In my last article (‘So I guess it’s thank you to the Leeds United skinhead who slashed my coat…’) on The Mag, I explained how a Newcastle United match was the reason I joined the Army.
Well this is part two. How a Newcastle United match was the reason my Army career nearly ended before it had even got started.
After the Leeds “fracas” in September 1976, and my dad’s decision to remove me from the family home, I had very reluctantly signed up. By doing so, I’m allowed to stay in the house for a little longer until I’m called up.
By Xmas the call hasn’t come and I’m starting to hope that they have forgotten about me. but then just into the new year the letter arrives, along with a train ticket to take me to Sutton Coldfield.
I remember the day as if it was yesterday, Monday 24th January 1977. And departing is made worse because Newcastle are playing an FA Cup replay that night.
So while I’m lying on a manky bunk bed on the outskirts of Birmingham, surrounded by what looks like the cast of the Bash Street Kids, we are beating Sheffield United 3-1 under the lights.
The records show that 36,375 were there to see Tommy Craig, Micky Burns and Aiden McAffery score. but I wouldn’t know for sure because I wasn’t one of them.
What on earth is this 17 year old kid doing?
Well, what I’m doing is taking tests in order to decide what regiment / job I am going to do. As it turns out I am given a few options but I’m frankly clueless as to what to choose, probably because I don’t want to do any of them.
Engineers? Where do I train?
Down South. No thanks.
Medics, Where do I train?
Down South. No thanks
Then I look at the map and see a northern outpost at Catterick.
Who are they? Signals
That will do.
So that’s why on Wednesday morning I’m heading back up the country to North Yorkshire. I turn up at the gatehouse and I’m shown to a deserted building. Eventually a lad in civilian clothes tells me my course will begin next Monday.
What do I do until then?
I don’t know and don’t care son, you can go home if you want.
I don’t need telling twice, and that’s why less than 72 hours after leaving home, I turn up back on our doorstep. Obviously my Dad thinks I’ve deserted.
What this means is that I can go to the match on Saturday, which is the FA Cup 4th round tie against Man City.
Older readers may remember this game. Our manager Gordon Lee announces before the match that he is quitting to go to Everton and the weather is utterly Baltic.
Manchester City bring thousands with them. The match is stopped because of fighting fans coming onto the pitch. The Gallowgate was completely manic and when Man City score their third, the lad next to me starts throwing his arms around like an electrocuted Orangutan, smacking me right across the bridge of my nose.
When I wake up on Sunday morning, I have a bloody black eye.
So Monday morning arrives and I’m on a rainy parade square in Catterick. All us new recruits are lined up for our first day and are introduced to our instructors.
Corporal Edwards wanders down the line poking Fatty, Spotty, Plug and Smiffy in the chest while swearing at them. Then he gets to me. He looks at my black eye and screams, “What have we here then, a pint sized Rocky? Do you think you are a hard case boy?”
I try to protest my innocence and tell him that I’m a nice guy and he has got me all wrong but it’s to no avail.
“I don’t think I like you, you little Geordie Scrotum, and I’m going to make your life an utter misery.”
Corporal Edwards was very true to his word and for the next few weeks he never seemed to get off my back.
Whenever he wanted my attention he never used my name. He had another way to identify me. I started to believe my mum had christened me Signalman Scrotum.
But as my black eye faded, so did his anger and my life got easier.
What helped was watching a very good Newcastle United team at the weekend. In the rest of the season our home form in the league was brilliant, only losing once. Newcastle finished 5th that year.
Despite having lost Malcolm MacDonald to Arsenal and then our Manager to Everton, we qualified for Europe. We really were on the up.
Sadly, as we all know, that was not going to last. The next season we fell apart in spectacular style.
As I was heading off to Germany, Newcastle United were heading off to Division Two.
Which meant trips to Millwall , Orient and Cambridge beckoned.
But that’s another story.