That Rangers game

[DeKuip]

I remember there was one photo of Villa fans laying into a Rangers fan that made the front page of all the national papers the following day, which kind of distorted the story. It was of a Rangers fan diving into a Villa section after running onto the pitch and getting well and truly twatted.
I went on my own that day and as soon as I went through the turnstiles at the Holte was directed by stewards or police down to the front and then walked across the front of the Holte to the Witton Lane Stand and up to the Witton End. I was on the bank at the back of the Witton watching when what seemed like the entire Holte End emptied onto the pitch and came running our way when we scored the second goal.
If there was a way of capturing an image from my head of that scene it would make quite a picture!

[pooligan]

Over the many years i have been watching the villa i have been in a few scary situations with the likes of Small Heath, West Ham,Chelsea .Millwall and Man Utd fans causing aggro in and around Villa Park but i have never  been as terrified as i was that day against Rangers. On the way to the ground i can remember coming across scores of drunken Rangers fans sitting on the wall of Aston church daring each other to stroke the police dogs and giving abuse to anyone walking past who happened to be wearing villa colours.Walked on past the trinity stand to the shop on the corner of Nelson rd just in time to see scores more of their fans getting off the special buses that had come from the city centre, most of them had smashed windows.

I was close to turning around and going home but thought hey,if i can go to the Den and survive i can go my own ground even if there is lots of rangers fans in there. When i got to the Holte end turnstiles in Trinity rd a couple of coppers barred us from going in and said in the interests of safety they were sending the villa fans down to the Witton end.So off we went to the Witton end.

I remember us taking the lead and there being a small pitch invasion .All around me fellow villa fans were probably thinking the same as me ,which was i hope to god we don 't score again.Of course,that 's exactly what we did. Another pitch invasion followed only much bigger this time .It took what seemed ages to clear the pitch but from where we were stood in the Witton end you could see loads more Rangers fans coming down from the back of the Holte to try and get on the pitch.Can't remember if it was the ref or the police who decided to abandon the game but that was the signal for thousands of them to storm onto the pitch.They had just one thing in mind,to get us in the Witton end.I don 't mind admitting i was scared shitless as i watched them running across the pitch towards us.The only thing that saved us was the police dogs,they had got as far as the Witton end penalty area before the dogs started to drive them back.

Someone mentioned earlier that someone had told them a story that they had parked in Electric Avenue and could not get their car as it was not safe to return to it. Could have been us, we were parked in one of the roads off Electric Avenue but was unable to get to our car untill around 7 30. I remember we got on the number 11 and went to Erdington for a drink for a couple of hours.While in Erdington we met a few non football friends who had just come from the city centre and they told us  it was full of drunken  football fans and not a safe place at all. Sorry if i have gone on but this was one friendly i will never forget,for all the wrong reasons

[Oscar Arce]

It was a surreal and unforgettable day.
I was a 15, and my usual route to Villa Park was on the bus, either the number 11 outer circle or the 38 into town and out on a Villa Park special.
I walked to the top of my road in Billesley and there was a drunken Scotsman with a Rangers scarf on slumped outside the newsagents swigging from a scotch bottle at 10 am, and I knew this game was going to be a little bit different !
Getting on the bus, and god knows where they had come from, were a group of about ten completely hammered Jocks, causing havoc with old ladies and women trying to go shopping, throughput the journey into Brum the bus was picking up Rangers fans at every stop, where the hell they all came from I'll never know to this day.
Finally made it into town, it was carnage, it's the only game I've ever been to when I seriously thought about turning back because I was that scared, they were everywhere, and all completely pissed to a man !
At Villa Park two hours before kick off they had taken over the Holte, viewed the game, what there was of it, from The Witton, no Villa fans could get in The Holte End.
The shameful scenes of violence live with me to this day, saw plenty of Villa fans in a lot of trouble and was just glad to get out of there after the game was abandoned.
Can't remember either of the goals, the game was played in a strange atmosphere of just looking at what was going off in the crowd.
Still hate Rangers to this day because of it.

[Villan For Life]

I've heard countless tales about this game, I wasn't there.

One questions to those of you that were in attendance, why were we playing a friendly on a Saturday in October?

[Richie]

Villan for life - I wasn't there myself fortunately, but the reason the match was on a Saturday in October was due to World Cup qualifiers being played (I think on the following Wednesday night ?).

[Villan For Life]

Villan for life - I wasn't there myself fortunately, but the reason the match was on a Saturday in October was due to World Cup qualifiers being played (I think on the following Wednesday night ?).

I wondered that but wasn't aware of the Saturday postponements. What is the norm now must have been a one-off or a season long experiment back then.

[Rioch is King]

It was the only home game I missed that season, I didn't go because it was only a 'friendly'. had no idea there was going to be trouble of any sort. in fact I felt quite guilty I wasn't there as all my mates went and got mixed up in the mayhem. We never believed anyone would ever take the Holte and my young masculine pride took a hell of a knock that day. 

It happened during the period when Scotland fans would completely take over Wembley during the home internationals as well if I'm not mistaken. 

[JD]

I remeber we had a previous thread about this game a few years ago. I went to the game with my old man who comes from Glasgow, but is on the other side of the divide. It was a very scary atmosphere and when the Rangers fans ran on the pitch and at the Villa fans after the second goal, all I remember is that the old man wanted to fight them all and was going mental. He had to be restrained from having a go at them by himself.
It's the only time I saw him like that when I was a kid, but he grew up with that hate, coming from a very poor part of Glasgow andd he hates Rangers with a passion.
The game is a bit of a blur, but I remeber the very bad vibes in and around the ground both before, during and after.   

[The Laughing Policeman]

Can someone help me on this one? I remember it all very well up to the second goal going in and me and my mates deciding we didn't want to end up in hospital so we tried to get out of The Witton End. We ended up climbing over the wall at the back to get out. My memory says the gates were locked, but maybe we were just in a blind panic to get away. Does anyone else know if the Witton End gates were locked?
The other image I have is of the players and officials legging it to the tunnel and some of them grabbing some young kids at the front of the Trinity and taking them down the tunnel with them.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

It happened during the period when Scotland fans would completely take over Wembley during the home internationals as well if I'm not mistaken. 

Like this you mean?


Incidentally, it was reported last year that the young gentleman who broke the crossbar at Wembley passed away last year.

Scotland fan who broke Wembley crossbar during pitch invasion dies aged 54
Sep 21 2010 By Craig McDonald

THE man who famously broke the crossbar at Wembley Stadium in 1977 has died.

Alex Torrance passed away aged just 54, after a long battle with alcoholism.

As a 21-year-old, Alex hit the headlines by climbing on to the crossbar at Wembley after Scotland's 2-1 victory against England.

The bar snapped between Alex's legs - and pictures of him cheering defiantly after crashing to the turf made the front pages across Europe the following day.

Speaking about the incident, Alex once said: "Those were Bay City Roller days and I'm sorry to say that I was wearing a tartan shirt, brown flares and platform shoes.

"I didn't hear the final whistle, I just saw the Scotland players jumping up and down.

"I was next to my brother and started running towards the posts.

"Scots were climbing all over it, and I tried climbing up - but it was difficult because of my platforms.

"I was pulled up and was about to swing my legs over it when it snapped. I landed on my a**e then stood up and saluted the crowd. It was ecstasy.

"I then started digging up the Wembley turf. I handed out hundreds of bits and kept some for myself."

His brother David said last night: "No matter what Alex did, he was always known as the man who broke the bar at Wembley."

A TV show of 100 Greatest Sporting Moments once placed the incident at No57 - beating Henry Cooper flooring Cassius Clay into 58th.

David, 49, said: "Alex travelled to Wembley with his younger brother Jim. I showed my mum the front page the next day, with Alex on the crossbar, and she couldn't believe it."

Alex, of Govan, Glasgow, worked as a head waiter in Ibrox Stadium's Argyle Suite for about 12 years.

He died in Glasgow's Southern General Hospital on Sunday. He is survived by wife Nessie, two children and four grandchildren.

[Rioch is King]

Yes, England playing at Wembley and not a single George cross or England fan in sight. Bizarre...

[pooligan]

I was at the Witton end that day and i am pretty sure the gates were indeed locked for quite a while after the game was abandoned.It was'nt to stop us getting out but more like to stop the Rangers thugs getting in. I am not joking when i say when everyone did finally get out into Witton lane nobody turned right. I remember at Witton island a couple of hundred villa fans were forming to try and defend themselves, however when they saw how many of them were coming down Witton lane towards us,they soon legged it. My friend and i had to get to our car just off Electric Avenue,so we thought we would go down Brookvale rd and Tame rd way. That's what we thought! We got part way up Tame rd and there was yet more of them looking for aggro so we just turned around and went into Erdington for a few hours.

[Ger Regan]

But I do not care that some of you hate rangers I have problems with a club a lot closer than rangers.(tesco-bags) I AM A RANGERS FAN THAT USED TO GO. WATP

I'm trying to work out how someone who witnessed those scenes then decided that Rangers were a club that you'd like to support. Not having a go, but genuinely puzzled. If it was me, it'd turn me off the club for life (as it appears to have done to a number of the contributors on this thread).

[flybo]

But I do not care that some of you hate rangers I have problems with a club a lot closer than rangers.(tesco-bags) I AM A RANGERS FAN THAT USED TO GO. WATP

I'm trying to work out how someone who witnessed those scenes then decided that Rangers were a club that you'd like to support. Not having a go, but genuinely puzzled. If it was me, it'd turn me off the club for life (as it appears to have done to a number of the contributors on this thread).

Look at like this you are a Villa fan what would it take for you to tern your back on the Villa.
I know that for me will never happen. I will add that if rangers become part of our prem that would be an end to my support there is only room for one prem team in my life and that will always be the Villa.
VTID

[Ger Regan]

Look at like this you are a Villa fan what would it take for you to tern your back on the Villa.
I know that for me will never happen. I will add that if rangers become part of our prem that would be an end to my support there is only room for one prem team in my life and that will always be the Villa.
VTID

Apologies, I was under the impression that this happened prior to you starting to support Rangers, obviously got the wrong end of the stick.
I'd agree that it would take something truly astonishing from the fans for me to stop supporting the villa, but on the flipside, say if villa had played a friendly here before I had started following them, and fans caused havoc, then I doubt that I would have started supporting them.