Sheffield United and the S.A.S

Matthew Bell shares a Sheffield United story from the time of the late chairman, Reg Brealey.

Matthew Bell

Grimsby Town 4 Sheffield United 0, 3rd May 1980

1979/80 was the season that Sheffield United were supposed to return to Division Two at the first time of asking, but it was not to be, despite a good start and a run of five consecutive away wins in September and October. They then lost three games in succession in the period leading up to the Boxing Day disaster at Hillsborough, from which the Blades never recovered, winning only four further matches. Nobody thought that Grimsby Town would maintain the pace but by the time they faced United in the last game of the season, they had already secured promotion and had to win to take the championship.

United were a dispirited bunch by now and although young Trenton Wiggan was making his debut for the Blades, they were no match for a rampant home side, who cruised to a 4-0 victory in front of an attendance of 19,566. What Grimsby would give for crowds like that today. A large proportion of that gate had travelled to have a nice day out at the seaside and to support the Blades. Even though the team was garbage, we were still going to have a great time and hopefully spoil Grimsby’s promotion party.

There was simmering trouble on Cleethorpes seafront and in the streets outside the ground before the match, and it continued inside as, in the days of pay-on-the-day and little or no segregation, United supporters infiltrated all parts of the ground. It was particularly bad in the main stand and in the corner where Grimsby’s ‘boys’ massed as close as possible to the area where the majority of Blades fans were congregated, with only a wire mesh fence to separate them. Skirmishes and coin-throwing went on throughout the match, and continued afterwards on the way back to the coaches and the railway station.

The Star reporter, Peter Markie (now retired) rather misguidedly decided that this match would be a good one for his ten-year-old son’s first away trip. What a mistake. Mr Markie described his nightmare day the following week in The Star (see below).

There was a different side to the United support that day, though. Throughout the second half, with United already well-beaten, the Blades fans kept up a continuous rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” with scarves and flags raised high. I spent most of the second half trying to peer through an enormous St George’s flag to see the game. A Lincolnshire businessman who was a guest of the Grimsby directors that day was so impressed with the Blades’ support that he decided to buy the company.

This was Reg Brealey, who joined the Sheffield United board later that year, initially as Financial Director, then taking over from John Hassall as Chairman. It was Brealey’s money, of course, that enabled Ian Porterfield to spend around £300,000 on Keith Waugh, Keith Edwards and Colin Morris to get us out of the Fourth Division, but we don’t need to go into the disasters that befell United during Brealey’s final years in charge.

Reproduced below is Peter Markie’s account of his ‘day out’:

Another football season is over but the menace of crowd violence remains. That is one sad postscript on the 1979/80 campaign. Now here’s a soccer puzzler: where did the following incidents take place?

• A football manager was cut on his cheek by flying glass after a brick was hurled through a window of the team coach.

• Players joined police in an unsuccessful chase across fields for the culprits.

• Rival supporters fought running battles before, during and after the match.

• Two fires were started in the stand.

• A pub bar was wrecked, a police car turned on its roof and 29 fans appeared before special courts charged with offences ranging from assaulting a police officer to a breach of the peace.

Any idea? Old Trafford, Elland Road, Celtic Park or one of those bizarre trouble spots in South America? The answer, in fact, is dear old Cleethorpes and the match in question the Grimsby Town-Sheffield United fixture which clinched the Third Division championship for the Mariners and confirmed that the Blades, in collapsing 4-0, had completely lost their bearings.

That something smells in football was punched home to me at a personal level. Early in the season I had promised the 10-year-old Lane fanatic in our household the bonus of an away trip. It was early season and the Blades were top of the table and the Mariners were near the bottom … but it was the last match of the season and, on paper at least, looked a good day out with the extra treat of dropping in on the in-laws not too far from Blundell Park. Two stand seats were bought (£1.80 each) as insurance against crowd pressure as a full house was anticipated in view of Grimsby’s championship aspirations. This is how my timetable worked out:-

9.47 a.m. – Depart Midland Station on ordinary Cleethorpes service. Some United fans on board, no trouble on the train but the first warning bell – a trail of beer cans left behind.

12 noon – Arrive Cleethorpes where police kept a low profile by having only one officer and his dog on view.

1.10 – Relatives arrive with news of incidents in pubs near railway station and ground.

1.45 – Wrongly decide to risk it and arrive at Blundell Park to find big build-up of fans heading for ground, but on the face of it in good heart.

2.00 – Very elderly steward checks my tickets and sends me to the Osmond Stand (at the Cleethorpes end of the ground).

2.05 – After thorough search, can find no club steward to direct me to seat. On further check, discover the section of the terracing we are in has no seats. Back out to gate steward who is up to his neck with queries and waves me back in the direction I came.

2-15 – Terracing now filling up. There is a doorway from this section to the part of the stand which has seats, but already police are under pressure at this very point as they begin to use it to take away the first trouble-makers. As soon as police open door, the fans charge them. Police and police helmets fly, bodies clash; I decide to stay my ground rather than risk further enquiries on the grounds that the police have enough on without my problem.

2.25 – Pick out a ‘safe spot’ away from the Barmy Army of Shoreham Street now in full voice. They are separated from a hard-core unit of Grimsby fans only by fencing which again has a police-guarded doorway. Police line up alongside fencing. Every time they cart a body through the doorway there is a charge. Chanting now obscene, stink bombs go off, taunting between two sides is deadly and has more to do with Nero’s Rome. They should really pack this lot up and send them to Cleethorpes Zoo, except it wouldn’t be fair on the animals.

2.40 – Splintered appeals from loudspeaker system for fans to move forward at our end, but can’t really make the message out.

3.00 – Taunting now unbearable. Police in such situations should be paid £500 a man danger money by home clubs as one way of getting the message through to our football establishment at large. Right on kick-off, a late arrival of United fans causes chaos and we lose our ‘safe spot’ in the surge.

3.10 – Obscenities pollute the outside air. I’m already looking for a way out of the madhouse. The choir is going on about “United will fight because of Boxing Day” and nobody is much bothered about what is going on in the match. There is the now regulation early series of fouls on Sabella and the United defence is exposed at a simple corner which starts the goal rush.

3.20 – Another arrest in front of us. As the police haul the man through the doorway and into the taunting demo from Grimsby fans, I don’t wait to find out what happens. In the stampede a way out presents itself to us and we dash, heads down for the exit to the other stairway and freedom. Coins and other objects are now flying all over the place and my last memory is of an old man ducking for cover with a raincoat round his head. Soccer hooligans are no respecters of age.

3.25 – Get clear of Blundell Park but not before picking our way through one fierce exchange between fans and police officers in street and another heading for the police van with the policeman having one hand on the youth’s back and the other on a half-bottle of whisky. We spend the rest of match time enjoying the peace of a deserted Cleethorpes front and pondering on how worse it could all have turned out if the match had been a promotion clincher and not, as billed, just a carnival finale for the Mariners. On the face of it, this could have been a job for the SAS.

8.27 – Sheffield train departs Cleethorpes with a handful of passengers. We gambled on a late train in hope of avoiding late night troubles. Shocked to find fan with bottle in hand wanting to have sing-song with train driver. Go to opposite end of train and, mercifully, the drunk doesn’t re-appear.

10.00 – Shocked to find at Doncaster that 10.22 Sheffield connection not running and have to wait until 10.55.

10.55 – All quiet on train until last moment when party of United fans arrive. One looks into our compartment and lets out a mouthful of abuse: “Conservative first class pigs.” Not the time to tell him that there’s no first class part to the train and that it’s a non-smoker.

11.40 – Police in evidence as we finally reach Midland Station but the war isn’t over yet. Fans urinate outside the station in full view of taxi queue.

11.50 – One more bridge to cross before taxi arrives. A Sheffield Wednesday fan, after a night celebrating promotion, half shambles into the station area. Unitedites behind me react: “Christ, look at that pig.” Wednesdayite is in blissful ignorance of the danger he is in and I wonder how near the police are if a punch-up starts. “What’s that horrible smell?” taunts a Unitedite, but the man from Hillsborough, sporting his blue and white scarf, is so far gone he misses the insult. Taxi arrives to take us out of our misery.

The only conclusion I have come to on the day we went to Cleethorpes is that it will be the last trip I’ll ever make. Knowing Grimsby at a personal level for many years, I thought reports about writings on local walls such as “Death to all Yorkies” and “All Yorkies Prepare Your Coffins” were some kind of black joke, but they really are the writing on the wall.

Last words, however, belong to a United fan because they are the most fitting on a menace the game’s executive neglects at its peril. It was the slogan on his tee-shirt: I Am Insane.