Page 53 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

chanting along with all of those around us. There was a large group of Man U fans in the same end as us with no real barriers between us and when we started chanting, “Est-ud-i- ANT-es! Est-ud-i-ANT-es!” the whole lot of them came surging round the pathway at the top of the end and we all ran away towards the front. The handful of police must have chased them back again and really no harm was done. On another occasion we were using the word ‘shite’ in one of our chants and suddenly a large red-faced policeman appeared in our ranks shouting, “All yeas shoutin’ “shite” can jus pack it in coz that’s yus are yersels – shite!” We did actually stop and got the giggles as soon as he left. It all sounds very naïve when I think about it now but things were to get a lot nastier. I was in the Fulwell End around that time along with my usual pals Keith, Erk and Fos and a guy I didn’t know very well called Paul when this drunken older guy behind started thumping Paul and trying to nut him. It wasn’t a full-on attack but he’d just lash out every minute or two so that at first we weren’t sure if he’d just hit him by mistake in the melee. It very soon became clear that it was no accident and then we had to go through this horribly ritualized charade of the bloke’s mates intervening and the attacker shaking Paul’s hand, while he could hardly stand up, before nutting him again a few minutes later. They were a lot older than us and we were afraid but when we noticed that arsehole slowly taking out a knife, we beat it.
There was a character called Sammy Smith who was the leader of the Fulwell End. He was a semi-mythical
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