1985 has been called Football’s ‘Annus horribilis’. If the 56 deaths at Bradford, including two Lincoln supporters, confirmed the decrepit and neglected state of many of the nation’s football grounds, a further death at Birmingham as rival fans battled, a televised rampage by Millwall fans at Luton and the death of 39 Juventus fans after a Liverpool ‘charge’ before the European Cup Final at Heysel, illustrated that football hooliganism was out of control. The Times referred to football as ‘a slum sport played in slum stadiums watched by slum people’. The government inquiry into these events, The Popplewell Report, mixed the issues of violence and safety, and even though it proved Bradford had nothing to do with hooliganism, the government responded with new legislation focussing largely on controlling the fans rather than forcing large scale investment in stadiums.
Nevertheless, things did slowly begin to change. Fans, the clear majority of whom were not hooligans and fed up of being labelled as such, began to find a voice through the self-depreciating and satirical fanzine movement. The tense atmosphere in grounds gradually started to dissolve as many young men discovered the new drug ecstasy and a more ‘loved up vibe’. The fun slowly started to return to football grounds, inflatables replaced knuckle dusters and the tabloids moved on to panicking about illegal raves as the new scourge of society. Italia 90, Gazza’s tears and New Order were just around the corner. Football was starting to become trendy.
However, things did not change overnight. I went to the City Ground with a Man United supporting mate in the late 80s and stood in the away end, an open terrace in a corner of the ground with a terrible view of the game. Looking back, it was dangerously overcrowded, badly policed and quite frankly frightening. I watched the game wedged between drunk Mancs with my feet struggling to touch the ground, at times battling to fill my lungs with air.
I thought about this day when I turned on the TV to watch Grandstand on a Saturday afternoon in April 1989. Once again supporters were dying at a football match on live television, penned in and crushed at Hillsborough, a stadium which, it has since been proved, was not fit for purpose.
The resulting inquiry and Taylor Report with its main recommendation for all seater stadiums and the call for a new ethos for football was the catalyst for the changes which ultimately led to football club’s redeveloping their grounds, changing forever the way football is watched in this country. However, many people argue the report was also the catalyst for all that is wrong in football today and hark back to the great days of the terraces, a less commercialised era of working-class male solidarity of the ‘people’s game’, the atmosphere ruined by the prawn sandwich brigade and being forced to sit rather than stand to watch the match.
In my view this argument comes from people who never regularly stood on the terraces in the 1980s. I loved football back then but would I go back? Absolutely not. Whilst I might not agree with all the changes in football since 1989, one thing is certain, football grounds are now much more welcoming and safer places than they were thirty years ago. It should also never be forgotten that ordinary people lost their lives going to football back then.
The effect of all this locally was that Lincoln redeveloped Sincil Bank from the late 1980s into the early 1990s into what we have today. But over twenty years later it is looking a bit dated, rough around the edges and with the current crowds, bursting at the seams. It looks like the club will be moving soon, consigning Sincil Bank to memory along with Vetch Field, Bell Vue, Boothfrerry Park and the Old Show Ground. It’s obviously not a popular idea with some but in my view, their opposition is based in a similar misguided nostalgic sentiment others feel about the perceived great days of the terraces. You have just got to move with the times, and whilst match day routines, in existence for decades for some, will change, I think it will be worth it, because if nothing happens it will only get worse. Just as today we don’t accept the way we watched football in the eighties, supporters in thirty years will not accept how we watch football today.
I reflected on all this having a drink in the bar underneath the away end at Barnet. I liked Underhill but life seemed more comfortable at the Hive, under the stand, having a drink in relative comfort watching the lunchtime game on the TV before taking my seat for the game. If the Board and Liam Scully are influenced in their planning for the new stadium by facilities such as those then the move will surely be a success.
It seems criticism of Sincil Bank is perhaps tempered by the fact it is home but the social media reaction of many of those at the Abbey and Kenilworth Road just confirms what we all really know, times continue to change and with it people’s expectations and values. Whilst I dislike the term ‘fan experience’, getting a drink and some decent food, having sufficient number of toilets and If forced to watch the game sitting down having enough leg room are now amongst the basic requirements for many supporters, whether their love of the club began at the Oldham match last year or on the bleak open terraces of the 1980s.
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Seeing Lincoln play away at Halifax – The Shay away end is like standing on a pile of mud collected from the speedway track! I thought it was possibly the worst ground I had ever visited! I renamed The Shay to The Shite!
What a wonderful article- My story with the Imps began in the ’80’s. I was about 5 yards away from the Burnley fans who thought standing and singing in the home end was a good idea. Similarly the Sheffield united game in ’83 and the joy, particularly after the game, that was. Nostalgia!
One thing I believe you omitted though is the impact of increased sentencing for football offences during the late ’80s. The appeal of creating havoc lost it’s allure when 12 months inside was the outcome and this, alongside ground improvements, contributed to the improved position we are now.
I am now 51 and have taken my 7 year old daughter to 3 games at SB this season-a safe experience where (except for the language sometimes) I am comfortable she will enjoy a game of football and might even want to come back.
It is not all change- there are still away days where you need to be on your toes even in EFL2 (Grimsby, Mansfield, Port Vale) a little but there are many more games where, even if the result doesn’t go our way, the whole away day is quite enjoyable (Morecambe stands out as a glorious spring day, a 0-0 draw, followed by fish and chips on the sea front- top draw).
This article brought back so many memories, particularly of how bad it was if you weren’t a white male, but serves to show me how much has indeed changed for the better.
Oakwell was a dump too, as was Saltergate. They all were.
I’m sure I recollect a spoilheap being part of the ground at Barnsley in the 70s?
I too remember a host of ‘nostalgic’ grounds, especially during our time in the Conference. I once went to Macclesfield and stood on the open terrace behind the goal on a Tuesday night as the dark clouds rumbled rumbled across from the Peak District and started to deposit their load. I asked a steward if I could pay the extra £2 and go through the gate to sit in the stand to get out of the rain. His response with 20 minutes to go before the game started was “we have to wait to see if it sells out” – there were about 40 of us on the terrace and about the same in the stands – there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of it filling up. I ended up walking out, going 5 yards along the all and buying another ticket for the stands, just to get out of the rain. In other words, the customer service was so bad that I had to pay twice.
And while I am on to customer service it always bugs me, having managed cinemas for 4 years, how clubs cannot gear up to serve crowds quickly and efficiently at half time. Cinemas do it several times a day 7 days a week and it simply takes organisation and preparation. Line up the drinks in advance, bundle offerings to take straight from the counter, price to reduce change, even take pre-orders – it isn’t rocket science and it would improve the experience and generate more money.
Excellent article. The away end at Wigan was a grass bank and I remember starting the match at the top and by half time had slid all the way down to the wall.
At Port Vale some fans, unprompted, complimented our performance. Don’t think it was sarcasm. Left with a good feeling about them. Morecambe, lovely day out. All joined in Bring Me Sunshine. Now is the new nostalgia! My first game was v Liverpool at Sincil Bank in Division 2. We won…
Great article. I don’t care when you started to come to Sincil Bank – just come and enjoy. My first game as a 4 yr old was in 1959. These last two years have been by far, the best seasons of my Imps life. Why, because the atmosphere in the ground is something we have never, ever seen at Sincil Bank, and those who have only just started to support the Imps have played a major role. My wife is one of the so-called plastic supporters. She came to the Torquay game last season which was her first ever visit to Sincil Bank, was not a football fan, and left an Imp, telling me that we need to get season tickets. This year we have been to 12 away games and all the home games – she is a real Imp and knows more about the club then I do. Plastic supporters – we need them.
Getting punched, spat on, not wearing your scarf to an away match, disgusting toilets, racism, dangerous grounds – do I miss it – you must be joking. I recall going to see the Imps at Birmingham in the 3rd round of the FA Cup in 1969. If you could have stood on the first step of the terrace in the away end you would have found yourself at eye level with the pitch and standing in 2 feet of water!
Some good stuff there. For myself, as regards the violence I “put up with it or ignored it” – and I went to plenty of games in those days, City home and away and elsewhere as a neutral. They never bothered me and I never bothered them.
Fantastic article, great read!!
Football needed sanitising & thank god it was.
Nobody should die at a football game.
Great article. I remember standing near the train station with my dad in the early 1980s after watching us play Portsmouth – we stood and watched the Portsmouth ‘Football Special’ pull out of Lincoln Central and the vitriol emanating from the carriages, along with bottles and all sorts of other things the drunken Pompey fans could get their hands on as it chugged past us, was a real eye-opener to me.
Must be something about Burnley fans at the Bank, as well, as I remember them kicking off in the old South Park stand some time in the 80s too.