The Battle of Edgware Road

The superficial reading might conclude these episodes show the police and Headhunters were totally supportive of each other. Yet the various criminal trials involving them failed, in particular because some of the police (admittedly from the Football Intelligence Unit rather than Transport Police) were proven to be agents provocateurs.

It was the police desire for revenge that led to the ludicrous Donal ‘Macintyre Undercover' infiltration of the Headhunters that I and colleagues have analysed elsewhere.

Nonetheless, my experience was a faint echo of yours: can't remember the exact date but I think we won and Alan Harper scored an amazing solo goal!

Even now, we have the "them and us" attitude. You can go inside to listen to Wenger speak, but not sit outside to watch his ex-team play.

Stick, shitty end first, football fans for the use of.

Nothing changes, eh, Rick Parry?

There were some really nasty skirmishes against Chelsea going back into the 1970s, the August 1978 battle at Kensington High Street when Everton fans including kids were battered with fire extinguishers being a catalyst for many revenge attacks on Chelsea at Goodison and in London.

Chelsea were relegated in 1979 and for 5 years clubs in Division 2 had to put up with their away fans with notable riots at Derby, Shrewsbury, Wolves and Grimsby of all places in that time.

Their first home game back after promotion in 1984 was against us. It was live on TV on a Friday night, very unusual in those days, and only 17,700 attended. The atmosphere was vile though and at half-time a flare was launched from the Everton fans that landed almost on top of the dugouts by the players' tunnel! There were street battles after involving small groups with knives and all sorts.

I didn't attend the game you write about the next season, but I went to the Goodison game we lost 4-3 in between where Chelsea fans were all taken off the trains at Edge Hill and bussed to Goodison, where they were attacked, and to a League Cup game at Stamford Bridge (another 2-1 loss) about a month after your bad experience. In both cases the atmosphere was highly toxic.

My experiences back then are one of the reasons I loathe Chelsea to this day. I know a lot of decent Chelsea fans, but they had some real scum, racist, evil fans back then.

Your article throws up a lot of interesting sidelines, not least Thatcher and her loathing of Merseyside, Geoffrey Howe's proposal to put Merseyside into ‘managed decline' plus the despicable behaviour prevalent in the Met Police back then.

I don't believe that any of that has really gone away totally since. Indeed, the Covid-19 Lockdown special measures seem to be being forced on to Merseyside more than anywhere else just now. The Tories don't give a toss about jobs and the Liverpool economy, always remember that.

Great article by the way and well done for following through with the complaint. Some sort of justice in the end.

You went all over the place with this piece, but I couldn't resist following. Powerful stuff. Thank you. A whole range of dormant emotions resurfaced as I read this piece.

The season after the game you are talking about (the one when Alan Harper won with a screamer), I saw very similar scenes right outside the ground.

For years, we drank in the Fulham working man's club before our games at Chelsea. On this day, a couple of coppers warned the Chelsea fans we were drinking with, to stay inside for 15 minutes as the Scousers had arrived and were being marched from the tube station: "A warm welcome was waiting for them".

We left about half-an-hour, later thinking we had missed the trouble, but we walked right into it. From the side street, we could see police in huge numbers showing how hard they were, by hammering dozens of scouse kids in their mid-teens with their sticks. Shithouses.

London clubs were no different than the rest of the clubs around the country. They had their share of thugs, but the overwhelming majority of them were top-notch fans who loved a bevy and a bit of banter. It wasn't the fans you had to keep a wary eye out for when you went to London. It was the fucking Bizzies.

Arsenal were less of a problem, whilst visiting Palace, Charlton, QPR and Wimbledon was always quite relaxed. So London was not all bad.

Millwall was a different proposition of course, but I always think that is a club whose reputation goes before them. Every hooligan from any club wanted to go there and they still to this day have a sizeable problem with local ‘rent-a-mob', who turn up for the big games for the trouble not the football.

As we know from our visit there last year, those South Londoners don't appreciate people turning up in their manor looking for trouble. Very similar to Scousers in that respect.

I didn't have too much trouble – I'm a woolly back but with a BBC accent. I once had trouble getting into the away end at Highbury because I didn't sound "Evertonish". I told the officer to define "Evertonish" and that, in any event, I wasn't aware that that was a requirement to be permitted entry. Of course, he let me in. White male middle-class privilege.

My worst experience was at Highbury at the FA Cup Semi-Final in 1984 where we beat Southampton. There was a bloody pitch invasion but the worst aspect was that there was no separation between us and Southampton fans in the tube station. All very tense.

Finally whilst living in Upton Park, the away fans were being led to the tube station within a police cordon, I actually cut through a gap in the police lines to go down a back alley to get home (November 1984 - 1-0 win). Probably not very smart as the Hammers fans were trying to get at us.

I wore an Everton scarf to a Liverpool v Bayern Munich game around that time. Got a bit of stick for that. Not quite sure what I was thinking.

Football was a very dangerous place in those days, and then they invented excstacy tablets!

Funny thing is though, I reckon if you grew up in somewhere like rural Norfolk or Devon, you wouldn’t care at all about the managed decline of Liverpool and it would be very easy to look on aghast at the freak show it is represented as in the right wing media. If you grew up in Somerset or Kent with parents that read the Mail you would not give a fuck about socialism and would only value things like the NHS when you were older or ill. For many years I have felt like a stranger in a very strange land when I consider how so many seemingly ordinary sane working class people vote Tory. I got my education in spite of the Thatcher reforms of 1983 and have read deeply into moral philosophy, psychology and sociology to help me understand. There is a lot of really interesting evidence that moral decisions are based upon similar principles to taste buds: that morality is based very much upon involuntary instinctive with the logical mind then finding a theory to align with the initial instinctive response; that people who are left leaning socialists have moral taste buds that are heavily influenced by a sense of fairness and social justice; while right wing thinking also includes these but is more complex as more inclined towards principles which prioritise tradition family values, religion [although it could be suggested the tories only accepted Thatcherism as a religion when every trace of traditional religious values was kicked out of it] and cultural matters, like patriotism.

Essentially, there are a lot of absolute c**ts in our society, with the more intelligent and wealthy c**ts gravitating towards politics or other forms of power like the police where they can achieve c**tyness to their heart’s content.

Just for clarity, I think Jamie Carragher is a c**t who should have been fired a long time ago.

Returning to the football though, Harper’s goal was fantastic. If I remember right Chelsea had just equalised and he took the ball near the centre circle, dribbled through 4 Chelsea players and let rip a screamer into the roof of the net!

The only goal I have seen that comes close was Clyde Best in the early 70s for West Ham at Goodison doing the same thing. Speaking to West Ham fans a feat he had never achieved before or subsequently. I think the crowd just spontaneously applauded him

As for Heysel, a friend was there during a Arsenal Cup Winners Cup fixture. He decided before to game started to go to the loo. Ended up outside the ground, and went back in again unhindered.

He told me that he was surprised at how dilapidated the ground was and was even more surprised when he heard the, now infamous , European Cup Final. was the next game there that season.

When we played Chelsea at home in the November, there was absolute carnage after the game. Revenge was on the cards for Everton fans, and boy did Chelsea get it. They were attacked from everywhere on the route back to Lime street, particularly between Goodison and Everton valley. If I remember rightly, their main man was called "Bunny" and I'm sure he went down with his head caved in by bricks. Not nice to see, and even police horses came under attack from the bricks and bottles launched at Chelsea fans. It can't have been nice being a Chelsea fan on that walk back to Lime street.

Revenge, however, was not far away for Chelsea. The following week we played Arsenal away, and again I went on the special, but this time with mates. If I remember rightly, there was only about two hundred on the special. There was trouble during the game as Arsenal fans mixed in with us in the away end. For anyone who went to Highbury, the nearest tube station was Highbury, which when you came out the away end, you would turn right and walk about 200 yards of so. For some reason though, the police escort decided to walk us right round the stadium, so we were in effect sitting targets for the Arsenal fans. We got on the tube and headed back to Euston with no further trouble. Things were different at Euston though. As we came up the final escalator to the main concourse, about a thousand years appeared over the wall. They were all there, Arsenal, Chelsea, millwall, West ham and Spurs. The police had fucked off leaving us to defend for ourselves. Scuffles broke out but we all managed to get to the platform for the train back. The only thing was, it was the wrong platform, so we had to walk back up and get to the right one. There were about a dozen or so police by this time, who seemed more hell bent on having a go at us rather than the Cockneys.

The metropolitan police really did have a lot to answer for!!

Travelling with the Blues over the years being a Scouser was always a trial, but the outcome was usually okay, when you ignored the obvious looks you received, from shopkeepers, barmen etc when they heard your Scouse accent, and carried on being the person you were, happy and sociable. Bizzies were the hardest to convince,especially the ones in Liverpool!!

On a lighter note, I travelled alone in a dodgy van to the match at QPR later that year. It broke down just off the A4/M4, I was stranded on a slip road. A couple of guys approached me, stuck a Met Police badge against my window, which I wound down. “What you doing down here in a van with a scouse reg?” “I’m just trying to get to the match at QPR to see Everton, I’ve driven a long way”. “Fahkin ‘ell, you’re going to miss the kick off if you stay here. We’ll give you a push”.

They did. We won 5-1.

It was going off well before the match, on the tubes, ambushes, and at HSK, in particularly, and well and truly, set by Chelsea, and after the game it got worse.

I was done by a plain closed copper with hit me with no reason on the forehead with a knuckle duster, from the edge of the platform to my left.

I had one of those cartoon bumps and black eyes for about two weeks. Needless to say, my Mum was shocked and concerned and my Dad, was happy I got back. I figured by going the Royal, I’d have got into further bother, and it was a good choice, as it turned out.

The platform was chocka, and people couldn’t believe I didn’t go down, but, as I said to the cowardly shit house, is that the best you can do.

That changed the tone and we, my brother and a few mates got in his face and he vanished into the mire, but the pictures of the coppers were et he’d in our minds.

It was noticeable that there was an off duty Everton fan ( who we found out was a copper) and she didn’t bat an eyelid nor would condone the police behaviour. May be she was worried for her, job.

PC plod123, was the, answer, he gave when asked his name and rank.

And so we worked on the investigation, with a CID, from BTP, called Dave, a welsh copper, whom proved to be some help in the months that followed.

The lad who got hit and cut was Gerry O, and we picked up on this encounter many times over the years, that passed on away games.

At Knights Bridge CC, the coppers got suspended sentences and within two years had them annulled, or whatever the legal term is.

I was asked to go down to witness this, so I told Dave, what a waste of time and money, and the justice system, was bent and corrupt, and he, couldn’t disagree.

No surprises there, then. The background goes back to the 1970s, and 1978,in particular, I remember as a young lad at Earls Crt, before the game, and various incidents, over the years, and in1984, the first away match, on a Friday night, I was there too.

When they beat us 4-3, at GP, I recall Gordon Davis, getting a couple, or may be a hatrick for Chelsea, Everton, were again on a mission, and so it was, another battle, and every season, the war went on.

Everton, had a mission and accomplished it. Let’s say it was regular battles.

The aftermath of this was in 1987, when Chelsea had to walk back to Edgehill.

Another day of “Infamy”, and the sagas continued.

Funny how many of us on here drank in the working men’s club, near the ground, and at the Chelsea Potter.

In later years we went to pubs a few stops away.

Definitely very dangerous times going the away match in the 1970s and 1980s.

The injustice then and treatment of football fans, hasn’t changed that much, and stereo typing, of football fans, of all parts of the country, is still evident.

It does prove too that in them days you couldn’t, or rarely get fair justice, when dealing with the police.

In some ways with modern technology, there’s not the trouble there used to be, but it still happens, but those were those days.

But more important matters at stake with the COVID19, as this second wave, looks like it’s doing deep, long lasting damage.

All stay safe and well.

Although I had watched Everton in London several times before, my first trip to Goodison was in the earlier 90's to watch Everton and Chelsea play out an awful 0-0 draw. Bizarrely, in order to get myself safely back to Lime Street after the game, I had to latch onto a small group on Chelsea fans who shall we say fitted their stereotype perfectly. This was after I had been identified by some Everton fans as not being local and was clearly a target for them as I was followed along Everton Valley. I was grateful for Chelsea on that day.

I was a loner went and returned on my own steam, Stoke's police were bad, not Stoke supporters. The semi-final against West Ham at Villa Park was an eye-opener, I think Kidd missed a sitter. Leaving the ground was pure violence, both sets of fans squared up outside the ground... on the order that no one runs, it became just bizarre chaos.

I personally did not run, I just walked rather quickly in the opposite direction.

Anyway, on to the replay at Elland Road, I hitched as usual on the East Lancs Road got to the ground. We were in the kop and the game was crap,

Nearing the end of the game, one has to think of getting home, but chancing a look over the West Ham end, I noticed a swathe of Leeds supporters perched on a hill behind. I mentioned this to an older fan beside me; his reply was "No worries, son, they're here with us to twat them southern bastards." So, in the end, I got home safe again with my thumb.

We must have met at some point, do you remember the police club in London, where they used to hold us for hours while we were waiting to be interviewed?

I'm pretty sure that the Dave you mentioned is the Inspector from the Glamorgan force who ran the independent investigation, he at least was a decent bloke. I didn't know that some of the convictions had been overturned. That is bad news. In fact, devastating.

None of the original work was down to one person. In fact, had I been on my own, I am pretty sure that it would never have reached court. The level of indirect pressure was enormous. Nothing that you could make a case over, but just being kept waiting hours to make a 5-minute statement. The innuendo and ridicule when you did get to make a statement. The number of times you had to repeat the same thing over and over again. I very nearly lost a good job through it all.

The lads that I have the most respect for are the ones who came to London time and time again from all over the UK. I could walk from the office.

The whole thing was a team effort, we all encouraged each other to keep going.

At the time, I was living in the capital and I was at that game. There were many other unpleasant experiences in London to go with that one, including getting chased by Police dogs (how can they tell the difference between various supporters?) and hearing thousands of Chelsea 'fans' gathering round the back of the away end when I was there as a neutral to watch Tottenham.

I have lived in all sorts of places through out my life and I swear, my ability to replicate various accents at football matches on numerous occasions was all that stood between me and a good kicking.

Sheesh - it was rough back then.

Next time your up or I'm down the smoke, we can try and arrange a pint. In them days, my brother worked down the smoke and had a good sketch of the place, I worked down there from 1986, for a good while, and also got the sketch and where and when not to go, even on non-match days.

One thing out of it, many people involved became very good friends and some are still around.

For me, the preseason friendlies were always an odyssey and a blast, but away trips to the smoke, and most away grounds, then, were always a risk, such were the times then.

All take care and stay safe and let's hope there's some positive news on the injury front today.

The "scouse" thing is self-inflicted; the penchant for showing off irresponsibly by a loud minority carries on to this day. Dickheads partying in the street putting, 2 fingers up to Covid measures being the latest example.

Although there hadn't been the slightest whiff of trouble, a vanload of uniformed bobbies came in and started throwing people out. With us, was my mate's girlfriend who was Indian. She asked politely what was going on and was told to 'Shut up you [reference to colour] bitch.

Cool as a cucumber, she said: 'Constable, I think you may come to regret that.' 'Why Bitch?' asked the PC ... 'Because I outrank you', she said, as she pulled out her warrant card, showing her to be a Sergeant in Special Branch!!

Sorry for your experience. With a Southern accent, I never had a bad experience.

The one time I did feel uneasy was when my mate insisted I go with him to watch the RS play Celta Vigo. We were in the Kop when he decided it was hilarious to announce to everyone that I was an Everton fan. If looks could kill.

Luckily, nothing came of it. Just very uncomfortable for 90 minutes especially at full time when the RS were eliminated on aggregate. Hard not to smile.

The Chelsea fans were like savages, throwing fire extinguishers through the tube train windows and wading in with iron bars and whatever else they could find. The train floors were covered in blood and every single window was shattered.

I somehow managed to sneak out and make it to safety but there was violence all around the ground. Back at Euston, it was like the arrival of the Dunkirk evacuees arriving at Dover: everyone had horror stories and most had injuries and blood-soaked clothing... and we were the lucky ones. A few were in hospital and didn't get home for a few days.

Thatcher's "managed decline" of the city and wider region was quite apparent to very many Scousers in the 80's. That it was decades later confirmed by government papers was a welcome shock though. Unfortunately though I believe the disclosure of such appalling papers again, on anything, is unlikely.

With Tories it's always "them" - the vast majority, and "us" - the public-school "educated" wealthy, and it's for that reason I abhor our Sir Phillip Carter stand. If he'd have gone any further up Thatcher's arse he'd have emerged from her gob.

Actually what Thatcher done was deindustrialised the UK and turn it into a service economy. Large swathes of that type of industry was replace by industrial goods from further fast growing emerging economies. Competing economy like Germany kept all theirs and will decide and sign off what the UK will get in Brexit.

The Council house revolution you describe gave the buyers a mortgage, which they in alot of cases cashed in making a profit on the discounted original price and then took on a larger mortgage on a house which they now have cleared ready for their Nursing home to take for their care. It also increased rental and poor standard housing, larging resulting in a increase in housing benifit.

The Privatisation shareholders revolution resulted in a quite cash in. The last privatisation resulted in losing of money. The percentage that own share now from these new shareholders is miniscule. Any money they made was a drop in the ocean compared to the increasing costs they experienced in utility services.

The North Sea bonanza went to pay for a massive increase in the benefit system, particularly DLA which was relatively easy to get into the to being swamped by people whose health deteriorated as a result of unemployment and the Thatcher government manipulating the unemployment figures. Setting in place a expotiential growing benefit system structure that will be abused by 5% of those that claim, increasing exponentially as well. Which is close to all inhabitants of the UK in some form or other, with a Thacther like press pushing untrue widespread abuse.

The economy changed to a City Finance non productive economy which derived most of its income internationally and inflated profits off shore as exchange controls where abolished.

All totally different than your retribution of wealth and Thatchers Captilust utopia bullshit.

Not attacking you as a true conservative Martin, but have a rethink of the Thatcher era what describe was nothing more than hollow spin, and nothing like the honourable principles you believe in and which I respect you to have.

The notion of 'managed decline' is an interesting one. Cabinet papers showed that the suggestion, by Lord Howe, was part of a wider point he was making about the distribution of scarce resources across all the cities hit by riots. Piss-poor choice of words, mind.

Cabinet papers show that Michael Heseltine and numerous other cabinet ministers argued vehemently against the notion and that Thatcher dismissed it out of hand. She despatched Heseltine to Liverpool and he rang Thatcher to report back his findings. Among his other observations, Cabinet papers went on to note: "Mr Heseltine considered the behaviour of the police in Liverpool 8 to be quite horrifying. They were not acting in a racialist fashion. They treated all suspects in a brutal and arrogant manner."

Those of us of a certain vintage will recall what a cuddly chap the Chief Con at the time, Sir Kenneth Oxford, was. And we still doff our caps at the redoubtable Margaret Simey, too, who seemed to make it her later life's work to hold him firmly to account.

Such was Heseltine's commitment to the city that it was a Labour administration that awarded him the freedom of the city in March 2012.

The behaviour of the Police in Liverpool 8, the total corruption of the Met division investigating the Stephen Lawrence murder and many more examples show the Police in an extremely bad light. Have they improved since? I doubt it.