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Newport away 1982


Alan Dicks

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11 hours ago, The Horse With No Name said:

I was there, I think with @BoneyardTIM and our fathers. I seem to remember being in the wrong end and being escorted around the pitch to our end, where Mick Harford rose like a salmon to head our goal.

Blimey, that's stirred a memory. I can also remember being in the wrong end at Hereford and being escorted around the pitch ?

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What was expected to be the club's final game was at Newport County. Hordes of programme collectors descended to buy a copy of what would become a collector's item. The national T.V. news  showed the equaliser in the 1-1 draw and commentators asked "Will this be Bristol City's last goal"?

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I was there with my dad. 

It was a day I'll never forget either. 

We went for fish and chips and whilst queuing, asked the locals if there was a decent pub nearby? Immediately a bloke twice my age also in height and weight, turned round and in his local accent gave directions to his working men's club and at the door we were to say that Jones The .......(forgotten) had said we could enter. It worked a treat.

Why I remember this so much as a turning point for me was that as an impressionable, somewhat naive young man, I had been working with Bristolians ever since we had returned to the area a few years previously.  Nothing wrong with that as in working with Bristolians!

However, they hated the Welsh. Apparently, when the bridge was built in the mid 60s, the Welsh men would invade the city every weekend causing fights and stealing the women! My workmates might have had other reasons but it stemmed from the mid 60s!

Jones The ..... was either the black sheep of the locality or my newly acquired stereotypical view of the natives was flawed! 

I previously had been to Somerton Park with my uncle in the mid 70s when he introduced me to Speedway!  I still love it to this day.

The track wasn't there in its entirety. We were standing on top of the first bend courtesy of the gravel.

A poster mentioned Mick Harford "Rose like a salmon" to head it in. I thought it came off his shin! Maybe he fluffed his header but his shin did the rest!

A day I'll never forget either. There are kind welshmen!

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25 minutes ago, Norn Iron said:

However, they hated the Welsh. Apparently, when the bridge was built in the mid 60s, the Welsh men would invade the city every weekend causing fights and stealing the women! My workmates might have had other reasons but it stemmed from the mid 60s!

The saying used to be that there was a lot of Welsh blood in Bristol. On the pavements on a Saturday night.

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12 hours ago, forbespm said:

I was there,remember thinking it could be my last away game.but if trouble with Newport fans before the game,I was in the coach from Gloucester/Cheltenham.we went to most awaygames in those days

Our old mate Simon James got lumped outside the chippy when we were inside....remember seeing his face slide down the window top lip first ?

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39 minutes ago, Portland Bill said:

I was there, I can’t remember a lot, except for the continuous fighting in the home end for most of the game, City everywhere!

In our end too, my memory is of looking behind me at a constant running battle further up the terrace between police and City fans.

Emotions were naturally running high on the day and the attitude and actions of the police didn't exactly help to calm things down.

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15 hours ago, Redtrojan said:

Was there ,at least there were a couple of goals.

The one I remember better was a year or so later , we were packed in the away end , looking forward to a good jump around ,but finished 0-0.

To make the day even worse ,some of the lads at the back were doing their usual anti-Welsh sheep shagging songs that the local plod took great exception to and barged through us all swinging their tronchons  back and forth(I took one in the belly-just stood there!!!!) before removing random guys from the back.

Got to be said Newport is a sithole.

This has been discussed before - I think a member of one particular 'unofficial' coach was roughly arrested at the back of the stand, the rest of them took aggressive objection to it, and fought the police, basically, for the rest of the match.

Ended up with about 30 arrests iirc.

I went back to Newport in the midweek following this match for a League Cup game. 3-0 win for City, only a few hundred of us there and really quiet and uneventful affair off the pitch.

Couldn't have been more different to the scenes of a few days earlier.

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16 hours ago, Alan Dicks said:

Who was there?

For those that were there, you’ll remember the main song that day.

We’ll survive we’ll survive we’ll survive

We were looking at the real possibility of this being the very last match in Bristol City’s history 

Days later would see a meeting at Ashton Gate to see if the club would be wound up or would come up with a plan to save our very broke club

Step forward the Ashton 8 who had 2 choices, rip up their contracts and the club would stay alive or refuse to tear up their contacts, get made redundant and the club would die.

Thankfully those 8 tore up their contacts that day, we dissolved the old company Bristol City FC and Bristol City 1982 ltd was born.

The very next match a week after the Newport game was a home game against Fulham, we fielded a team mainly of teenagers known as the Bristol babes, they were to get a very good result that day, a 0 0 draw.

Just wanted to ask if anyone reading this went to the Newport game? 

 

I wasn’t at the the Newport game but I did attend the Fulham match.  I think the crowd was around 10,000 and remember running onto the pitch at the end of the game.

I do recall having a car sticker with Support Bristol City Now or Never

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13 hours ago, CodeRed said:

The crowds did drop but those that stayed kept behind the team, I did quite a few away games in the first div 4 season that followed when local players like Palmer (from Weston) and a 16 year old Nyrere Kelly were drafted in and if we went a goal down at HT or lost ( eg 4-1 at Crewe, 7-1 at Northampton) there wasn't the outpouring of booing that you get now.

Yes done them aswell. Wasn't  the Northampton  game on a Sunday?. I know we had a few there.

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18 hours ago, candygram for mongo said:

I was there,can’t remember much about it though

 

18 hours ago, chinapig said:

So was I.

Neither can I.

 

18 hours ago, weepywall said:

Yes I was there and I can't remember much about it.

 

18 hours ago, cidered abroad said:

Me too and certainly don't remember any songs.

There seem to be a theme , and I'm with you all ?

All I remember from the entire day was stretching to see over heads when Mick Harford scored his brilliant header. 
I remember a few trips over the bridge to Newport around that time, used to be lively.

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Newport 1982 was one of my 1st away games following City. Just remember going to the game thinking this could be the last time I watch City play. Remember there was a flimsy fence separating City from the Welsh on one side of the pitch. There wasn’t that many in the ground but by Christ, there was a lot of needle inside, and outside the ground.
I was addicted to away games!

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Being so relatively young at the time, I don't think I appreciated there was a real chance there wouldn't be a Bristol City after that day.

That season, went to every Tuesday night game and the atmosphere under TC with 6,000 stalwarts was electric, went to every away game I could, but back then was playing Saturdays and so wasn't at Newport, although have seen City play at the old Newport several times.

Before '82 I'd seen the FA Cup run at Leeds Elland Road 1974, the promo season 75/76, the 4 seasons in the top division, but nothing will ever beat the struggle and the victory in the face of adversity, in the 4th division.

 

 

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Also there.

Remember the local Plod being quite heavy handed inside.

Quite a tussle pre-game between Newport and some of ours.

Newport had quite a firm back then iirc

 

I do remember a mob of City having enough of the old bill and charged them, landing a few hits, and then a super, or at least a copper in a flat cap, rather than the usual woodentop, rallied the cops and in they came with batons flailing. Very brave that guy as there were only 8 or so Police around him.

For our younger fans - back then, no aluminium - proper solid wood man-stopping batons.

You got hit with one of those, bones got broken.

 

One of the worst away games that year.

Not the worst, but right up there.

 

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