Fans United

[northstandsteve]

A true one off it will never be repeated to the same extent it was at the Goldstone. Stood in the North as normal with my mates and a Palace fan, he was thanked by all but only after being mercisslessly having the piss taken out of him by all. At the end he said it was the best day at a soccer match he had ever had. Came on his own, age 19.

The entrance of the Germans was great, remember a Real Madrid flag flying from the Wedst stand. 9,000 in the ground my arse !!!!!!

Its in the top three matches for me in nearly 50 years of supporting the Albion. We should never forget.

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A true one off it will never be repeated to the same extent it was at the Goldstone. Stood in the North as normal with my mates and a Palace fan, he was thanked by all but only after being mercisslessly having the piss taken out of him by all. At the end he said it was the best day at a soccer match he had ever had. Came on his own, age 19.

The entrance of the Germans was great, remember a Real Madrid flag flying from the Wedst stand. 9,000 in the ground my arse !!!!!!

Its in the top three matches for me in nearly 50 years of supporting the Albion. We should never forget.

 

[Barry Izbak]

Manchester United.......... sadly lacking in any presence that day .

I wrote a piece for some magazine or other following Fans United and I listed every club shirt I saw there. You're right, there were no Manchester United shirts, not that I saw. Ironic really, considering you see them in every town any other day. I seem to remember I had over sixty clubs in that list.

Fans United was an incredible experience. As others have said, you really did have to be there, because its hard to believe what you read about what it was like.
The total goodwill towards the Albion, its fans, and towards football itself that pervaded that day just took your breath away.

So many highlights, but for me they include the coachloads from Charlton all grouped together on the east and just the unbelieveable numbers of people who were there, in a season when crowds had dwindled prior to Christmas as the club adopted a deathly palour.

Fans United reignited the fans and the team. I'd love to see some pictures from that day, but it was woefully covered in the press and on TV,
Its covered well in Build a Bonfire though.

 

[Wozza]

it was woefully covered in the press and on TV,

Nobody printed dozens of pics or anything, but The Guardian was pretty much the only paper which didn't cover it in some way (and they later apologised to me).

We got half page in the Sunday Times, for example.

 

[Uwinsc]

This thread is making me wish I had been there. Instead I will go and re read build a bonfire.

 

[BadFish]

Fantastic day, it is a real shame their aren't more photos and more coverage. To me it demonstrated the power of football as a whole rather than a disparate collection of tribes.

That and getting right royally pissed with some Pompey and Palace fans in the beard and bins afterwards. Happy days (well obviously not but you know what i mean)

 

[Deleted User X18H]

The lack of Manchester United then the best supported club in Sussex was pitiful. I saw a video clip sometime later of a work colleague Maurice, who held up a Stockport scarf , I arranged to meet him and others Gooners and West Ham fans but never saw him. In the days before everyone had mobile phones, I doubted he'd made the effort until I saw him on TV.

 

[Ex-Staffs Gull]

Main problem with photos was digital cameras were rare, not like current mobile phones.... press should have a d I cent archive though... It really was a have to be there kind of thing though, not sure photos would convey the atmosphere..

 

[4-p]

If there a web site, official or unofficial, that tells the story of how fans utd started and why etc.

I've need to link more than one article to it but haven't anything definitive enough.

I thought maybe someone fully in the know might at least have made a free blogspot site by now. Might be some good ad revenue from it too.

 

[Brovion]

There is some TV footage as there was clip shown several times that I was (briefly) on holding a banner outside the North Stand. Took my, then, four year old son so that he could say he'd been. He was a bit miffed when it was on TV because he was too small and was out of the camera shot!

 

[robinsonsgrin]

a day etched on my memory. thanks for the link to the official prog, i bought one.. and gave it away to some norwich fans who couldnt get hold of one... we were in the queue, yes QUEUE, to get into the north stand. it had been a long time since we had been sardined into the stand, but worth every squish!

 

[Silverhatch]

I used to drive down from SE London for home games back then. I'd done it for years and sort of went into auto pilot mode. I remember coming round the M25 and noticing loads of cars (and bikes!) with football scarves but didn't really make the connection. It was only when we got to the top of the A23 at Pease Pottage and picked up a minibus full of Charlton fans that I suddenly clicked that all these buggers were heading for the Goldstone. The atmosphere in the North that day was as surreal as it was marvellous. Fog and goals aplenty with battle songs of defiance. As others have said we'd fought and skirmished with Archer and Bellotti up to that point but the support from other football clubs in a pre-digital and still very real world steeled us all to fight our own owners, football's administrators, planners and government to the death (theirs or ours). That's why the Amex still feels so unreal.