ASTON VILLA AWAY 1970

I was 15yo and had traveled up on the train with three other lads from Aberdare, Phill Needs (mad as f**k and still bang at it) Cyril Workman, and John Allan, the three of them were a year older than me, and what a mottely little crew we were.

This was peak skinhead days and also paint spray everything era.

I'm sure I wasn't involved in the spraying antics, honest officer, but the fad and fashion those days was to leave your calling card everywhere, in our case it was usually Aberdare Skins and CCFC etc.

When we got off the train in New Street, we just wandered off on our own and left the masses do their own thing.Well its a fair old walk to Villa park from New street, and even longer on the way back, but that's for later.

The other lads and not me. must have painted every wall, every road sign, every advertising board along the trip, they must have used enough paint to cover the QE2, at least it was easy not to get lost coming back, because we just followed the graffiti back to the station..

Anyway, when we got to Villa Park and still full of naughtiness, we thought f**k it and straight into the famous Holte end, now this was quite rough in them days and held over twenty thousand in one massive terrace behind the goals.
We had got in nice and early so spent the next hour decorating every toilet and wall we could get at without being noticed, and went about selling the CCFC concept to the dirty unwashed Brummies.

Un-beknown to us though we must have been clocked by some locals because ten minutes before the game started we had been pointed out whilst standing amongst the twenty thousand in that stand, and words to the effect of "that's them little fuckers" were heard quite clearly.
Well just as what seemed like half of the stand (or in truth about ten of them) ran at us with a mission to kill, we was up over the wall and on the pitch side and a bit braver now.

The stewards were coming at us from everywhere and the Cardiff fans who had been put in the stand on the side of the pitch in those days could see something going on and were having a right old laff.

We started getting a bit braver now that the stewards were around us and started giving back to the Brummies big time, you know the stuff "aye, come up here and we'll smash you" "your lucky they got us out of there or we'd have kicked f**k out of you" whilst all the time absolutely shitting ourselves because half of the midlands wanted to eat us alive.

Well just has we started to think we'd got away with it and the stewards would escort us over to the City fans for some protection, the chief steward came over, he could see the City fans going mental on the side of the pitch and must have made the decision not to let us join them, but rather to be put back into the Holte end.

Yeh, like f**k, we was out of their grasp, across the pitch and straight into the City section, laughing our heads off but in reality shaking like virgins in an orgy.

I will leave the after match escape story till tomoorow before i bore you all to death, but that was even madder.

gwyn please get a book done..
the way you tell the stories mixing a touch of comedy to hooliganism is class and ive never read anything like it in any book ..

was at that game and have similar memories to Gwyn however my lasting memory was returning home on the train with the team, management And directors. got all the autographs except Brian Clark, Don Murray,Brian Haris playing poker and signed after Don won his hand but moving in to the buffet car having all the autographs almost complete they were smudged when Ronnie Bird fell on top Freddie Davies completely bladdered.Ronnie became a great mate in later years and always insisted he was never a drinker.

Love these old tales, before my time which makes it all the more interesting.
Keep them coming

Can't wait for the next installment Was it really like that in those days I thought it was all trilby's and raincoats. New Street was all steam trains and Celia Johnson

Went up on a Cyril Evans bus from Sneggy/Aber THE ORIGINAL ANT HILL MOB not those fecking imposters who came along years later lol.

Went up on a Cyril Evans bus from Sneggy/Aber THE ORIGINAL ANT HILL MOB not those fecking imposters who came along years later lol.

was that with ivor kenny and george.
were you on the bus at oldham when it rearranged the supporters club

Aberdare Bluebirds on tour

Went up on a Cyril Evans bus from Sneggy/Aber THE ORIGINAL ANT HILL MOB not those fecking imposters who came along years later lol.

What happened to the little bloke with the hump on his back, Tudor, he used to knock about with the old crew from Aber back in the early seventies.

Went up on a Cyril Evans bus from Sneggy/Aber THE ORIGINAL ANT HILL MOB not those fecking imposters who came along years later lol.

was that with ivor kenny and george.
were you on the bus at oldham when it rearranged the supporters club

I was in the Oldham supporters club when it got trashed, crazy day, they tried pulling the shutters down and blokes were leaping over the bar and helping themselves to everything they could grab, the place was smashed in about five minutes. While all this was going on the welsh darts legend Alan Evans, who was there for the match as he was living local I think, hid behind the curtains on the stage, he shit himself .

Can't wait for the next installment Was it really like that in those days I thought it was all trilby's and raincoats. New Street was all steam trains and Celia Johnson

New St station was a battleground in those days, well dodgy

No they wer'nt on the bus that day,i'm sure [you'd never forget a trip with any of those three]i do remember a guy called peggy who i think got on the bus in Trethomas mad as hell he was.

remember the oldham supporters club refurbishment very well it was total carnage.we were lucky as we just got served before the old bill came piling in and my kid got away before paying

No they wer'nt on the bus that day,i'm sure [you'd never forget a trip with any of those three]i do remember a guy called peggy who i think got on the bus in Trethomas mad as hell he was.

was peggy the guy who done the pompey clock?

was at that game and have similar memories to Gwyn however my lasting memory was returning home on the train with the team, management And directors. got all the autographs except Brian Clark, Don Murray,Brian Haris playing poker and signed after Don won his hand but moving in to the buffet car having all the autographs almost complete they were smudged when Ronnie Bird fell on top Freddie Davies completely bladdered.Ronnie became a great mate in later years and always insisted he was never a drinker.

I see you are from Taffs Well.

Do you know what became of the long standing City fan from Taffs Well who ended up in a wheel chair. If I recall his name was something like Granville . The reason I ask since the move to the new Stadium you don't get to see as many of the old faces.

remember the oldham supporters club refurbishment very well it was total carnage.we were lucky as we just got served before the old bill came piling in and my kid got away before paying

i was there that day i was fifteen at the time and i went up there by car with some friends of mine we were just about to sip our drinks when all hell broke out i remmber it like it was yesterday there was no soul crew in those days but we were mad as hell then just like we are today we even went in there ground and took there end untill the police came in and marched us out and up the other end of the ground