Billy Bests boot laces
President⭐⭐
- Joined
- Nov 13, 2006
- Messages
- 8,464
i remember the leamington in 74 .southend took 3 coaches up . There must of been about 20- 25 north bank chaps on one of the coaches .you paid your fare and included in the price was a ticket to the game .on the way up the guy handing out the tickets said they had a report that southend supporters were told to keep out of the windmill end as they were expecting an (unruley element at the game ) when we looked at the tickets it had admission windmill end . This was alright with us .getting in to the ground it looked like there was a lot of villa scarves about perhaps they remembered the last time we met .on seeing us coming in there end leamington charged over old bill were well ready for any agro and moved us to another part of the ground . I know we won 2-1 but the bit of the game that i remember was dave worthington and chris guthrie throwing punches at each other and being seperated . After the game there was a bit of a ruck going back to the coach but the bill escorted on to the coaches pretty boreing really . But driving down the road one whole side of windows came in the coach stopped bob jenning and a few others chased this mob of leamington with there villa scarves up the road but the old bill jumped on us and put us back on the coach .i still remember driving down the m 1 freezing cold and wet because it was pouring of rain all the way home .at ilford some west ham turned up before the game and were chased up the road i think the best part of there ground was the supporters club a 1-0 win set us up nicely for qpr .
Spot on Oz. We were on the same coach at the back. There was you, Bob Jennings, Steve Su, Me, PO, Tricky Dicky, and Ray Tully amongst others.
On the journey up we were joking about buying a programme from houses near the ground etc, and people selling Burgers in their front gardens etc. I recall going through the turnstiles in their end, expecting to see a crew of around 20 fellers, but was met with the sight of a mob of a couple of hundred.
We ended up at the other end, similar to Cambridges, about 12 steps high. Sitting on the coach afterwards, we became aware of Blues fans being picked off, and went to their aid, but the Rozzers would'nt have any of it. Then as you recall, we were given an early version of 'air conditioning' which in November, proved to be an uncomfortable (to say the least) journey back to Southend.
* A couple of years later we drew them again in the Cup away. At that time CC was coming to providence with his 'chums' and they decided to go up there. I warned him what to expect, which was shrugged off. They experienced a worse day than we had! We drew 0-0 that time and won the replay 4-0, with no AP fans in attendance, surprise, surprise!.