It just isn't cricket, or baseball

By Paul Flower on Feb 24, 11 03:32 PM

I was once at the Baseball Ground, the former home of Derby County. Once was enough, it was part football ground part air raid shelter being composed of girders, crumbling concrete and corrugated iron. I mention it now as I recall how we laughed at the signs nailed to the walls outside the turnstiles; they depicted all the items you weren't allowed to take into the ground, with drawings of each.

Whilst waiting to enter the ground we amused ourselves by adding obvious items to the litany of nails, darts, fireworks, spears, knuckle dusters, etc. We journeyed from guns and grenades to intercontinental ballistic missiles but would never have thought to add teddy bears to the list.

Perhaps this proves the resourcefulness of the modern-day football hooligan; no longer content with arranging their pitched-battles by mobile phone or anti-social networking they're now concealing weapons in cuddly toys. It did make me wonder how the teddy was explained to the stewards who checked fans on the way into the ground. A cuddly toy in the webbed-fingers of a scarred skinhead with misspelled tattoos, did he tell them it was his lucky mascot?

That these scenes took place in the section of the ground where I was sitting is no great surprise, since it connects closely to the away supporters, but it came at the end of a game that lacked that degree of rivalry or passion - Albion didn't even wake up until 30 minutes had been played. Quite possibly this is as it's contested by players who have little concept of the antagonism between the fans. They're distanced by nationality and perhaps even privilege, to them it's just another game but to the fans that live and work with each other it's a kind of warfare.

I do not take this lightly, although ridicule is often the best treatment for this Neanderthal behaviour. It is clearly impossible to prevent crowd-trouble at these games, whatever time they 'kick-off', and we should probably be thankful that over the years it has become somewhat more of a rarity.

There was fighting at the first game I ever went to, but this was the late 70's and at the time it was commonplace. Rival fans would pay to get into your terraces and it was a badge of honour for them to start pitched battles before being escorted into their own areas by the police. As increased police intelligence and seated grounds became more common the hooliganism drifted away but there were always certain games and certain teams who would always be a problem.

Albion v Wolves is one of those fixtures. In my youth it wasn't played that often, Wolves were in their wilderness years and generally in different divisions - no doubt this had the effect of adding to their bitterness. I was barely aware of them - I recall one or two Wolves fans at school but for Albion fans of my generation it was always Villa that we hated.

As Albion started to drop down the divisions, so the games became more regular and the depth of hostility was often quite something. At times it was frightening and at others surreal. I recall standing outside a pub near the albion ground that we used to frequent before one fixture. We couldn't get in because it was so busy on that particular day, a Wolves fan came to talk to us about the 'team news' as Albion striker Bob Taylor was unfit for the fixture. As he was chatting to us the windows behind were suddenly filled with albion fans hurling abuse and his mate joined him to ask why he was talking to 'these wankers'.

At the Molineux it was most dangerous when they were renovating the ground. One season we stood side-to-side with the enemy, separated by some inadequate fencing. They took the opportunity to bombard us with every missile available (no intercontinentals) and it was genuinely dangerous. It may have been the following season that they managed to similarly bombard us post-match whilst we were still held in the ground.

The tradition of keeping away-fans in the stadium to allow the home fans to disperse has always troubled me. On the one hand it makes sense that everyone doesn't immediately 'mingle' and seize random opportunities to cause trouble, on the other hand it means that when you leave the ground as an away-fan you become a 'sitting-duck'.

Climbing some steps to avoid one of the Wolverhampton subways I remember being taunted by the Wolves fans standing waiting at the top. Sadly the guy in front of me decided it was too much to bear and reaching the summit seconds before me started a fight that would spill into the dual carriageway. We tried desperately to avoid the fighting and the traffic but couldn't get onto the central reservation because of the crash barriers. If they wondered at this time why families didn't go to football games then this was a perfect illustration - much better than the hand-drawn ones at the Baseball Ground.