Your Liverpool Tales

[Gnomie]

I have started one of these on the Everton page, Hope you will add any Liverpool related tales on here :PDT11

I have one for you.

I was working at Anfield( i know i should not go in there ) anyway my two mates where mad Liverpool fans, It was a night game and all the crowds had gone. we where heading towards the Anfield road end of the ground when Fernando Morientes came towards us with his mate. My two mates dived on him asking for autographs, I asked him how he was in Spanish and he was delighted i was talking to him in his langauge. Then i asked his friend the same in Spanish and he talked back to me, shook my hand and wished me well.

When they had gone my two mates asked me what i had said, i told them i just asked them how they where, they where just replying back. then my mates asked me how i knew his fernando's mate was Spanish? i told him " because he is your goalie Pepe Riena" you should have seen their faces, they had got Fernando to autograph programmes and had not noticed Pepe :)

I gave them plenty of stick for it afterwards.

I must say both Fernando and Pepe where very nice guys :PDT11

[Ged]

Ha ha, I can quite believe that. My brother-in-law's best mate calls himself a red, in fact he's first off the seat if he comes out with us to watch the blues away games and the opposition score. I mentioned to him that I don't think Liverpool have had a great winger (not whinger) since Heighway. 'Who's that' he said.

[Paddy]

Here?s a Liverpool story that might not go down to well with the respectable fan?s however it is true and always gets a laugh. It was either 70 or 71 and we played a friendly with Blackburn Rovers on their ground. Well it was late summer and the weather was quite splendid. Blackburn being so near Liverpool a few thousand fans turned out. We were mostly teenagers, quite bored and looking for fun needless to say the day was hectic for the police and they just wanted to get us out of town as quickly as possible. We were escorted from the ground straight to the railway station and onto a special. The journey out of Blackburn kept being interrupted by stupid kids pulling the emergency cord. The train driver got so fed up with the malarkey he walked down the aisle of every coach and told the fans that if the cord was pulled once more he would refuse to take us home. Some of the older fans who wanted to get back for a bevy went round threatening the likely perpetrators and letting them know that the cord pulling activity had to stop. The train moved off and the rural landscape with cows and sheep lazily strolling and lying in the late summer twilight fields flew by. Suddenly the cord got pulled and there was a collective groan.

The next move came as a shock to all the fans. The driver shunted into a siding got out his cab and true to his word left us all high and dry in the Lancashire countryside. We sat on the humid train aghast at what had happened to us. The evening was closing in and the song birds could be heard whistling in the serene twilight dusk. The sidings appeared to be an old mill town and the red brick mills of a bygone era stood there as evidence of an old industry that had started to vanish from the industrial landscape of Lancashire. One curious Liverpool fan decided to get out of the train and investigate the contents of the parcels that had been left on barrows on a platform that was in front of an old mill. To the fans delight he discovered that he had found a toaster inside the brown wrapping paper. In his excitement he signaled to the rest of the now extremely bored fans his discovery and belief that there was plenty more where the toaster came from. Suddenly the doors of the train opened in unison and the fans applied themselves eagerly to unwrapping the parcels. Every household item you can imagine was on those barrows. The booty was loaded onto the train and exchanges and bartering as in haggling took place amongst the fans who thought that the presents had been left for them .However as this was commencing sirens could be heard getting closer to our place of abandonment.

The biggest copper you ever saw got onto the train and told us that the property was not ours and belonged to a catalogue company. This news came as a disappointment, but on receiving the information, that we would be arrested if we did not put the stuff back pronto inspired most of the fans to give up the goods. However there are always die hards. One lad was sitting on his seat looking out of the window with a sheepskin on that was about three sizes to big for him the police officer who noticed the child in the winter coat told him to return the item the kid swore blind it was his. How do you explain having a fishing rod on a special football train? Well one lad was engaged in a heated debate over such a subject. I seen one police man retrieving a Hoe Pitchfork and Spade from under the seat of two fans you could describe as being from good homes. The police eventually thought that they had retrieved as much as they could and marched the reluctant driver back to his cab. A lasting memory I have of the train pulling out of the sidings is of brown paper floating along the track in the light late summer breeze. As we went along watches and other small items were being put up for sale and the desire to stop at Edge hill seemed to be very great amongst the more crafty types. The train did stop at Edge Hill to the delight of quite a few fans that looked as if they had goods concealed about their person. Then onto to Lime Street and a waiting thin blue line. As we approached them the sound of house hold items hitting the deck was quite audible. I looked around before being searched and the platform for want of a better expression was cluttered. Well they never noticed my nice new top that was a result.

[kevin]

I was leaving Goodison a couple of years ago and two fans in front of me were chatting:

What are you doing tonight?
Going into town.
Thought you were broke?
I was, but I've been playing blackjack with Bernie.
Blackjack? But Bernie can't count.
I know, he had to use his fingers so I always knew what he had.

I laughed so lound the pair turned and stared at me.

[Ged]

Great story Paddy, I can just imagine being there they way you've written it.

Ha ha Kevin, only in Liverpool would you hear that.

[Paddy]

We just all decided in the Allerton that we were going to Wembley for the final with Arsenal. We never had tickets and our funds were minimal. The H1 went from Garston to Warrington in those days and we all piled on in the village and headed off on our big adventure. I had never been to London before and it was very exciting being with the gang on the bus talking about sorting the cockneys out and making plans to bunk in. When we reached Warrington we walked out of the town to the popular caf? at Knutsford that was by the M1 junction. When we got there, there was already some scousers hitching and they said that they had been there a good few hours. With there being so many of us people didn?t want to stop. Some of my readers might think what I am about to relate is untrue. I can assure you that it is factual. What happened was a sheeted lorry pulled up and the driver said he would take three in the cab. We asked him could we get up on the back as we needed to get down the motorway as soon as possible. The driver agreed to let us get on the back. We went all the way to the A5 on the back in the cold night air holding onto the ropes. Sometimes when I travel up to Liverpool I think to myself did I really do that? As an adult you think we must have been nuts to go down the motorway like that.

We got stranded again on the A5 so we all split up and headed along the road in two?s we made plans to meet at Trafalgar Square. My first visit to London was packed with incident. When we met up with the rest we joined up with a gang of about two hundred scousers who had congregated in the Square everyone was ticketless and on the look out for the enemy The Arsenal. My mate Sharpie was convinced that a gang he read about in a book called the Willesden Whites would turn up so no one should run. Someone told us that Harold Wilson was a scouser so we all went round to Downing Street and started chanting. We had no shortage of grub as everything was open plan in London and we treated shops like running buffets. Getting to Wembley was easy as the central London coppers hoarded us on to a train just to get rid of us. Arriving at Wembley there was skirmishes everywhere the Car Park was like a battle zone. Sharpie insisted that we should not run even if the Willesden Whites turned up. We had one big problem getting in. At one point we made a human pyramid and scaled over the barbed wire where the big arches were. We found ourselves on a toilet roof and the cops were waiting for us to jump down. Anyone without a stub got thrown out. Then we started kicking down doors but the cops got onto that. I got in twice and thrown out twice. Eventually they opened up a gate and we got in. I was in theArsenal stand and Highway scored so I started celebrating and there was a scuffle with some London blokes. Then that long haired yob Charlie George broke all our hearts. It was not be our day. Sharpie said we should confront the Willesden whites on the Car park but most of us were just so disappointed that we headed for Euston and the train back. We got into some bother around Euston, Sharpie thought the gang chasing us was most likely the Willesden Whites there was that many of them I never stopped to enquire. Going back on the special was nicer than being on the back of a wagon. And all for free.

[Paddy]

The most stupidest thing the FA did in the seventies was let Man United play at Anfield on a Weds evening. The United ground had been closed down due to crowd disturbance so the arrangement was set up to use Anfield. The Saturday before this big event the chant coming from the Kop was ?you will never take the Kop? this was a battle cry to all scousers that Manchester United fans should not use the Kop to support their team at any cost. As a teenager I realized that this was history and that I needed to witness what would be the battle for the Kop. The Liverpool fans decided that they would occupy the centre of the Kop so they could freely sing their own songs and happily taunt the Manchester fans who they wanted impounded in the Anfield Road End. This was an oversight by the FA and also the police who must have assumed that the Kop was geographically the best option, even Everton fans where outraged by this executive decision to let Manchester hooligans into the peaceful city of Liverpool. Oaths of allegiance had been sworn and a loosely arranged format for the Liverpool response to this perceived injustice had been arranged. Word had it that all Liverpool hard core support should take up position in the middle of the Kop.

Well I had to be there and funds were low as I had attended the Saturday game where the briefing had been made. My family could not understand why I needed to get to Anfield to see Man U but I secured a loan put on my best clobber. Harrington, Ben Sherman, Air Wear etc and set off to the game. I was very curious about all this, as kids are and I needed to be able to say I was there it was all part of having cred. Well to my surprise a hell of a lot of Liverpool lads turned up and took their positions in the centre. A girl who was mad on me insisted that she should be my companion so I suggested to her that we should oversee the event from the top of the Kop were you could see who was entering. After about 15 mins in our position suddenly the mass fans of United appeared it was awesome there was thousands of them chanting ?United? ?United? The alert Liverpool scouts who had been positioned in all corners of the Kop started relaying the information that United had arrived but there was no need too. You could hear them, from my position I could see that the thin blue line separating the both sets of supporters would be inadequate. The cops realized that they could not let the hoard of United fans onto the Kop or there would be mayhem. The chant of? ?you will never take the Kop? went up against the persistent chanting of ?United? ?United? Well the police had to redirect the fans as best they could and started to try and move them away and down the Kemlyn Road. There was skirmishes going on everywhere but the centre of the Kop stood firm and the choir did every number at the top of their voices some United fans who had entered the Kop decided for health and safety reasons to flee across the pitch. The Kop was triumphal and the game progressed with United occupying the Anfield Road End.

Well after the game I went down town linking this girl who I quite liked and was seen as being quite attractive by most of my mates. The United fans who were quite numerous had to be escorted. In the Town quite a lot of Liverpool fans had been assembling by the Georges Hall to see the Manchester lot of and there was a lot of chanting going on about how they never took the Kop it was to an extent good humored and the Liverpool fans perspective was quite simply you would do the same to us if we went to the Stretford End. As the Manchester crowd came up by Gerrard Gardens I was linking my good looking new girlfriend the police were escorting them straight to Lime Street and out of town whilst the Liverpool fans carried on chanting You will never take the Kop I was happily smiling when a Man U fan who must have been disturbed by the prettiness of me and my girl broke rank and attacked me throwing punches. I gave him a few hooks back and he went over. A copper saw me and headed straight for me, so my instinct was to back off yet the overreaction by the cop created a panic in the crowd and batons came out I received three stitches to a head wound. I still think that perhaps I should not have been there but kids are kids and it is all about growing up. Perhaps if that fan had not been jealous it would have been different anyway the tale is told.:PDT_Xtremez_12:

[Paddy]

So we started going to all the away games that we could get too. I remember my first one. We hitched to Coventry and got there about nine in the morning. We took refuge in the waiting room of Coventry station, there was a tea bar and the hot tea was heavenly after a night out on the motorway. More scousers started turning up till eventually the warm waiting room was quite overcrowded. When the special arrived we all spilled out. In those days patchwork jumpers were all the rage I remember becoming separated from the main body of Liverpool supporters and walking into what looked like thousands of patchwork jumpers with Coventry accents. I acted quickly and jumped on a local bus that I did not know where it was going. The patchwork jumpers who had taken over the station car park were milling around the bus they never suspected that a scouser was on it. Then they saw the main body of Liverpool supporters and started to chant and goad. I stayed on for a few stops and then met up with my mates walking towards the ground. In those days Liverpool rarely lost a game so victory was assured and after seeing us win I set back of to the station to get the special as the fans were always hoarded straight on. When I got back to Liverpool I told most of the lads that I had been in a confrontation with the Coventry fans. The reality was I had sneaked away. Yet if you had seen those patchwork jumpers you would mostly likely do the same. We travelled mostly on Friday nights. I was mostly with my mate Sharpie who loved to relate stories about the dangers of being an away supporter. It was frightening sometimes. I remember a night game at Maine road and we were very much outnumbered it was a relief to get back to Lime Street. I noticed in those days that some kids did have a propensity towards violence at the match, but mostly we kept away from lads like that. We had names because we were always around. We would turn up sometimes without any money but we always got in. I remember seeing a bit of violence but it was mostly taunting and tales of confrontation and dangerous situations. I remember going to Leeds on a football coach and when I got off the coach I shouted Liverpool and was immediately arrested by a copper. I spent the afternoon in a cell and was charged with Disturbing the Peace. It was very unfair and I was fined ?15 pounds. The objective mainly was to be able to say you had been to a ground. Sharpie always got involved in some adventure yet we all had a habit of gross exaggeration of our exploits. If you went missing it was because you had been involved in hand to hand deadly combat with the enemy or in the case of me and others we had been chatting up girls. Looking smart was important and having a Harrington or a Crombie was essential. The home supporters were always out chanted where ever we went and knowing and learning Kop songs was very important. I remember Manchester United?s ground distinctly because I have been chased around so many times. One afternoon Sharpie and I found ourselves running with the united supporters due to the clash of colours Sharpie started conversing in a Manchester accent. Another one of our lucky escapes. We got into trouble mostly for arriving before the specials and standing out in the town centers but it was mostly a good laugh and did we laugh :)