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Double Decker

Favourite away game

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2 minutes ago, TJB-fox said:

I’m trying to remember. Was stevie Howard involved? Right at the end/just after full time?

No, it was after the game. We were held back in the ground to allow the home fans to leave and were in high spirits having just won 1-0 (Fryatt), Hobbs sent off and Rickie Lambert missed the penalty. The groundsmen were repairing the goal mouth turf in front of us and a bit of banter started up involving tractors, Wurzel Gummidge and the like (it was in Bristol) until one of the groundsmen took offence and stuck two fingers up. The avalanche of 'banter' that followed resulted in the head groundsman in a suit and miked up marching over to him, grabbed the fork and pointed to the tunnel in no uncertain terms. He was then subjected to the sort of abuse an opposition player gets when red carded with the hand waving and 'sacked in the morning' stuff. Lots of talk about him being told to fork off. 

 

Felt sorry for him afterwards but bloody funny at the time. Hope that he didn't get the sack. 

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Derby at the baseball in the early 90s. First time we'd played then for 6 or 7 years. City brutally muscled their way to a 2-1 win. 4k in the away end. Then 300 or so of our hard core baby squad piled in late without tickets as the police didn't want them outside. Literally hundreds all over their end, including me in the old.popside. 

 

Wimbledon semi second leg. 

 

Dismantling Newcastle 3-0 in the title season. In the corporate area. Just everything about the day was right. The perfect Saturday. 

 

 

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13 hours ago, kushiro said:

Coventry 1999. Emile was awesome, the whole team was awesome. 

 

Goal Vault: Heskey vs Coventry 1999 - YouTube

 

The whole weekend left a bitter aftertaste, though. Even Strachan (their boss) admitted that Heskey was outstanding - I think the word he used was 'unplayable'. But then in News Of The World the next day, the headline was 'Not Good Enough, Emile'. It's the most bizarre headline I've ever seen. Nothing to do with racism - the only thing I could put it down to was the journalist being a Shearer patsy. At the time, Heskey was the main challenger for Shearer's place in the England team, and this was just a few months before Euro 2000. 

 

In Keegan's autobiography (he was England boss then) he paints an extraordinarily cynical picture of the tabloid journalists (for example, after his first press conference as England boss he was told by a photographer that he'd overheard two of them saying 'Let's get Keegan out as quick as possible'). Some of them of course have special relationships with the top stars, trading insider access for favourable coverage - which in Shearer's case must have meant trashing his England rival. 

 

What happened next? Heskey was so good v Argentina in a friendly a few weeks later that Shearer saw the writing on the wall - he announced that he would retire from the England team after Euro 2000, though he was only 29. Didn't want the humiliation of sitting on the sub's bench with Heskey wearing his number nine shirt. 

The whole anti-Heskey propaganda industry is pretty disgusting when you think of how successful his career was, and how much managers and other players rated him. Maybe that particular instance you mention wasn't down to racism but it played a part over his career I am sure. 

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1 hour ago, worth_the_wait said:

Funny you say that.   
 
I thought it was also a very poor atmosphere at Arsenal away a few weeks earlier (a week after beating Man City away).   It seemed that lots of the people around me had never even been to a football match, let alone a City away match.
 
I could only think that high priority ST holders and executive box holders claimed lots of tickets, instead of usually lending them to friends, relatives, neighbours, work colleagues and any other rabble.
 
The away ends at unglamorous places such as Stoke, Southampton, Watford, Palace and Sunderland were great that season.
 
I've found this time and time again recently.  We tend to get a far more "tourist" type support at so-called big clubs like Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal.   Our best support is always at provincial clubs that the fair weather/tourist fans don't want to go to.  

 

Ive been at Man U and literally been next to a tourist Man U fan. People flogging their tickets to keep priority points and eventually end up with people from abroad 

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1 hour ago, Voll Blau said:

Yeah. Most would blame the Sunday midday kick-off but even so, given the position we were in, it should still have been absolutely buzzing. Villa away last season was a pretty rubbish kick-off time too but was one of the best ends we've turned out since getting promoted.

 

Likewise in the Champions League, we were so poor aside from Brugge. For all the talk of brilliant days following City in Europe, many folks had a funny way of showing it abroad once they got through the turnstiles.

 

Anyway, don't want to derail this thread with too much negativity so I'll give an honourable mention to Sheffield United last season as another I really enjoyed in recent times. Felt like old times when people were just there to enjoy the day above anything - another famous example of that being when James Beattie sunk us at Bramall Lane with a hat-trick after about 20 minutes the year we went down - the away end was still rocking with gallows humour all game.

Madrid away was genuinely silent from start to finish. Maybe full of people who wanted to say they were there rather than back the team.

League One was the peak away support for me. It had a good mix of your loyal lot and day trippers so most weekends were good fun and decent ends.

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1 hour ago, bovril said:

Of the ones I've been to:

 

Rotherham away 2003

 

 

Forgot that. Was a good atmosphere. If I remember rightly we'd have won promotion that day with a win but I think Benjamin equalised for us with about 10 mins to go and we couldn't quite force the winner.

 

Portsmouth lost that day so we went top for a short while.

 

 

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2 hours ago, bovril said:

The whole anti-Heskey propaganda industry is pretty disgusting when you think of how successful his career was, and how much managers and other players rated him. Maybe that particular instance you mention wasn't down to racism but it played a part over his career I am sure. 

People who followed his career from the early days know what a good player he was. Not amazing (he was too erratic and not prolific enough goals wise) but a real threat, a handful for defenders with his direct running and a very selfless player. Owen, Cottee, Claridge all say what a great partner he was. The ShitFootball bollocks of memes of him struggling later in his career do him a massive disservice, from 96 to 2002 he was a very effective, good Premier League striker.

 

Anyway, Southend in League One, Huddersfield in the Championship winning season stand out, Norwich in the FA Cup (high risk and all that), for pure shithousery the Watford match in 2013 (Wood off his face, Knockaert's goal, Harry the Hornet taking the piss and getting it back).

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7 hours ago, Crazy Kop Corner said:

Hardly a thermos flask in sight. 

 

I was on the p*ss in the Foresters Arm on the front for hours before the game - they closed it at about 1 o'clock which meant that a load of locals couldn't get in which didn't go down too well. 

 

I remember 2 late goals, Walshy putting the defender in the back of the net with the ball and then trying to scale the fence. 

 

Our support was Great back then. 

There was a good feel factor around the club then after the Pleat era, Brian Little was like a breath of fresh air

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Some decent away days in that 91/92 season , Swindon , Southend , Derby, Port Vale(mainly the local pub we ended up in afterwards) tranmere on a Friday night , Blackburn. Shame the last away game at Upton Park vs Charlton was a let down performance wise, sure we had around 10,000 in a gate of 15,000

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4 hours ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

That Southend video is brilliant. The away end looks like it’s straight from Buenos Aires 

Watching it again the memories come flooding back, makes your hairs stand up 

 

Even at 1-0 down you could sense us getting back into the match, the atmosphere was electric behind that goal, amazing feeling when Walshie got the winner.

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3 hours ago, Spudulike said:

No, it was after the game. We were held back in the ground to allow the home fans to leave and were in high spirits having just won 1-0 (Fryatt), Hobbs sent off and Rickie Lambert missed the penalty. The groundsmen were repairing the goal mouth turf in front of us and a bit of banter started up involving tractors, Wurzel Gummidge and the like (it was in Bristol) until one of the groundsmen took offence and stuck two fingers up. The avalanche of 'banter' that followed resulted in the head groundsman in a suit and miked up marching over to him, grabbed the fork and pointed to the tunnel in no uncertain terms. He was then subjected to the sort of abuse an opposition player gets when red carded with the hand waving and 'sacked in the morning' stuff. Lots of talk about him being told to fork off. 

 

Felt sorry for him afterwards but bloody funny at the time. Hope that he didn't get the sack. 

So many great away days that season. This one (I think as I was a little bit blotto if I recollect), Hereford, Cheltenham and Orient probably up there as the best. Took numbers everywhere, lots of new grounds / places to visit etc. Also unlike some 'big' clubs when they find themselves in Div 1, I don't recall us ever thinking we were above all that, as we acknowledged we were very much where we deserved to be at that time. 

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17 hours ago, kushiro said:

Coventry 1999. Emile was awesome, the whole team was awesome. 

 

Goal Vault: Heskey vs Coventry 1999 - YouTube

 

The whole weekend left a bitter aftertaste, though. Even Strachan (their boss) admitted that Heskey was outstanding - I think the word he used was 'unplayable'. But then in News Of The World the next day, the headline was 'Not Good Enough, Emile'. It's the most bizarre headline I've ever seen. Nothing to do with racism - the only thing I could put it down to was the journalist being a Shearer patsy. At the time, Heskey was the main challenger for Shearer's place in the England team, and this was just a few months before Euro 2000. 

 

In Keegan's autobiography (he was England boss then) he paints an extraordinarily cynical picture of the tabloid journalists (for example, after his first press conference as England boss he was told by a photographer that he'd overheard two of them saying 'Let's get Keegan out as quick as possible'). Some of them of course have special relationships with the top stars, trading insider access for favourable coverage - which in Shearer's case must have meant trashing his England rival. 

 

What happened next? Heskey was so good v Argentina in a friendly a few weeks later that Shearer saw the writing on the wall - he announced that he would retire from the England team after Euro 2000, though he was only 29. Didn't want the humiliation of sitting on the sub's bench with Heskey wearing his number nine shirt. 

Can't pick a favourite, but this one bought back some memories. I'd worked at that ground as a waiter a few times including meeting Dion Dublin & "Sky Blue Sam" who they had laying tables before putting the elephant costumer on! So it was great to actually make it to a game as a fan there.

 

The goal was great, but it wasn't the best moment of the match, was it?

 

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11 minutes ago, Golden Fox said:

Can't pick a favourite, but this one bought back some memories. I'd worked at that ground as a waiter a few times including meeting Dion Dublin & "Sky Blue Sam" who they had laying tables before putting the elephant costumer on! So it was great to actually make it to a game as a fan there.

 

The goal was great, but it wasn't the best moment of the match, was it?

 

Who’s the bird in the top left corner

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