My first football memory was the 1968 European Cup Final. My mum let me stay up to watch it. My brother had gone down to the game. Our Bert would have been 16; I was 6. I remember the next day, writing in our school books about United winning.
The year after, when Ajax were playing Milan, I asked my mum if I could watch it, but she said it was too late. I said, “But I watched it last year,” and she said, “Yes, well it’s different this year because United aren’t playing. Now get to bed.”
The whole family was sport mad: rugby league, cricket, football – we all watched it. My Dad was a City fan. I think he did it just to annoy us. My eldest brother was a City fan, but my middle two brothers are United fans.
My first United game was Stoke in 1973. I can’t remember the score. It was either 1-0 or 2-1. I’m not sure. Because I went to 2 in the same week: QPR and Stoke. One was a Wednesday and one was a Saturday. I had an Uncle who lived in Kington in Herefordshire, and he used to come up to Manchester every year. It would always be August, and he’d always take me to some sport every day. So we’d go and watch the cricket at Old Trafford, we’d watch United or City, and coming home from a day trip to Blackpool we’d go to Burnley to watch the football, and then on Saturday night we’d go to the speedway at Belle Vue.
My mum used to send him the ‘Football Pink’ in a piece of brown paper, rolled up with his address on it so he could read about the Manchester sport. You’d see all the blokes reading the 'Pink' on a Saturday night and because it was printed so late it was ripe for mis-prints. I remember United were playing Middlesbrough away, and in the Pink it had "Alex Forsyth was carried off 15 minutes from time with a suspected broken Terry Cooper".
My favourite United match ever was Porto in November 1977. We’d lost the first leg 4-0 in Portugal, so no one gave us a prayer. It was throwing it down and we scored dead early, and to cut a long story short, we won 5-2 on the night but lost 6-5 on aggregate, but United got a standing ovation because they’d given it everything they possibly could. It was almost like it didn’t matter that we’d lost, the night was so good.
I just missed out on watching Charlton and Best. It was coming to the end of their era. I’d obviously watched them on the telly, but by then Best was pretty much on the skids, Law was about to go to City, and Charlton had jacked it in. I remember my brothers going into town to George’s shop, ‘Edwardia’, and getting his autograph. They were lucky because he just happened to be there.
Stuart Pearson was a good striker, we signed him from Hull for a quarter of a million in 1974 when we’d been relegated, and he got 18 in 30 games. But Jim Holton was my favourite player. He had his own song, 'Six foot two, eyes of blue, big Jim Holton’s after you'. He was like Robocop and he had Martin Buchan next to him, who was a really graceful, skilful defender. Jim died quite young. He broke his leg twice playing for United, once at Sheffield Wednesday and again in a pre-season friendly against Red Star Belgrade in the kick in before the game. He stood on the ball and broke his leg.
Alex Forsyth was the same. He had a shot as hard as nails. Jimmy Nicholl took over, and he was easily the toughest guy in that team. He was as hard as nails. He has the Red Hand of Ulster on his arm and he used to train with a Rangers shirt on.
Fast forward to 1974 and that’s when I first started going regularly, after we’d been relegated. I was at the game with Sunderland when we won 3-2 and there was 60,585 there. They shut the gates at half-past-one. It was insane. We couldn’t get into our seats so we ended up in the Stretford End paddock, thinking we were all grown up with all the blokes. That was a great season. The last game of the season was Blackpool, 4-0. When I think of that game I always think of ‘Girls’ by ‘Moments and Whatnots’ because they played it before the game. The things that stick in your mind! May 1975 that’d have been. So we got promoted.
We used to buy what we called ‘Soup Au Barf’, as it was hideous, but we won the first time we bought it because we thought it was lucky. Of course it wasn’t, but… We said to the bloke serving it once, “What’s the soup this week mate?”, and he opened the pot and looked at it and after a few seconds he went, “I dunno.” “OK, can we have four then, please?” It was about 5 pence, but it was awful.
That second division kit that United wore was like a rugby shirt: red with just a white collar. It was fantastic.
Every team had a player that you wanted to see. When Sheffield United came they’d have Tony Currie for instance.
I didn’t start going to away games until 1979. I used to go with my brother and his mates. We went to Leeds, last game of the season, and we could have won the league; we got beat 2-0, but as it turned out Liverpool won so we couldn’t have won it anyway. The Leeds fans were absolutely loving it because they’d stopped us winning the league. We took 18,000 to that game.
That season we went to Brighton away, at the old Goldstone Ground. It’s 0-0, our kid parked on double yellow lines so the car’s been towed away, so we had to go to the compound to get it back and pay a fine. So we’re trying to find our way back to the car, the car that wasn’t there anymore.
I was going home and away regular for a few seasons then. I just used to go and pay, I didn’t have a season ticket or anything. I got my first season ticket in the mid 80s and had that for quite a few years. When I first started going it was 30 pence. We used to sit down with my mate from school, we were 12, in the ‘old stand’ where the TV cameras were, then later we’d sit in the Stretford End in the seats above. When I got a bit older and started going with my brothers, we used to stand in United Road near the away fans.
The first match I took my son to was when we got the trophy for winning the Premier League in ’94. He was 8. Anyway, after about 10 minutes he turned to me and said, “Dad, can I swear?”, and I said “Certainly not!”, and he went, “You’ve not stopped!” It was a 0-0 draw with Coventry. We’d won the league, so it didn’t matter, you know?
Memory added on September 21, 2021
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