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As a man of shall I say, increasing years, I am so thankful that my sons can go to football in relative safety, that they can go to watch their beloved West Ham United FC and not have to go through what I did at their age - even though at the time, it was a great buzz.

I grew up in a very different era as far as football is concerned and at a time when Police saw every single football fan as a hooligan.

From 1983 to 1988, I probably missed a handful of West Ham games home and away. It was my teenage life, it’s what I lived for, especially the away games, meeting up with my mates, off to Euston or St Pancras to jump on a British Rail special to some place ‘ooop norff’ or wherever it may have been.

I vividly remember the police coming through the run-down train carriage on one occasion as we were approaching Manchester and we were told to pull down the faux leather ‘full window blinds’….Huh? Why? ‘You’re about to find out, son!’

Sure enough, five minutes later the windows started smashing, as bricks and stones started bombarding the train, thrown by Manchester United fans as we passed some crappy housing estate. It was then obvious why the leather blinds got drawn down!

At various times and as part of a football crowd I have been chased by police, have been pushed and shoved by police, have been chased by police horses and even had one slobber over my nice leather jacket outside Old Trafford as the away fans were being jostled to the ground from the station (he must have foresaw the coin I was to lob at Gordon Strachan as he was about to take a corner at the away end during that game).

It was a turbulent time for football, you quite literally took your life in your own hands if you went to an away match. It was a sign of the times I guess, or maybe that was the buzz of attending; either way, none of ‘today's’ fans will ever be able to comprehend what going to a football match was like back then.

One game has always stuck in my memory; the 4th round FA Cup tie v QPR at Loftus Road in 1988.

I remember this tie was huge, there was a real buzz about it amongst West Ham United fans. We had heard rumours that QPR were allowing cash on the gate entry but as season ticket holders we managed to get our tickets in advance. West Ham had been allocated the entire stand at the away end.

I remember getting to Loftus Road an hour so before the game. The place was absolutely rammed with West Ham fans, riot police and horses were pushing us all towards the away end turnstiles. It was chaos, people being squeezed tighter and tighter, all of us trying to cram through a few turnstiles.

It was 5-10 minutes before kick off and the turnstile operator was just waving everyone through. People were screaming and shouting, choruses of Bubbles were sang, chants of ‘ICF’ - you know, the usual stuff. We got into the ground eventually, more on a tide than by our own steam.

I vividly remember the squeeze , the crush on the terraces, no doubt as a result of more and more people coming through and down onto the terraces. We were simply swept along and couldn’t stop even if we'd wanted to.

As the tidal wave of people became too much, hundreds of us managed to jump over the wall onto the pitch. I remember sitting down on the edge of the pitch with our backs against the advertising hoardings thinking this is pretty ‘kin cool.

The sea of people coming over the terrace wall didn’t stop for some time. There was such an atmosphere. The choruses of Bubbles, the chants of ‘Johnny Lyall’s Claret and Blue Army’….

Foot police and police horses came on to the pitch and police were trying to force everyone back onto the terraces where there was simply no room. Eventually the fans were dispersed into other sections of the ground.

We ended up with a great view in the main stand lower and the game, stopped for an hour or so, eventually resumed. The noise when Tony Cottee equalised was immense; sadly, the result not so, with West Ham losing 3-1.




With no internet back then, and no social media the overcrowding/game stoppage raised little more than a few column inches, probably a promise of an investigation into what happened, and how so many West Ham fans ended up in one particular area of the ground.

I since heard it alleged that there were up to 2,000 fake tickets doing the rounds that day. Other stories suggested that a gate had been opened to let the fans in after kick off, but who knows?

What we do know is that a year or so later, Hilllsborough happened. I remember the area surrounding the ground and especially the tunnel that you had to go through to get onto the Lepping Lane terraces. It was dark, horrible and stank of piss.

My heart goes out to the victims and to the families of the 96, because I’m sure that the vast majority of the ones who perished that fateful day were genuine fans who got there early to see their team play a semi-final, never to return home. Husbands, sons and daughters.

I am also 100 per cent sure that IF Loftus Road had fences on that day, many West Ham fans would have been crushed to death too.

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