How Hillsborough Could Have Happened Anywhere in the 1980s

The Hillsborough scandal has been shocking, but I fear that more will come out. Some people in authority will speak out, but they won't be motivated by guilt, but by a need to protect their own reputations. Some individuals in the police and the emergency services, sections of the media, and successive governments - Tory and Labour - have been a disgrace.

I went to away matches and I saw how the police were. Really, really aggressive some of 'em. It was the side of football most people who weren't fans weren't aware of. Hillsborough could have happened at other grounds and affected other fans in the 1970s and 1980s. There had been tragedies at Ibrox, Heysel and Bradford during this period. As a football fan in 1989, I was well aware that I could have ended up in the middle of a similar tragedy. Football grounds weren't safe places.

Football fans were generally treated like scum in the 1970s and 1980s, especially away supporters. Or in the case of Hillsborough, fans from neutral clubs. I used to travel to Luton Town away games in the '70s, and, though this was the decade where football hooliganism grew, the treatment of away fans indicated that all fans from all clubs were potential hooligans.

I remember Luton winning promotion in 1974 at West Bromwich Albion. While the Luton fans were jumping up and down in celebration a gnarled old copper thought that he didn't like that. He waded in. His young sidekick thought that he better follow suit and he was beaten unconscious. When Luton fans tried to run on at the end of the game, to congratulate the team, some were pushed back onto the concrete terracing. So who, exactly, were the hooligans in this instance? I was 14 and a placid soul, yet even I was shouting and swearing at the cops.

At a match in Chester a young Luton fan was having a joke with a cop on a horse, and the next minute the cop has this kid by the hair and is dragging him along. I heard the banter and the kid didn't say anything disrespectful or threatening.

Football still has problems, and hooliganism is still around - as is racism. Elements of the Establishment are also still corrupt, so if a tragedy on the scale of Hillsborough did happen again, I wouldn't be too optimistic that things would be any different than that distressing day in April 1989.

Introduction to Luton Town F.C.'s 50 Greatest Players

Ah, Luton Town. No club in English football has surely had such highs and lows. Has there been a bigger club to be demoted to non-League football since the advent of three divisions in 1920? The answer must be a resounding no.

Luton's history is not so notable in terms of winning major trophies, but the amount of quality players that have played for a relatively small club is staggering. In this list of the top 50 Luton Town players I've leant favourably towards Hatters players who were a success in top flight football, but not exclusively. Loyal servants to the club such as Alan Slough, John Moore, Kevin Nicholls and Fred Hawkes deserve to be in the list, though they never played at the very top level for the Hatters in League football. This list was really provoked by my disagreeing with a similar list in 'The Times' in 2009, so feel to disagree with mine...

I began watching Luton at the start of the 1970-71 season, when the Hatters were in Division Two, and had just been promoted. It was a season of promise. Luton had a talented young team, which, if kept together, would have been in a strong position to have gained promotion the following season. The season ended with a helluva blow however. Supermac was sold.

My late Mother used to remind me that when Luton sold Malcolm MacDonald to Newcastle United I burst into tears on hearing the news. I was only 51 at the time...No, I had just come home from junior school. I was 11 years old and stood aghast, dressed in my little school cap. I couldn't comprehend that my idol had left the club. It was a harsh lesson for being a Luton Town fan. The optimism of looking forward to a push towards to Division One the next season had been replaced by the jewel in Luton's crown being sold. Supermac's sale was to help the club, who, surprise, surprise, were in trouble financially. Even then...

There were glorious days following Luton in the 1970s and 1980s, and Eric Morecambe was always keen to give the Hatters publicity, of course. As a 14-year-old I stood on the terraces at the Hawthorns, with my friend Clive, watching Luton clinch promotion at West Brom in 1974. On the coach home we heard that a First Division day out at Old Trafford wasn't going to happen, as Manchester United had been relegated. Being a Luton fan, as ever, had its surreal moments. We were now playing at a higher level than the Reds. I later found out that the Hawthorns game was the first match TV presenter and Baggies fan, Adrian Chiles, ever attended.

Luton's first home game in 1974-75 was against F.A. Cup holders Liverpool. Liverpool were a magnificent side, and most of their players could take a joke. A wag in the crowd shouted out to Liverpool's legendary 'keeper Ray Clemence: "Call yourself a goalkeeper, Clemence?" Ray looked round, smiled sweetly, and said: "Yeah!" Luton fans taunted Kevin Keegan throughout the game, after Kev had been sent off a week earlier in the Charity Shield encounter with Leeds at Wembley, together with Billy Bremner. Keegan was so upset at the "Keegan-Bremner" taunts that he threatened to quit football. Luton struggled throughout the '74-'75 season, but were unfortunate to be relegated in the end. Needing to get a result, relegation rivals Spurs defeated a Leeds side with one eye on their upcoming European Cup final.

A few years in the Second Division wilderness followed, but David Pleat had created a strong Luton side by the early 1980s. The Town had been getting close to promotion to the First Division, before I saw them finally win the Second Division title in 1981-82 against QPR. The Hatters had won away at mid-table Chelsea the game before. Luton's brand of football in Division One in 1982-83 excited the nation, but it still required a win at Manchester City on the last day of the season for the Hatters to stay up. Raddy Antic pulled a rabbit out of the hat late on and cue David Pleat and the strangest jig in football history! Luton actually relegated Manchester City and stayed up themselves.

The Hatters gradually strengthened their squad and team, and by the end of the decade had the strongest and most successful team in the club's history. The 3-2 League Cup win over Arsenal at Wembley in 1988 was the sort of rollercoaster game that it had to be to give the Town their first major trophy in 103 years of trying. I wept. I didn't need to see another Luton game now. I kissed an attractive girl I'd never met before, and a hairy (male) Luton fan planted a smacker on my cheek.

The years since '88, apart from a brief resurgence in the first few years of the 21st Century, have not been kind to the Hatters. Being deducted a ridiculous 30 points for financial irregularities resulted in Luton ending up in the Football Conference in 2009. Though getting close to a return to the Football League in three successive seasons, Luton fans have more non-League football to look forward to for 2012-13. But at least no other current non-League team has ever had 50 players as good as this lot...

- Paul Rance, May 2012

Luton Town F.C.'s 50 Greatest Players is now available from Amazon, and is available in both paperback and Kindle format. The pages below have links to both formats.

Amazon.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Luton-Town-F-C-s-Greatest-Players/dp/147751192X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Luton-Town-F-C-s-Greatest-Players/dp/147751192X/ref=la_B004P2ALYY_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351510069&sr=1-1

The Story of Luke Knoblitz - Luton City & England

Introduction to 'Luke Knoblitz - English Football's First Alien Superstar'
http://footiearticles.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-story-of-luke-knoblitz-luton-city.html

World Cup Memories 1970-2010

The Great Players and Teams

My earliest memory of any World Cup was in 1966 when I was 6 years old. England, captained by the charismatic Bobby Moore, won the World Cup for the first time, but, sadly for me, being English, I found football (or soccer!) boring at that time. England have never won the trophy since!

Brazil's Bewitching Football

The first World Cup which grabbed my attention was in 1970. Held in Mexico, Brazil produced dazzling football, culminating in a 4-1 demolition of a team normally difficult to beat in Italy. As memorable as the Brazilian stars such as Pelé, Rivelino, Jairzinho, Gerson, Tostao, and Carlos Alberto were, what was really memorable for me was that fact that I saw the final while on holiday in Austria, and learnt that Austria's rivalry with Italy was pretty fierce, as the locals roared on the Brazilians. England, unfortunately, had gone out in the quarter-finals. My parents and I had to leave my grandparents house to catch a bus when England were 2-0 up, and as I thought England would win the game I wasn't too worried, but they were playing a West German side keen on revenge after losing the '66 final. When I got home, I found out that the Germans had won 3-2.

Dutch Master Cruyff

A fabulous Dutch side lit up the 1974 World Cup in West Germany, illuminated by a team playing 'total football', where each Dutch player was so adept that they could change positions and bewilder the opposition, who, up against the magical skills of Johan Cruyff, were often made to look ordinary. The Dutch seemed unstoppable, but in the final they were up against the hosts and current European champions. Holland took a very early lead, but Cruyff was largely shackled by Berti Vogts, and Germany had great players of their own in Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Paul Breitner, and Sepp Maier. Film star Elizabeth Taylor sat and suffered with her Dutch boyfriend, as West Germany won 2-1.

Typically, re interests, first impressions tend to dominate. Music, films, TV rarely seems as good as when we were younger, and this is true of sport in my case. The 1978 World Cup was pretty good, with hosts Argentina beating an again unlucky Dutch side, also without Cruyff, in the final, and a Paolo Rossi-inspired Italy won the 1982 World Cup in Spain, though Brazil sparkled about as much as the Dutch had in '74. It seemed that the most attractive and best teams weren't getting what they deserved.

Magical Maradona

Diego Maradona, in Mexico in 1986, virtually won the World Cup for Argentina on his own (including with the help of his infamous 'Hand of God'!), and scored two wonder goals against England and Belgium.

West Germany won the World Cup in Italy in 1990, beating Argentina in a spiteful final. The World Cup in the USA in 1994 saw the first final to be settled on penalties, with Brazil coming through against Italy.

France won their first World Cup, and on home soil, in 1998, with Zinedine Zidane outshining a strangely out-of-sorts Ronaldo in the final, and France won by a stunning 3-0 margin against Brazil. But Brazil won their fifth World Cup in South Korea/Japan, and Ronaldo had a happier final, scoring twice in a 2-0 win over Germany. It was Germany who hosted the 2006 World Cup, and another final went to penalties, which ended with an Italian triumph over France, but is best remembered for Zidane's head butt, and being the saddest of endings for one of football's greatest ever players.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa was the first to be held on the African continent. After decades of underachievement, Spain finally won the biggest prize in football, when defeating Holland in a grim final in Johannesburg.

Berti Vogts getting hands on with Johan Cruyff in the 1974 World Cup final