The times they were a’changing 55 years ago - but perhaps not always for the better. It was 1968 and a new phenomenon was on rise. Football hooliganism.
Mirroring changes in the wider world - the dawn of the so-called ‘permissive society’, challenges to traditional deference and the rigid British class system, and the rise of violent crime since the beginning of the 1960s - UK football grounds were no longer places where rival fans might stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the terraces as they had done in earlier decades.
St James’ Park was not immune from the first strains of this new-style football “aggro”. If one of the earliest recorded episodes of widespread disorder at the stadium dated as far back as 1901 when Newcastle United and Sunderland fans clashed in the 'Good Friday Riot', for the most part St James', and other grounds, had been largely peaceful and safe environments.
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In the 1950s, for example, it was not unknown for Newcastle fans to travel to Sunderland's Roker Park and watch a game when the Magpies were playing away. Similarly, Sunderland fans might stand on the St James' terraces to watch the black and whites.
But by the late 1960s, a more aggressive edge was emerging. In February, 1967, when Newcastle United hosted Everton, the Chronicle reported how “Newcastle’s long-suffering supporters exploded when they went 3-0 down after only 18 minutes. Fans in the Leazes End started fighting and coins and bottles showered on to the field.
“Children, sitting at the front of the crowd, scrambled on to the surrounding track for safety, but many were hurt, some having to go to hospital for treatment. The police were not prepared for what could almost be termed as a riot, being only small in number. It was probably because of this that, despite restoring order, only six men were arrested – two from Liverpool and four from Tyneside.”
A year later and trouble erupted again. This week 55 years ago, Newcastle United hosted Celtic in a ‘friendly’ game at St James’. Unusually it took place on a Saturday - February 17, 1968 - a free day, after both clubs had been knocked out of their respective domestic Cup competitions.
Eight months earlier, Celtic’s ‘Lisbon Lions’ has been crowned champions of Europe. The Hoops featured the likes of Bobby Lennox, Jimmy Johnstone, and goalkeeper Ronnie Simpson who’d won two FA Cup winners’ medals with the Magpies in the 1950s.
United, meanwhile, were on a good run themselves and sat fifth in Division One in a season where they would finish high enough to qualify for Europe, and promptly go on to win the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup - the forerunner of the UEFA Cup and Europa League - at the first attempt.
This was the Newcastle United of Bobby Moncur, Frank Clark, Ollie Burton, Pop Robson and Wyn Davies. As a crowd of just under 39,000 descended on Gallowgate for the 3pm game, there was trouble in the air.
On Leazes Park Road, near the site of the modern-day Newcastle Labour Club, one Newcastle supporter, who was 17 at the time, recalls: “There were thousands of Celtic fans drinking. There were Brown Ale bottle tops and smashed bottles everywhere. And there was fresh Celtic graffiti daubed on walls.”
When the game kicked off amid a highly-charged atmosphere, 10,000 Celtic fans were packed into the Gallowgate End. It was United’s former Hibernian right-winger, Jim Scott, who scored the only goal. There were a string of arrests during the match, and afterwards, major trouble erupted behind the Gallowgate End in Strawberry Place. The Chronicle reported on “drunken Glaswegians running riot through the city”.
A year later, Celtic's cross-city rivals, Rangers, arrived for the Fairs Cup semi-final second leg. A riot amid a hail of beer bottles from visiting fans broke out inside the ground when their team went 2-0 down. It was only the bravery of police officers and their dogs which finally restored a semblance of order.
And in 1974, United fans in the Leazes End invaded the pitch during a notorious FA Cup tie with Nottingham Forest, with the Magpies' dramatic 4-3 win eventually being declared void by the FA. Indeed, for those of us who remember going to the match in the 1970s and '80s, it could sometimes be an edgy experience in the old terraced St James’ Park - and certainly as far away from the modern-day match experience as can be imagined.
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