Nostalgia

It’s retro-a-go-go everywhere you look at the moment, teenagers in luminous skirts, odd socks, Kajagoogoo touring again, it’s like a time warp back to the good old days of the 1980’s.

And then West Ham & Millwall decide to reprise that other sad remnant of the decade.

As soon as the draw was made it was obvious there’d be trouble, but fair play to the Police & the FA, they could quite easily have put a stop to away fans travelling.

I’ve written before that there’s a larger proportion of Millwall fans that behave, no sorry, ARE animals than follow your average clubs, but the same can be said for West Ham.

Row after row of shaved headed, check-shirt wearing Danny Dyer wannabees. And what a s**t role model. Danny f***ing Dyer. The t**t.

I mean, look at this prize bell-end, looks like he's still in nappies.

I’ve always loved going to football ever since the early seventies when my dad took me down to watch Forest in the old second division. I wasn’t too old when I started going on my own, meeting up with friends in the Old Trent End for home matches before starting travelling away.

But unfortunately I fitted the profile, big lad, nice-ish clothes, late teens. Being searched at the turnstiles wasn’t only common-place, it was the minimum I’d expect. A fantastic away trip to Leicester summed it up for me when I was singled out to be made an example of in front of a few hundred recently arrived Forest fans. My crime ? Wrong place at the wrong time.

Fortunately now I know I can go away with impunity. When going to Barnsley in the early nineties meant missing out on pre-match drinks because Forest “scabs” were offered flying pint glasses from 20 yards, I’m now planning my trip to Sheffield in a couple of weeks based on a CAMRA guide to the best places to drink.

Times have changed, and for the better.

Will the trouble Tuesday night rekindle the knee jerk reactions seen by the Thatcher government in the eighties, away-fan bans, membership cards, loss of European competition ? I doubt it, most of the reaction seem to acknowledge that this is a minority of people, some not even having tickets to the game.

However, what is obvious from Tuesday night is that this problem hasn’t gone away completely, and as much as it was completely & utterly predictable, the police were powerless to stop it. In the eighties you had under-cover cops infiltrating the hooligan gangs. Now days we’re told that Police monitor internet forums, chat-rooms and the like to find out what’s being planned. It’s clear from Tuesday that they’ve lost this control.

The majority of West Ham fans are decent people, and it’s those people who’ll suffer more from this. The sub-human pond-life who caused the trouble inside the ground should be identified and banned for life from every football ground in the country.

Maybe closing Upton Park down until they are all identified would quicken this process.