the game and the other half watching snooker balls fly back and forth. Of course the Dinno lads (mainly from the pit) were fine and chased a few hundred Bradford fans around for pre-match entertainment.
The following Tuesday (still with a massive swollen shiner), we went to Highbury in the car for the FL second leg. We marched back to Finsbury Park with over a 1000 train bound Blades and all the locals kept out of the way. The 5 of us went downstairs to catch a tube and we get jumped by a mob and kicked to the floor. Of course I got a few in the head again just to 'top up' the eye swelling. Our driver was a bit older and a lot harder and didn't get knocked to the floor. He just stood there smacking Arsenal yoof at his leisure and he had a great night out.
Finally plod arrived and the ultimate insult was a police dog biting one of us lot. Ironically, it was a lad who had an Alsatian at home!
We stopped at a services on the M1 and bumped into the Dinno coach. When some of the harder lads saw the state of us, they were serious about 'going back and finding the cockney wankers' but we'd had enough.
Since then had a few close scrapes at Leeds, Sunderland and amazingly Boston (FAC 85).
