The Glory Game, page 13
9. THE SKINHEAD SPECIAL
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As far as British Rail is concerned, there are two sorts of football supporter – football supporters and hooligans. You can tell the hooligan train by the police patrolling up and down every carriage.
For the match against Coventry, the special train was the twelve-forty. It wasn’t billed on the train departures board, just in case any innocent passenger going to Coventry should get on it by mistake.
The fans were arriving in their hundreds from about eleven o’clock, looking for excitement from the minute they got onto the forecourt at Euston, chanting Spurs songs, drawing attention to themselves as much as possible, hoping someone would be silly enough to stand in their way. One of their constant rationalisations is that they don’t look for trouble, but if anyone else does, they go right in. Not looking for trouble means running in gangs and scattering everyone before them, upturning any people or objects in the way and jeering and swearing at anyone who looks remotely like a supporter from another club.
This morning they were looking out for Everton supporters arriving at Euston for their match in London against Crystal Palace. The massed Spurs fans stood at the doorways, their knotted scarves at their side, daring the Everton fans to walk between them, ready to trip them up. It was all good-natured, really. It was too early for a fight. They were just flexing their muscles. However, it didn’t fool the police. They suddenly pounced and half a dozen Spurs fans were dragged off by the ears across the forecourt, shouting they’d done nothing. The rest immediately calmed down and made their way in little huddles to the ticket office.
As a species they used to be called skinheads, and still are by the press, but that term was already about a year out of date. Almost all of them had long hair and many could have passed for hippies, except for their big heavy boots. The average age was fifteen. They called themselves Smooths, if they called themselves anything. There was none of the uniformity of the previous season, when they all had Doc Martin boots and dark-blue Crombie overcoats and very short hair, though there were remnants of the old style here and there. The term ‘Smooth’ had come about because of their smoother hair and more colourful clothes compared with the drabness of the skinheads. They don’t like being mistaken for hippies, a breed they consider filthy.
The train was full and there must have been a thousand supporters altogether. They hung out of windows, cheering their friends, jeering at other trains. There was a big roar when a couple of the kids who’d been strong-armed by the police reappeared and came racing down the platform to leap onto the train as it started. But a few had been kept behind. The police policy is to grab any ringleaders creating a disturbance and put them in a room, letting them out after the train has gone.
For the first half-hour of the journey they kept up the noise at the windows, shouting and singing, then they settled down, some playing cards, some fighting each other on the seats. No damage was being done, except to each other. The police patrols were very good-humoured, breaking up the fighting by trying to make everyone sit one to a seat instead of jamming twenty to a table.
I sat down with three of the noisiest. Two of them had their arms covered with tattoos. ‘Ben Gunn in Chingford done it for me, didn’t he.’ One of them turned down his bottom lip to reveal a tattoo on the inside and asked me to read it out. It looked like ‘fuck’. He laughed and said look again. It said Nick, which was his name.
Nick said he was eighteen and worked on a building site. He’d been up since six-thirty that morning. His mother, who didn’t approve of his habits, wouldn’t give him breakfast so he’d gone round as usual to his mate’s house and had his breakfast there. His mate said he’d been an apprentice bricklayer at one time, but after they both got put away for three months, he lost his apprenticeship and now he was a labourer.
‘It was at Manchester City last season,’ explained Nick. ‘We got beat 1–0 and we were right cheesed off. We saw a gang of them. They threw a brick at us so we went and done them. We got three months’ detention in Nottingham. First month was the worst. We were on remand in Liverpool. A month in a little room about the size of this table. Not nice. Not nice at all. Poor little Nicky.’
Nick put on a funny Charlie Drake voice and everyone laughed. Encouraged by his success, he took off his polo-neck to show his muscles, challenging the rest of his gang to compete with him in arm locks. One of the policemen going past on his rounds and seeing Nick naked to the waist stopped and asked if he wasn’t going to go the whole hog.
‘Cheeky,’ said Nick, blowing him a kiss. ‘And I’ll have two tickets for your ball.’
Everyone cheered and the policeman continued down the gangway, smiling.
That morning, so they said, they’d walked around the streets after breakfast till the pubs opened. They’d been drinking till it had been time to go to Euston. Nick’s mate said he’d started the day with £7.50. He now had £3 left for the day’s football and drinking.
I asked what they thought about the steel staples thrown by two fourteen-year-old kids at the Newcastle match. ‘Out of order,’ said Nick. ‘Stupid. They just spoil it for us and everyone. Stupid.’
They all agreed, nodding their heads, saying they would never throw things at players. Hitting rival supporters, that was different. ‘Or an Arsenal player,’ said one lad. ‘That would be different. I’d like to kill all the Arsenal players and then burn the stand down.’
They argued amongst themselves over this, most people disagreeing. They hated Arsenal but they wouldn’t actually kill an Arsenal player. That was also out of order.
They seemed knowledgeable but completely uncritical in their loyalty to Spurs. They hadn’t a bad word to say about any player. They loved each and every one. There was no one they wouldn’t have in their team. But Gilzean was clearly the most popular player. At the mention of his name, they burst into his song, to the tune of the Christmas carol ‘Noël, Noël’. ‘Gilzean, Gilzean, Gilzean, Gilzean, born is the King of White Hart Lane.’
After Gilly came Chivers, but none of them had many good words for him off the field. ‘He’s a monkey git. He won’t sign autographs. But on the field he’s fantastic. I’d go anywhere to watch him.’
The policeman came past again and made the same remark to Nick who was still sitting stripped to the waist.
‘I knew you fancied me,’ said Nick, standing up on the table and unbuttoning his flies. He pulled his pants down and turned round, showing his bare arse to the policeman. ‘There you are, ducky. Now he’ll nick me for indecent exposure.’
The policeman laughed and went on. When he’d gone, Nick put all his clothes back on. ‘Bloody cold. Always the same when you go Norf wif all them natives.’
Ipswich was his favourite place and his mates agreed. ‘More cunt,’ said one of them. ‘They ain’t got no supporters. All the geezers up there don’t know what it’s for. We always stay the night there and chase their birds.’
The worst places were Manchester and Liverpool, though they wouldn’t miss either for anything. ‘It’s a long way from the station to the grounds and the police just let you get kicked. They don’t look after you or nuffink. Just let you run into trouble. You go around a corner and there’s a hundred of their supporters. They down you and nick everything from you, even your clothes. The police don’t give a bugger. Diabolical. The cops should protect you. Leeds is easy. Pushover up there. Same as Coventry. We’ll eat them today.
‘The club call us hooligans, but who’d cheer them on if we didn’t come? You have to stand there and take it when Spurs are losing and the others are jeering at you. It’s not easy. We support them everywhere, but we get no thanks.’
‘I don’t think Nicholson’s appreciated by the press,’ said another. ‘He’s a great manager. Yet the only fucking face you see on the telly is Shankly. He’s on it all the time. It’s all this northern thing. Makes you sick. They hardly mentioned Nick. Look what he’s done. That ’61 team. Fantastic.’
They all went into raptures about the ’61 team. John White was their favourite. They had pictures of him on their bedroom walls, ringed in black, as a sign of perpetual mourning for his death. (Killed by lightning on a golf course.) They’d all gone to Spurs even then, taken by their dads.
‘Nick gives entertainment. You never see Spurs play defensively. Even today. They’ll attack against Coventry. You see.’
One or two had the audacity to say that they hoped Mike England was back on form. If not, they wanted Collins back. They all agreed they liked Collins. And they hoped Mullery was also back to form, though it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t started off the season so well. ‘Too much football.’
Most of them had blue-and-white scarves, in either wool or silk, which they had knotted round their middles. Some wore rosettes, but not on their chests. That season’s fashion was to pin rosettes on their thighs. Nick didn’t have a scarf or any Spurs sign.
‘It draws attention to you. The police nick you before you do nuffink. I tried last week to emigrate but they said I can’t till I’m twenty-four because of my prison record. I don’t want no more of that.’
In the corner a bespectacled hippie-looking supporter was asleep. He was said to be the leader of their gang, a boy named Tony. If you woke him, you’d be for it. His mates were sitting peaceably by his side reading comics, Scorcher, Shoot and others. He had a coloured shirt and beads round his neck. He looked tubby and innocuous, more like the Owl of the Remove than a hooligan. I said excuse me, Tony, could I have a word. He said no, fuck off. He wouldn’t talk. I’d talked to Nick and that lot before him. I should have spoken to him first, as the leader. Then he closed his eyes again.
There were a few girls on the train, travelling in couples, not with any of the gangs of boys. They were dressed alike, in trousers and men’s jackets, swearing at any boy who tried to sit beside them, suspicious and very aggressive. They didn’t want to talk at all.
I went back to the famous Tony and this time he kindly consented to be talked to. I admired his beads. ‘Got them this morning. I became a hippie when I decided it was better to make love not war. I’m not mad.’
I asked how many grounds he’d been chucked out of. ‘You mean this week?’ He looked round, leering while his mates laughed. ‘Tony raped his teacher at five,’ shouted one of them. ‘Go on, ask him. Didn’t you, Tony?’
‘Let’s see,’ said Tony, taking off his specs and pretending to think. He was medium height, fat rather than well built but he had a presence, or at least his admirers seemed to think so, waiting breathless for his answer.
‘Arsenal five times, Tottenham six times, Carlisle, Palace, Coventry, I forget . . .’
He’d been in court six times, the last for attacking a policeman. ‘He was trying to chuck me out so I grabbed his walkie-talkie and tried to break it. He was calling for help. But I haven’t been sent away. I’m too lovable to send away.’
One of his mates with a skinhead haircut said the first day he went to Spurs with Tony he got three months’ detention for being in the same fight, yet Tony had got nothing. It must be Tony’s looks, so studious, blinking through his glasses, not the sort you’d immediately suspect. He said he was living in Kentish Town at the moment, but that was temporary. His family were squatting.
Of all the fifty or so in his gang, he was the only one who said he actually looked for fights. Nick and everyone else maintained they only fought when attacked, making a big pretence of it all being self-defence.
‘It’s more exciting if you hit someone,’ said Tony, ‘especially some northern bastard. I hate all northerners. You’ve got to show them the cockneys are best. It’s satisfying to hit someone. It feels good. Now get lost. I’m going back to sleep.’
As we got into Coventry, they raced for the doors, swinging them open before the train had halted. They lined up on the platform then charged over the bridge, cheering and shouting, taking over the station by the suddenness and volume of their arrival.
At the bottom of the steps, the police were waiting. There were about twenty of them, with sergeants issuing orders and talking into their walkie-talkies, all ready for the attack.
We were all stopped and herded into orderly lines as the police made gauntlets for us. As each person went through, he was quickly searched. Pockets and legs seemed to be the main object. It was done speedily, without the queue being held up. I hardly felt the policeman who searched me, but he obviously knew what he was doing and what he was looking for. Nobody in the gang I was with seemed to have anything illegal hidden in his pockets. But on the pavement outside, I saw a couple of lads being strong-armed into a black maria.
We set off in formation, singing songs and clapping, to let Coventry know that the Spurs boys had arrived. The ones at the front set off at a trot, but eventually slowed down to let the others catch up. The police set off at the same time, spreading out at intervals along the long line of supporters, directing them along a prearranged route, keeping them away from trouble or temptation.
Our numbers had swollen to well over a thousand by now. Supporters who’d come on earlier trains or by car or coach had been waiting for the special. Tony’s gang was joined by two old-fashioned skinheads with Crombie coats and blue handkerchiefs in their top pockets. They had strong Wolverhampton accents, but were covered in Spurs badges. They said they never missed a Spurs match, home or away, even though it costs them a fortune. There was a girl who’d come from Birmingham. She was the girlfriend of one of Tony’s pals, but Tony immediately had his arm round her, kissing her like the demon lover he said he was.
Nick was marching abreast of one of the policemen, facetiously chatting him up, thanking him for his consideration and help, awfully good of him, guiding them to the ground, he was a toff. The policeman seemed amused rather than annoyed.
I fell in line with the policeman and asked about the searching at the railway station. He was very proud of that. Coventry police had a taskforce of fifty policemen, he said, created especially for football crowds. Policemen came from all over the country, and abroad, to watch them at work. He explained that they were split into what they called serials of eight policemen, each with a sergeant in charge and one constantly on the walkie-talkie. ‘If a fight started now,’ he said, looking at Tony’s gang, ‘I could have the whole taskforce here in seconds. But these seem good lads to me. More like students than skinheads.’
I said that London hooligans didn’t look like hooligans any more. He admitted it was only his second week in the taskforce so he wasn’t really experienced. We passed a gang of old-fashioned Coventry skinheads, standing across the road, keeping their distance. The Spurs lads jeered at them. The policeman looked across at them with interest. As he did so, some of Tony’s gang filled their pockets with fruit from an open-air stall.
I asked the policeman if he’d had any trouble on his two matches so far. He said no, nothing serious. Coventry had had no serious disturbance since the taskforce started eighteen months ago. ‘But the magistrates don’t help. They let them off very lightly. Now at Leicester, they put them away. One football hooligan’s just got eighteen months. We want more like that. That’s the way to stop them.’
I asked if he was worried. ‘I’m scared stiff. I stand at the back surrounded by them and I think if one pulls a knife, I’ve had it.’
He knew that only one or two might have a knife. Most of the lads were probably okay. But all the same, he couldn’t understand why any of them came. They couldn’t possibly enjoy the match.
I said it was the crowd excitement. I’d already felt it when they were stampeding off the train. In the middle of all the noise and shouting, you really did feel you’d taken over the city. I said they were all in rotten jobs, from rotten homes, all the usual things. There was no other excitement or meaning in their lives.
‘I suppose I can understand that. I’m in the police for the excitement. I’m longing for that call in the middle of the night and we’ll have to go belting down the street. I suppose I’m lucky. My excitement’s legal. Theirs isn’t.’
At Coventry City’s ground, all the Spurs boys made for the West stand knowing that was where the home-bred hooligans would be. The police also knew and were already there, guarding every entrance and every queue. Once again, everyone was searched for weapons, but more thoroughly this time, even down to their feet. A policewoman asked me to lift my shoes up one at a time. They were perfectly ordinary Saxone slip-on shoes, but she still wanted to check I had no studs or toe caps fastened underneath. Beside her was a large pile of boots and heavy shoes which fans had been forced to take off. They’d had to go in to watch the match in their stockinged feet, collecting their boots afterwards.
Most of the Spurs boys weren’t wearing boots. It was the Coventry fans who were still on that fashion, being skinheads. Two-tone heavy welted brown shoes seemed to be the new fashion, bright and colourful, like their skinny striped sleeveless pullovers.
Another policeman was guarding a pile of lethal-looking metal combs, the sort you use on dogs, but presumably ideal for combing long, straggly hair. They seemed such effeminate weapons, but no doubt very handy for scarring faces.
One of Tony’s gang was being forced to hand over his comb. He’d had it sticking out of his top pocket for all to see. Tony jeered at him. ‘If you had more brains you’d be dangerous.’
Inside, they charged for the middle of the West stand. The police had made out the demarcation lines, the Coventry fans one side, Spurs the other. Down the middle was a line of policemen, shoulder to shoulder, splitting the West stand in half. The Coventry fans were outnumbered so far. The sudden arrival of a thousand or so Spurs troops a good hour before the kick-off was no match for the handful of local skinheads.
On the pitch, a gymnastics display was being given by some healthy-looking girls, part of Coventry’s policy of trying to entertain the fans and make their ground as much a social centre as possible.
