The Aggro Archives

[dublin 10 blade]

leicester home 2-2 draw.. we got relegated (i know who it was!)

Thought that was after the Cambridge game , and we needed to win 7 nil or something .

 

[wizadry]

leicester home 2-2 draw.. we got relegated (i know who it was!)

You must stop standing in walls, SP.

 

[cahill]

I think you've had a bit of a whoosh moment there mate.

Happens a lot these days mate as you've noticed

 

[coolhandluke]

I had a similar encounter when I got out of midland station after traveling over from Ireland overnight , was due to meet a couple of lads in the Howard , unfortunately some are no longer with us , had my suede Nike jacket on , and small Blades badge on walked in and it was fucking chocker , with Cardiff fans , one of them clocked the badge and came over , where are your lads he said , fuck knows I said ! I was expecting to see them in here , one or two started showing off , but the lad talking to me told em to fuckoff as I was on my own , told me to go and get my mates , said see ya later , and shook his hand , walking up past the Globe there was more fucking Cardiff in there as well , it almost came on top , but I pointed to their boy who gave me the thumbs up and they let me be .
Meet a few others but by this time SYP , had them covered , was walking towards London road and met a few Cardiff getting out of a car , lucky for me the guy with the pink Lyle and Scott on didn't have my trainer imprint on his jumper .
Walking up towards the Pheasant , bumped into the second group from the globe along with their Patrick cagoules , we laughed at each other as the police had us both covered and said alright , and winked at each other .
This was the chapter in Mr Cowens book when they were sat in the upper tier of the Bramall stand .
Then there was the time against ,,,,,,,,,,

Come on then Dublin ...... you dont strike me as the shy retiring type ..... lets be having some more .

Out of interest when did you move to Ireland ?

 

[pommpey]

leicester home 2-2 draw.. we got relegated (i know who it was!)

8 May 1979. Last game I saw before joining the navy.

Your correspondent ran out at the peak of a load of fans, I seem to recall him having a scarf, and lamped the Leicester player after he'd brought down a United player clean on goal.

It was indeed a big night for United.

pommpey

 

[coolhandluke]

8 May 1979. Last game I saw before joining the navy.

Your correspondent ran out at the peak of a load of fans, I seem to recall him having a scarf, and lamped the Leicester player after he'd brought down a United player clean on goal.

It was indeed a big night for United.

pommpey

This was the game that saw the fences going up at the Lane the season after wasnt it ?

 

[Marcus Aurelias]

There , their , they're , I promise to try harder next time .

Good man. It's only a bit of fun.

Where all Blades, arnt we...

 

[dublin 10 blade]

Come on then Dublin ...... you dont strike me as the shy retiring type ..... lets be having some more .

Out of interest when did you move to Ireland ?

30th May 1981 , Remember the day as England played Switzerland and there was carnage at that match .
Came back every second week during seasons for home games , and some away games , did this till late eighties moved home mid eighties for almost a year but couldn't find work , and was getting into to much hassle , so moved back to Dublin , after a brief stop over in Bethnal Green .

 

[dublin 10 blade]

Come on then Dublin ...... you dont strike me as the shy retiring type ..... lets be having some more .

Out of interest when did you move to Ireland ?

We used to take a coach to away games , not Hermans . We used to meet up at old sheaf valley baths .
One game was Sarfend away ,
Anyroads standing in away end , we heard this cockney voice ,
We thought ya cheeky Bastard , so we gathered around to see if we where hearing things ,
Yup we could hear the accent alright , when slap one of the boys caught him on the jaw ,
His mate jumped in saying what the fuck , he's with me he's a cockney Blade , he then pulled up his sleeve to show a Blades tat ,
almost certain his mate used to sing in a band at one stage .

 

[binstedblades]

i know the lad who smacked the leicester player he stilll follows the blades top man utb

 

[sitwell]

2 lads I know ran on the pitch at the Lane against Grimsby from John St and goaded their fans. No stewards in those days so coppers ran on to the pitch. A good couple of thousand Grimsby fans were going mental as Dunky wound them up and avoided the cops keystone style ,while the other one ran off into the south stand and sat in a seat as though nothing happened. Both got done with fines and long community service orders.
I also know the 3 skinheads who ran on when Woody scored against Watford in the last game of the promotion season in 71. Coppers chased the across the middle of the cricket pitch into the pavilion ,no away fans that day to wind up , in fact I was on the lane end with my Dad as the whole ground was rammed.

 

[maidmarion]

Bristol away 88 I think, it kicked off in the stand, then moved onto the pitch, coppers cleared the pitch and the game restarted, then it all kicked off again in the park near the ground. I would say a good 3k Blades there that day. I had the girlfriend with me and bought tickets for us in the stand, thought there would be less chance of any trouble, well we ended sitting right next to the bristol lads with loads of other Blades.

I remember going down to Bristol but not sure it was that date...
Anyhow, remember before match hearing rumours of a stabbing and then during the match it all kicked off in the terrace in front of us. Police dogs were taking chucks out of our supporters,remember being very indignant that this was taking place.
We'd also been 'welcomed' into Bristol , on the coach, by a rotund policemen whose first words were, " if you've any alcohol on this bus you're going straight back to Sheffield' Charming man.

 

[pommpey]

This was the game that saw the fences going up at the Lane the season after wasnt it ?

Think so. Although the next match I went to was some years later.

pommpey

 

[Silent Blade]

This was the game that saw the fences going up at the Lane the season after wasnt it ?

Yes

 

[cahill]

2 lads I know ran on the pitch at the Lane against Grimsby from John St and goaded their fans. No stewards in those days so coppers ran on to the pitch. A good couple of thousand Grimsby fans were going mental as Dunky wound them up and avoided the cops keystone style ,while the other one ran off into the south stand and sat in a seat as though nothing happened. Both got done with fines and long community service orders.
I also know the 3 skinheads who ran on when Woody scored against Watford in the last game of the promotion season in 71. Coppers chased the across the middle of the cricket pitch into the pavilion ,no away fans that day to wind up , in fact I was on the lane end with my Dad as the whole ground was rammed.

I remember those three lads running on the pitch, all coming back now. There was at least one Watford fan there, walked down Shoreham St in front of me talking to a Blade after the match. Overheard him saying he was pleased that the Blades were up because " I hate Cardiff". We always seemed to get loads of Watford players.

 

[Nick Jansky]

Can't begin to tell you all how much we idolised you all once we all discovered punk in 1976 when we were about 16 (running away from Chelsea up the Moor on a freezing cold Tuesday night and ending up in the Top Rank at a Vibrators gig, as it happened). and started relating to our fellow human beings from around the UK instead of wanting to kick their heads in. From that moment onwards those of us truly in the know looked upon the SRA & subsequently BBC as the bunch of arseholes that they were. It never was cool.

 

[Nick Jansky]

And, compared to the truly hard men in Sheffield over the decades, who didn't have much to do with football, very few of them were very hard, especially in a one to one. Same goes for the OCS, virtually all of them on both sides were wannabes.

Still, they have given those of us on the musical side of things some real bellylaughs over the years when we have heard about their posturing in places like, ermm, Swindon!!!! "we were dancing & had them on their toes, they were running!!" Woeful tossers.

Great as part of a mob, though......... We are so proud

 

[Nick Jansky]

Anybody who has ever got involved after the age of 16 is a wanker, and probably a bit concerned about their masculinity. Deep down.

 

[I should coco]

Anybody who has ever got involved after the age of 16 is a wanker, and probably a bit concerned about their masculinity.

Good point.

Doesn't stop them giving you a slap though......

 

[HighfieldBlade]

Now then lads, 101 or more with 6 darts, none dart player to go first........

Keep out of the black and in the red, nothing in this game for two in the head.

 

[Rodley]

Someone's had a few sherberts.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Someone's had a few sherberts.

Like ten men.

 

[S20Eddie]

Bristol away 88 I think, it kicked off in the stand, then moved onto the pitch, coppers cleared the pitch and the game restarted, then it all kicked off again in the park near the ground. I would say a good 3k Blades there that day. I had the girlfriend with me and bought tickets for us in the stand, thought there would be less chance of any trouble, well we ended sitting right next to the bristol lads with loads of other Blades.

That was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, we got turned away from Weston Super Mare by the coppers after and ended up in Evesham drinking with a coach load of Wolves lads.

 

[More Bladier than thou]

That made the national news when a Blade spat at former England manager Graham Taylor when we played Wolves at the Lane, 94/95 season I think it was. I was stood next to the bloke who spat at him, I thought Taylor had gone mad. He'd spent ages arguing the toss with Blades fans around the South Stand tunnel at the end of the game, then suddenly started clutching his face, before leaping into the South Stand to try to make a citizens arrest. I have to say I hadn't realised someone had spat at him. There was plenty of jostling around Taylor as the guilty Blade slipped away.

I was very near to the offender, think he got away with it however because the violinist Nigel kennedy was in the south stand and plenty of blades were trying to get him thrown out for celebrating when Yorke did that cheeky penalty chip.

 

[sitwell]

And, compared to the truly hard men in Sheffield over the decades, who didn't have much to do with football, very few of them were very hard, especially in a one to one. Same goes for the OCS, virtually all of them on both sides were wannabes.

Still, they have given those of us on the musical side of things some real bellylaughs over the years when we have heard about their posturing in places like, ermm, Swindon!!!! "we were dancing & had them on their toes, they were running!!" Woeful tossers.

Great as part of a mob, though......... We are so proud

Think you have a bit of a fantasy about all this to be honest. Its mainly blokes and lads going to matches and sometimes verbals evolves into scraps. This secret world of gangs and firms only exists in authors and film makers minds. Ive been with loads of so called members of the BBC and SRA to hundreds of games times ,and its almost exclusively lads out for a drink and the match ,don't believe all you read or hear. Still haven't received my membership card yet.

 

[Weasel]

I find this picture very unsettling and it is pretty horrendous really. It just shows how bad it was back in the seventies. The hairstyles i mean, not the walking dartboard.

 

[HighfieldBlade]

I find this picture very unsettling and it is pretty horrendous really. It just shows how bad it was back in the seventies. The hairstyles i mean, not the walking dartboard.

Point taken, so to speak.

 

[coolhandluke]

Can't begin to tell you all how much we idolised you all once we all discovered punk in 1976 when we were about 16 (running away from Chelsea up the Moor on a freezing cold Tuesday night and ending up in the Top Rank at a Vibrators gig, as it happened). and started relating to our fellow human beings from around the UK instead of wanting to kick their heads in. From that moment onwards those of us truly in the know looked upon the SRA & subsequently BBC as the bunch of arseholes that they were. It never was cool.

On the Top Rank theme in the " aggro " thread . Two Barnsley fans were slashed very badly by a couple of very young lads under the Top Rank in about 1982 i think .

As for The Vibrators ..... 40 years old this year ...... shit then and still shit now . A far superior group made their debut in Sheffield in the same year .... The Clash making their first appearance supported the Sex Pistols at the Black Swan in 76 . A tenous link , i know , but the Black Swan ( later called the Compleat Angler ) shared a road with with a Pub called Silks in the 90's . Silks saw more than its fair share of Aggro back in the day !

 

[Cassius Kray]

Quite a few stories in the Bladerunners book resulted from ones we made up and told Armstrong after a game at Highbury when we were 5-0 down at half time (think its the only time Ive left a game early). He will never know how close he came to getting his head kicked in actually ,one or two more lads filtered in during the second half and were convinced he was an undercover copper, it took a couple of well known lads to persuade them otherwise but it was very close.

As a result of Armstrong's work United are mentioned in a major book on social science research. Unfortunately the guy writing it clearly knows nothing about football:

Very often, research participants develop a sense of the kinds of events the ethnographer wants to see or encounters that it would be beneficial to be present at. Armstrong (1993) says that, while doing research on ‘The Blades’, a group of supporters of Sheffield United Football Club who were engaged in hooligan activity (see Chapter 17 for other references to this research), he would sometimes get tip-offs:

‘We’re all gonna’ Leeds in a couple o’ weeks . . . four coaches, Pond Street, town centre. If you’re serious about this study you’ll be down there on one of ’em.’ I often travelled on the same coach as Ray [an informant]; he would then sit with me at matches and in pubs and point out Blades, giving me background information. Sometimes he would start conversations with Blades about incidents which he knew I wanted to know about and afterwards would ask ‘Did you get all that down then?’ . . . There was never one particular informant; rather, there were many Blades I could ring up and meet at any time, who were part of the core and would always welcome a beer and a chat about ‘It’, or tell me who I ‘ought to ’ave a word wi’. (Armstrong 1993: 24–5)

 

[Bladeloyal]

Gary used to knock about with the late SRA very early BBC ,used to see him regular with the lads around 79/80 /81 .