Last year, Northbank1969 wrote about his and his mates’ journey to see Arsenal play Middlesbrough in the FA Cup in 1977. I believed that one of his party was my brother who I knew had gone to the game. It turned out it wasn’t. Another group of North London lads organised their own trip up north to watch the game. Here is their story as told by Mick Kelly.

The cast of characters: Mick Kelly, Robbie Whaley, John Hull, Dino, Dave Dewsbury, John Alligan, Mark Jones, Dave Holmes, Robbie Byford, Howard Miller and Adrian Shaw. [N.B. Dave Dewsbury is a Manchester United fan but his mates were going on a jolly oop north so why the hell not go with them?]

We arranged to leave at 6am. As we drove off Mark Jones, as usual, was late and chased us up the road to Manor House. We let him on and set off. I had a nice packed lunch for the journey, and Dave Holmes had a bottle of brandy. The journey up was pretty uneventful, a game of cards and John Hull and Dino were potless. As we got into Middlesbrough we got caught behind an old couple in a Morris Minor driving at 15mph. Dave Dewsbury decided to fly off down some back doubles then after about two miles we pulled back on to the main drag RIGHT BEHIND THE SAME CAR.

We found a pub close to the ground and got in for opening time. “Ten pints of lager and a light and lager” was the call. Mark Jones was holding the whip, and as we were setting up a game of darts with a couple of old boys the call came up “Jonesy, Jonesy up the bar, Jonesy up the bar”

The barmaid said “I haven’t pulled up the first round yet.” The locals were very friendly and by about the sixth call for “Jonesy up the bar” were joining in with “Jonesy, we’re on shorts.”

We eventually staggered off to the ground and ended up in the Boro end for some reason, probably tagging on with some lads from the pub – NOT A GOOD IDEA. After some minor scuffles the police came in and walked us in to the enclosure next door (via the pitch). They did put up a sheet of tarpaulin so the Boro fans couldn’t see us. This wasn’t much safer and as we dodged the stones and other missiles – John Hull ended up with a dart sticking out of his head as we watched the game.

The match was a blur and we decided to go before the end and get a drink as the lunchtime session was wearing off. Out of the cup after getting a 3-1 tonking after travelling all this way was too much to bear, Supermac’s goal our only consolation.

We headed out of the ground and obviously found the van and drove off looking for a pub away from the ground, John Alligan was driving and had a near collision with a police van as we pulled in to a pub. We got a pint and the police came in. I think he apologised to John and recommended a better pub a couple of miles away that did food. John thought he was going to be arrested. After another couple we headed off towards home and stopped off in Knaresborough for some relief and a pint and some chips. Here we met Chris Bennett and some lads from the same council estate in Manor House. After this we headed off to somewhere near Leeds (I think) and found a pub to finish the evening off. It was in here that Match of the Day came on and it dawned on all of us that we actually got beaten 4-1. For some reason this tipped Miller over the edge and he decided he wanted to fight the world. Luckily there was no one in the pub who cared.

The drive home was eventful, although mainly missed by me after some 20 pints. I woke once to find we had run out of Petrol. This was the second time, evidently. The reason being that Dave Dewsbury had turned the wrong way when joining the motorway and hadn’t realised. During one break John Hull was sick over Dave Holmes, who was then sick into John’s tartan cap, this brought on a chain reaction of chucking up…all in the minibus. This was the era of turned up jeans and everyone’s turn ups seemed to be swimming in puke. We eventually got home to Manor House at about 10am on Sunday morning. All of us had to play football that morning for the Brownswood Park Tavern (we had three teams). There were no call offs but we didn’t win any games.

John Alligan sluiced the van out with disinfectant and left the keys on the driver’s seat…

Here is the programme for the game that managed to return home with Mick, unscathed. As usual, click on the picture of the cover to read the whole programme which, as Mark pointed out to me, has an unusually large amount of Arsenal content.

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The books…