Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester United 2-1 in the League Cup in August 1979 in a game that included a Glenn Hoddle goal - but one young fan who was there spoke about the chaos outside the ground
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Tony O'Neill
Tony O'Neill is a former Manchester United hooligan (Image: Webby & O'Neill/YouTube)
One of the most notorious football hooligans in Britain says he and his pals were once “butchered” by a rival firm – but he still has the utmost respect for them.
Tony O’Neill, once known as ‘the general’ in the Red Army, spoke about an “onslaught” Manchester United fans suffered during a visit to White Hart Lane for a League Cup night game against Tottenham Hotspur in 1979.
Spurs won the match 2-1 but the real pain for Tony and his mates came after the 90 minutes, when they were attacked in the street. He said they were “frantically panicking” at one frightening point but ended up laughing with relief to escape North London with their lives.
Speaking for his ‘Fan Culture’ series on his Webby & O’Neill YouTube channel, he said: “Tottenham was always fun, it was always dangerous, it gave you everything.”
But he said the clash in 1979 was particularly violent and he remembered getting “battered” by bloodthirsty Spurs fans.
Tony O'Neill
He previously described football violence in the 1970s as "absolutely wild"
(Image: Webby & O'Neill/YouTube)
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The author, whose books include Red Army General, said there was little trouble before the game, but said it was the “calm before the storm”, because Tottenham’s mob was “proper, proper organised”.
Recalling how he walked out of White Hart Lane and turned right, Tony simply said: “We just got smashed.” He added: “They came from every angle, from every corner, and they came at us. And the police just couldn’t control it.
“My pal, Harry Hamilton, he is getting dragged off by the coppers, because we are all fighting, and I mean proper fighting in the street, in a circle and it is hands, everything. They are coming from behind, coming at the side.
“And Harry is getting dragged off but by the time he is getting dragged off, I’ve got us against the wall, and there must have been about maybe 40 of us against the wall because it was just coming from everywhere.
“I just remember being in the middle of hands and legs going and I mean we are being whacked all over. I just remember seeing Harry going in the back of the car, and I looked at him and thought, ‘You f****** lucky b******.”
Tony O'Neill
Tony speaks about all things Manchester United on his YouTube channel
(Image: Webby & O'Neill/YouTube)
Tony, who went on to work security at Gary Neville’s Hotel Football, added: “And that is what makes it funny because there are certain things, this is dangerous, you are getting hammered, the lads are getting battered, getting butchered, and I’ve got these kids from Wythenshawe, I won’t say their names they know who they are, screaming, screaming, ‘Tony, save me, save me’ and all that. And we are getting hammered.”
He said the petrified younger lads in the mob started using him as a human shield. He continued: “I couldn’t go on the floor because they had hold of my body, using my legs and arms to fend these people off who were coming at me.
“There were just a few coppers running in now and again and as they went to the right to hit these Tottenham fans, the Tottenham fans were coming from the left. I thought, ‘When is this going to stop?'
“The one thing that stood out with me all the time, I’ve known him all my life, great kid, cockney kid, Robert from Pekcham, he is trying to gee us up, I am trying to gee us up, like, 'Stay together, we are going to die here, we are going to die.'”
Tony, who has been jailed three times for football related offences, said the group managed to stay together and edge closer to Seven Sisters station. But he said the street was “full of Tottenham baying for blood”.
Approaching the trains, he said a policeman on a horse tried to stop them getting through, despite them trying to flee an “onslaught”, the only word he said he could use to describe it.
The White Hart Lane stadium gates are set to return to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium complex
The old White Hart Lane was Tony's favourite football stadium
“We were frantically trying to get in,” he explained, saying they dived under the police horse to safety. “We were shattered, and I mean physically shattered, but we were laughing because we were all looking at each other like ‘oh my god’. But we were still together - you can take a good hiding but still be together. But it was the part and parcel of Tottenham.”
The lads eventually boarded a train to Euston and he said there was a relief at “getting out there alive, without being put in hospital”. However, 20 minutes later, he said he experienced something he had never experienced before.
In his own words, he explained: “We got off at Euston and we were talking up the big street just before where the fire station is now, and right out of the side street, Tottenham, just come charging at us, big planks of wood and I actually mouthed the words, ‘Oh my god, not again.’
“But we was in no mood to stand and fight, it was just like, there’s Euston, get there, there is loads of them, they’ve got sticks, planks of wood, there is no point, we have had enough here, let’s just get off, we didn’t even entertain it.
“We might have been able to stand and have a scuffle but we took enough good hidings, enough is enough.”
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He said they were chased up the stairways at Euston but they managed to escape and make it back to Manchester.
But summing up his experiences with Tottenham, he spoke about a mutual respect between the firms, and added: “I just look at Tottenham and it had everything, from a young lad 13 14 years of age going there to a lad of 19 in 1979. It had everything and it was the best ground.
“It was always a battle.”