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Post by redwhitebloodcells on Oct 5, 2015 15:15:28 GMT
Born in the 80s but too young to remember (my first SCFC game came in the 90s) I ask out of curiosity for a time that effectively ended with Hillsborough, the Taylor report, satellite dishes and big money but throughout was smeared with the same ‘enemy within’ rhetoric applied to the mid decade strike action.
I’m looking for memories on a wider, more general level but also details - from amusing anecdotes to unfortunate sights and experiences. Anything goes really; from pub atmosphere pre/post match, terrace stories, half time catering, TV reporting/shows, player/fan relations, away days, travelling nightmares, the drop from 1st to 2nd division football and then to third tier, thoughts on the board, local council corruption, fashion, bigotry, acid house …..whatever comes to mind.
I know I've cast a very wide net here but anything that rolls in is very much appreciated.
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 6, 2015 12:12:53 GMT
There was no particular rivalry with Port Vale until the second half of the decade. In 82/83 Port Vale were trying to get promoted from the 4tf to 3rd division. When their score wasn't read out at half time the Boothen End as one sang "What about the Vale?" When the score was read out and Vale were winning it was received with a heart cheer from the home fans.
However, when they beat Spurs in 1988 the mood began to change. The 88/89 season saw them going for promotion which would mean for the first time since 1232 we would be on the same division. They did get promoted and the whole mood went became nasty.
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Post by maninasuitcase on Oct 6, 2015 12:18:33 GMT
Bleak days when the Vale were a division above us.
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 6, 2015 12:19:56 GMT
Bleak days when the Vale were a division above us. Indeed. The first time was 1990/91.
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Post by lordb on Oct 6, 2015 12:39:57 GMT
Eighties football generaly was a bleak time
Plummeting crowds,hostile police,hostile or indifferent media You really had to search for fpootball in the media
POMO was in vogue at various clubs including,spectacularly unsuccessfully,at Stoke. Essentially long ball/direct football Everyone was "4,4 fucking 2" Very few foreigners, no money in the game many clubs nearly went bust 4th division clubs likeVale & Crewe considered 3000 an excellent crowd 1st divison clubs rarely got 30000 20000 for Arsenal or Everton e.t.c. was good
However there were upsides: football (& travel) were cheap/affordable grounds were usually in town centres near pubs & railway stations atmosphere could be rubbish but could be very good too Very rare for a game to be all ticket,very few people had season tickets. As a result just deciding to go on the morning of a game (home or away) was the norm. Because it was cheap,you could just turn up & pay on teh agte. Nice & easy,no fuss,no problem.
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Post by muglump on Oct 6, 2015 12:40:43 GMT
I always remember the old guy who was a steward on the gate between the Boothen and the paddock, under the white visitors box thing. This was always one of the places in the ground where the fighting was because opposition fans would smuggle themselves into the paddock and offer the Boothen end on, climbing onto the big gate. As you can imagine there was no shortage of Stokies taking up that offer and they used to pour down from the back and try to get over the fence the other way. Until the coppers showed up in force there was this one old bloke trying to hold a huge gate shut with about thirty blokes trying to get through / over it. He used to manage it though, most times. Frankly i was glad because i stood near there and the thought of a few dozen Leeds fans running in my direction was not a pleasant one.
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Post by bathstoke on Oct 6, 2015 12:45:03 GMT
Born in the 80s but too young to remember (my first SCFC game came in the 90s) I ask out of curiosity for a time that effectively ended with Hillsborough, the Taylor report, satellite dishes and big money but throughout was smeared with the same ‘enemy within’ rhetoric applied to the mid decade strike action. I’m looking for memories on a wider, more general level but also details - from amusing anecdotes to unfortunate sights and experiences. Anything goes really; from pub atmosphere pre/post match, terrace stories, half time catering, TV reporting/shows, player/fan relations, away days, travelling nightmares, the drop from 1st to 2nd division football and then to third tier, thoughts on the board, local council corruption, fashion, bigotry, acid house …..whatever comes to mind. I know I've cast a very wide net here but anything that rolls in is very much appreciated. It was a world away from now. V violent. Away matches were usually V dark experience. The other thing is the commercialisation of everything now. Culture evolved at a more organic pace. & Waggon Wheels were bigger
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Post by muglump on Oct 6, 2015 12:45:29 GMT
Eighties football generaly was a bleak time Plummeting crowds,hostile police,hostile or indifferent media You really had to search for fpootball in the media POMO was in vogue at various clubs including,spectacularly unsuccessfully,at Stoke. Essentially long ball/direct football Everyone was "4,4 fucking 2" Very few foreigners, no money in the game many clubs nearly went bust 4th division clubs likeVale & Crewe considered 3000 an excellent crowd 1st divison clubs rarely got 30000 20000 for Arsenal or Everton e.t.c. was good However there were upsides: football (& travel) were cheap/affordable grounds were usually in town centres near pubs & railway stations atmosphere could be rubbish but could be very good too Very rare for a game to be all ticket,very few people had season tickets. As a result just deciding to go on the morning of a game (home or away) was the norm. Because it was cheap,you could just turn up & pay on teh agte. Nice & easy,no fuss,no problem. Agreed. Really miss getting up on Saturday and thinking, yeah I'll go. To my credit that was pretty much every saturday there was a home game but it was nice to have the choice. Used to go to a lot of reserve games too because they were really cheap to get into.
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 6, 2015 12:46:34 GMT
Eighties football generaly was a bleak time Plummeting crowds,hostile police,hostile or indifferent media You really had to search for fpootball in the media POMO was in vogue at various clubs including,spectacularly unsuccessfully,at Stoke. Essentially long ball/direct football Everyone was "4,4 fucking 2" Very few foreigners, no money in the game many clubs nearly went bust 4th division clubs likeVale & Crewe considered 3000 an excellent crowd 1st divison clubs rarely got 30000 20000 for Arsenal or Everton e.t.c. was good However there were upsides: football (& travel) were cheap/affordable grounds were usually in town centres near pubs & railway stations atmosphere could be rubbish but could be very good too Very rare for a game to be all ticket,very few people had season tickets. As a result just deciding to go on the morning of a game (home or away) was the norm. Because it was cheap,you could just turn up & pay on teh agte. Nice & easy,no fuss,no problem. At the time it wasn't considered cheap though.
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Post by lordb on Oct 6, 2015 12:47:00 GMT
Waggon Wheels are exactly the same size as they were.
anyway
Horse Shit avoidance when leaving Boothen End.
I don't miss that
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Post by Not_Nick_H on Oct 6, 2015 12:50:59 GMT
Randon thoughts - here goes:
Snooty attitudes from people because you liked football - even more-so 'cos you were a Stoke supporter; Pickpocket warnings on Radio Stoke when Liverpool were in town; Loud, slightly scary turnouts with Police escorts for the likes of Leeds, Man Utd etc; The "Holocaust Season" (at the same time I was doing my O-level exams); Being able to sit harmoniously in with Home fans (at the likes of Barnsley, Huddersfield) - granted I was young and with family members then; Conversely, away fans in the Butler Street seats - no trouble; Crewe getting a cheer at half time if they were winning; Seeing Stoke on Match of the Day until '85, then nothing after (unless they were in the FA Cup); Getting to The Vic early enough sometimes to see tumbleweed sometimes and the bloke testing the PA - (Ding-dong -"Hellooo!!"). Cue half-hearted "Hello!" back, from the assembled few; Switching schools form Biddulph to Congleton and realising that Man Utd fans were indeed ******s; That old black chap that used to sell lottery tickets or whatever in the Butler Steet Stand; Going to my first game with a mate instead of parents - night game v Notts Forest - (and getting the wrong train back!); "Mills Out" graffitti you could see from the A500; Pink Panthers; Delilah; Italia '90, New Order, football's f*cking marvellous again, Sky, The Prem, Money, Stoke's fortunes heading South at the wrong time etc, etc - you know the rest.
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Post by okeydokeystokie2 on Oct 6, 2015 12:53:09 GMT
Fiiiive pints of Bass!
Four pints of Bass Three pints of Bass Two pints of Bass
and a pint of Bass in a straight glass.
No smoothflow crap, no fruit flavoured cider, just Bass or Peddie depending where you drank.
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 6, 2015 12:54:08 GMT
Bobby Robson being treated with contempt. And sometimes sheer undiluted hatred.
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Post by marcofstoke on Oct 6, 2015 12:54:08 GMT
There was no particular rivalry with Port Vale until the second half of the decade. In 82/83 Port Vale were trying to get promoted from the 4tf to 3rd division. When their score wasn't read out at half time the Boothen End as one sang "What about the Vale?" When the score was read out and Vale were winning it was received with a heart cheer from the home fans. However, when they beat Spurs in 1988 the mood began to change. The 88/89 season saw them going for promotion which would mean for the first time since 1232 we would be on the same division. They did get promoted and the whole mood went became nasty. Have you been on the cider Joe? I don't ever remember us cheering because Vale were winning!
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 6, 2015 12:55:55 GMT
There was no particular rivalry with Port Vale until the second half of the decade. In 82/83 Port Vale were trying to get promoted from the 4tf to 3rd division. When their score wasn't read out at half time the Boothen End as one sang "What about the Vale?" When the score was read out and Vale were winning it was received with a heart cheer from the home fans. However, when they beat Spurs in 1988 the mood began to change. The 88/89 season saw them going for promotion which would mean for the first time since 1232 we would be on the same division. They did get promoted and the whole mood went became nasty. Have you been on the cider Joe? I don't ever remember us cheering because Vale were winning! I certainly do. 82/83. Nobody admits it but it deffo happened. There was no nastiness between us until they got good!
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Post by NG4POTTERS on Oct 6, 2015 13:04:30 GMT
I was at school in south Shropshire in the 80's. Most people either supported Liverpool or the local midlands teams, wolves, baggies, villa. A few hangers on from the forest and Ipswich glory days too. I used to get mercilessly ripped most of the time. Coming into school on a Monday during the 84/85 season was generally take the piss out of the stoke fan time. However most Saturdays me and my dad would have travelled in the car, scarf flapping out the window up the m6 and it felt like I was living the dream. We used to go away to the local games then when we plummeted down we could also take in the delights of the likes of Shrewsbury and Walsall. We started branching out to the likes of Huddersfield and Blackburn come 86/87 time. My main memories really are that the songs were 1000x better than they are now, a fair bit of trouble in most places and some pretty sparce attendances at the Vic. But I used to love those Saturdays and will treasure em forever.
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Post by lordherefordsknob on Oct 6, 2015 13:09:32 GMT
Fiiiive pints of Bass! Four pints of Bass Three pints of Bass Two pints of Bass and a pint of Bass in a straight glass. No smoothflow crap, no fruit flavoured cider, just Bass or Peddie depending where you drank. It was 5 pedigree in the 80s early 90s.
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Post by kevkj on Oct 6, 2015 13:20:59 GMT
My memories of the 80s are the team for most the decade was shit. After being spoilt watching the team of the mid 70s. Segregation was starting to come in and so some of the places that you took your life in your hands going to could be more easily visited.Eg Spurs,Everton ,Liverpool,The Shit The train network and outside the grounds and town centres was very hostile at most grounds,something you just grew up with. The holocaust season was the pits,crowds decimated apart from the few like me.Norwich at home gulp possibly 4500 crowd. Alsations,pub crawls along the London Road heading for Charlie Browns,the sheaf and the Bull and Bush ,piss stained stinking urinals ,fags,ale ,chatting up birds at every opportuinity. Then the rave and ecstacy years. happy days
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2015 13:33:55 GMT
I bet it was extremely depressing for elderly football lovers to see the way football seemed to be heading in the 80s. They will have had youthful memories of the pre/post WW2 years when attendances were gargantuan, then the 70s with the exponential rise in hooliganism and finally the 80s with plummeting crowds, lack of public interest and terraces more akin to warzones. I bet a lot of those blokes passed away firmly believing that football was going to die too.
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Post by bringmesunshine on Oct 6, 2015 14:17:38 GMT
Can’t remember the team we were playing but their goalkeeper had long hair and the boothen kept singing Gippo what’s the score, Gipo Gipo what’s the score (we were winning 2-1) and he turned round and put the V’S up with one hand and the finger up with the other which made everybody piss themselves, the guy got a round of applause, he turned round again and bowed in front of us all. I also remember the first time alcohol was allowed to be sold in football grounds, 95 I think because of the law changing due to us hosting EURO96.
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Post by Gods on Oct 6, 2015 14:32:20 GMT
Well most of all it was a great time for the much maligned mullet. With Chris Waddle, Brian Robson and Mark Hateley leading the charge nationally we had our own protagonists too. Adrian Heath with the boy-band version and Dave Watson with an altogether more manly number. I even joined the party myself at one stage but I can't find any pictures! These days you really have to go to the most far flung outposts of Eastern Europe or Crewe to find examples of the genre. Anyway below are Adrian Heath and the defensive colossus that was Dave Watson. Think the Ryan Shawcross of his day although we only got to enjoy him in his late career. In fairness you only have to look at his face to see the kind of no frills stopper he was
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Post by lordb on Oct 6, 2015 14:37:31 GMT
Have you been on the cider Joe? I don't ever remember us cheering because Vale were winning! I certainly do. 82/83. Nobody admits it but it deffo happened. There was no nastiness between us until they got good! I remember them doing it a few years later (about 85) on FA Cup day,so they read all the scores out,Vale winning & there was mild cheering. I don't remember them reading anything other than the scores for whatever division we were in normally tbh
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Post by stokebloke on Oct 6, 2015 14:47:28 GMT
My memories of stoke are that they lost a hell of a lot of games to a lot shit teams in front of 7/8,000 at the Vic. Still loved it though. My kids are jammy buggers watching stoke now compared to the crap I watched at their age.
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Post by outspaced on Oct 6, 2015 14:48:08 GMT
It's quite an eye opener when you see attendances in the top flight in the early 80s. Something like 25000 at Anfield for a game against us when they were English and European champions.
A bleak period though for the working man who if he had a job didn't have much money to throw around.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2015 15:30:43 GMT
Football was a dark time. After the holocaust season, it was a mix of anger and apathy. Anger and frustration, apathy at what we knew was coming. Years of mid table mediocrity, journeyman, the odd fading talent, but not much to shout about.
Being a crowd of mostly younger males, more so for away games, that anger resulted in a lot of unpleasantness. The mindset was of an invading army. Opposing fans weren't shy of obliging. Looking at a few crowd photos of the era will demonstrate the difference in demographics. Football fans weren't really ostracised, it was more like apathy for the sport, from the public unless they were the Daily Mail "outraged" type. Because of the lack of money and media hype, nobody would care if the authorities threatened closure or ID cards or banning away fans. You think you have it bad now, when people complain about the large screen TV or a bit of a cold wind sweeping in from the south. The Johnny Come Lately's and Soccer AM crowd, taking photos of the game with their iPads and gleefully texting when a goal is scored, rooted to their spot, too cold and unemotional to even celebrate and hug a complete stranger.
Grounds were cold, barren, windswept places where you'd have to be fairly robust in nature just to put up with the poor infrastructure. Everything seemed to be about fear, oppression, overcoming everything in your path. Northern towns were sinister, dark, unwelcoming places, where a brick on your head or aimed at your coach or van windows was the normal greeting. Southern towns and London were strange unfamiliar territory, surely the home to rascals and enemies on every corner? Not to be trusted, they weren't "us" so anyone was the enemy. This mindset carried us through the 80's into the 90's when huge followings on the back of a taste of success actually became invading armies and destroyed everything in their path. Against the odds of badly controlled police dogs, lines of badly equipped coppers fearful for their safety and more than willing to bash you with a standard sized truncheon that was no more useful than a rotten cucumber and smash you to pieces in the back of a police van. It was often a choice, go to court with charges or take a beating in the van. Easy choice for most lads. No complaining, no lawsuits, just tell the boys in the pub after, have a round bought for you, as much ale as you could drink, and onto the next game with another story to tell.
Going to Oldham, with the only refreshments on offer a cold pie and a bovril, was about as good as it got as far as supporter catering was concerned. Maybe a hot dog or burger outside if you were lucky. The only TV in the ground was probably in the Chairman's office. Communication was at a minimum. Walked from the ground checking the results on Ceefax in the TV shop window on London Road. Final results coming in as you grab your first pint after running around the streets for a few minutes harassing the opposition and causing mayhem and fear.
More pubs were open and thriving back then, it wasn't unusual to spend the rest of a matchday wandering the pubs seeing the various faces and mingling with an array of scoundrels, hearing their war stories. It seemed like "men were men" back then, a tougher hardened working class, whereas now everyone is an emotional hipster with sensitivities, issues, and "needs". Where have all the real (young) men gone? Walking into a pub was a sea of 6' beer monsters, big men with big appetites and big thirsts, raucous, bawdy, independent, huge shovel-like hands and carrying themselves with an air of menace and intimidation, but friendly and welcoming towards their own. Not fathers at the time, but the fathers of the future.
Violence was an ever present at the game, and also socially in a broad sense. You watched your back at all times, senses were switched on to detect threats that could come from any direction at any time at the game or away from it. It seemed like it was the norm to go into town afterwards and maybe hit a nightclub, to witness mobs and groups fighting, throwing bottles, the occasional bottling/glassing was just expected more than shocking. Newcastle in particular used to get visits from stag groups and groups of "lads" coming from surrounding towns and counties. That was guaranteed a good rumble with the locals, and they usually repelled invaders with great satisfaction and with little encouragement required.
There seemed to be an overriding sense of insularity, protecting our own, our towns/our city and each other. Nobody on the outside was to be trusted. It seemed to be driven by pride and protection of self and each other. An unfamiliar accent would provoke the thought of what are they after, am I going to get robbed, who do they support, is everything locked up, and is my wallet safe at hand? Are there more of them hanging around?
It seemed like society was still on the edge of the industrial era, lots of lads worked in the pots, factories, a few at the mines that were closing by the year as it seemed at the time. Lots of industrial and entry level jobs still available. I don't remember unemployment being a really big thing, it seemed like anyone who wanted work of any sort could find it. Lads usually had money for the football, and beer.
In the demographic that went to football, up until 1988 it didn't seem that drugs was socially much of a problem. That started in 87-88 and got worse over time. Prior to that, there wasn't much of a sense of needing to get wrecked at the game, apart from ale and spirits to be consumed at great amount to nullify the effects of the poor product on show at the ground. After 1988 it seemed that it became the norm to get as wrecked as possible on as wide an array of chemicals and concoctions as possible, everything became excess. Being high at the club became getting high at the pub and that translated into a 24/7 mode of being on your game at the match in as bad a state as you could handle. Some of the worst excesses of early 90's violence was fuelled by hard drugs consumed in vast quantities along with gallons of ale to the soundtrack of indie house and acid tracks. Nobody ever captured the feel of that era properly, and if a combination of Trainspotting, Human Traffic, Fear and Loathing in Trent Vegas, and The Firm could be pulled of with a genuine feel and authenticity, it would capture things perfectly. Apart from a minority of psychopaths, of which there were some who excelled in their field, people were attracted to football at that time by the camaraderie, the sense of adventure, overcoming adversary, a good drink, and forming a social connection that didn't exist in any meaningful way anywhere else. There was no glamour in the game, no hype or really measurable way of saying that football was an attractive sport and worth spending your hard earned money to go to watch. A better investment of funds would have been to burn it in a heap.
Not to glamourise any of the above, it was what it was. It is part of our history and heritage, whether you agree or disagree with what happened, the fact is that it happened. Argue as much as you like about the good and bad aspects of it, but if you weren't there, you'd find it hard to understand.
OS One of the 4,597 V Norwich.
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Post by lordherefordsknob on Oct 6, 2015 16:00:26 GMT
Singing You'll never walk alone.
Singing 10 men went to mow.
Singing always look on the bright side of life long before Man utd did
Giving Howard Gayle at Blackburn the most horrible racist abuse anyone could imagine.
Paul Dyson. Barry Siddall.
George Berry blowing the boothen kisses.
Sitting in the old boothen stand and hearing the old men say Mark Chamberlain was crap and was not good enough to lace sir Stand Boots.
Getting tickets in the Stoke stand seats for a quid from lads n dad's.
Sammy Chungs dugout.
Fuck me I could write a book.
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Post by muglump on Oct 6, 2015 16:10:11 GMT
Can’t remember the team we were playing but their goalkeeper had long hair and the boothen kept singing Gippo what’s the score, Gipo Gipo what’s the score (we were winning 2-1) and he turned round and put the V’S up with one hand and the finger up with the other which made everybody piss themselves, the guy got a round of applause, he turned round again and bowed in front of us all. I also remember the first time alcohol was allowed to be sold in football grounds, 95 I think because of the law changing due to us hosting EURO96. That was Grimsby mate
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Post by Squeekster on Oct 6, 2015 16:54:32 GMT
Waggon Wheels are exactly the same size as they were. anyway Horse Shit avoidance when leaving Boothen End. I don't miss that Curly whirlys are deffo smaller!
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Post by wagsastokie on Oct 6, 2015 17:09:41 GMT
Waggon Wheels are exactly the same size as they were. anyway Horse Shit avoidance when leaving Boothen End. I don't miss that Curly whirlys are deffo smaller! At least their still called the same What's with all the starburst and snikers crap
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Post by redwhitebloodcells on Oct 6, 2015 17:25:45 GMT
This is great stuff people. Thanks for posting.
Keep it coming
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