Low life
Pushed for space
Jeremy Clarke We were so high up that, apart from Freddie Kanoute who is tall and black and moves like a ballerina, and Shaka in goal, I couldn't make out which West Ham player was which. And we weren't even at the back. where they must have been issued with oxygen masks. It's a disgrace, I say. Forty-eight pounds each for a seat in West Ham's new west stand and you're so far away from the pitch it's like looking at an intelligence photograph taken by a satellite.
I was drunk, admittedly. In the Black Lion beforehand we were knocking them back faster than Tom could pull them. But there was a chap in the row behind us who reckoned he was completely sober and he couldn't make out who was who either. By covering my right eye with my hand my focus did improve slightly. But concentrating that hard was tedious. A quarter of an hour before the half-time whistle I stood up, sat down again rather heavily, stood up, and made my way to the bar underneath the stand.
As well as fleecing us of our entire disposable incomes, West Ham football club also takes a fiendish pleasure in making it as difficult as possible for us to get a drink. The board of directors must be chapelgoers or something. The bar under the west stand has a potential clientele of, say, 10.000 punters, yet it's about the size of a jellied-eel stall and opens only at half-time. The decor is breeze-block, half-painted steel girders and rivets. Tables, chairs or a shelf to rest your pint on — there are none. The predominating odour is cement.
But that isn't to say the place isn't popular. Even with a quarter of an hour to go to half-time, 50 or so thirsty customers were down there before me and standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the closed aluminium shutters. I joined this brotherhood of alcoholics and stood with my nose about three inches from the shutters. We stood in silence. I studied the shutters for a while. Then I said to the bloke beside me, 'Just like being in Africa.' He said he'd never been there, but he'd take my word for it. When I turned my head and looked at him for the first time, I recognised him as one of West Ham's all-time great football hooligans.
From about the age of 12 onwards, my friend Mick and I used to travel to West Ham's away games just to watch the crowd violence, which was much more spectacular than it is now. In time we came to recognise and then revere West Ham's leading hooligans, who always seemed to us to be more stylish than those from other clubs. If they'd handed out publicity photographs, Mick and I would have stuck them on our bedroom walls.
Their finest hour, we always say, was undoubtedly Harry Cripps's testimonial — Millvvall v. West Ham — in the mid-1970s. The attendance that night was about 2,000, and the entire crowd were going at it hammer and tongs throughout the game. The match itself was just a side-show. Mick and I were attacked by a gang of skinhead Millwall girls before we even got to the ground. Mention Harry Cripps's testimonial to anyone who was there that evening and they'll laugh. The bloke beside me was much smaller than I remembered him. He looked old and peaceable now, too.
You were at that Harry Cripps testimonial, weren't you?' I said. He laughed, then he turned his head and looked at me for the first time. Before we could start reminiscing, though, the crowd behind us, which had increased by several hundred, started pushing, and we were shoved up tight against the shutters. My feet were off the ground and my cheek was pressed so hard against the shutters that I couldn't move my head.
They were pushing just for the hell of it. Each time they gave a concerted shove forward, the air was squeezed out of my lungs. Worried that I might suffocate, I made a hammer fist and pounded frantically on the shutters. Immediately everyone within reach began hammering too, just for the hell of it, and everyone not in reach cheered. The din was terrific. From inside the bar I heard a woman yelling, 'If you bang on the shutters like that we're not going to open at all!'
At last, when the banging subsided, the shutters began to come up. They were rigged to a wire and pulley system and came up slowly, taking up the slackness in my cheek and giving me a much-needed facelift as they went. As I pushed myself away from them and ducked my head underneath, there was another mighty surge and I was forced head-first right over the counter. Still. I was first to be served. 'What would you like, dear?' said the woman.
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