Paying in at the turnstiles home and away – I loved the eighties

I had grown up watching Newcastle United by paying in at the turnstiles, no thought of season tickets or membership back then.

In 1986 I moved to Nottingham, that was the year we saw the hand of god and Colourbox released their unofficial World Cup theme song on 45, with a picture sleeve featuring a grainy photo of Jimmy Hill.

When in Nottingham, to get my football fix I would go and watch Notts County at the seemingly permanently misty and other worldly Meadow Lane with its death trap wooden stands. A Bradford-type disaster in waiting.

I met a lifelong Burnley fan and a Cockney Arsenal supporter, all of us living away from home for the first time, but we had a shared love of football.

The eighties were a great time for football in my opinion but maybe that was because of my age.

Me and my new mates would go to away games in easy reach of the East Midlands to see Newcastle United play, paying in at the turnstiles after a boozy train journey, or off to watch Burnley in their desperate plight in the old fourth division with games at Peterborough, Lincoln etc.

Football supporters who live in the Midlands will never understand Newcastle’s away support and the journeys that they have to undertake.

I can remember going to Maine Road and getting back to Nottingham in time for city centre drinks before hitting the famous Rock City on a Saturday night.

And then randomly, I think it was 1988 Cockney Rob offers to drive us up the M1 in his battered old VW Beetle car (we were art students) to see Arsenal play away at Sheff Wed on a Wednesday night. No need for tickets, pay at the door.

This was the age of Loadsamoney and there are plenty of fat Cockney stereotypes in their red and white padded Marlboro jackets, or so my memory tells me. No idea about the score. Didn’t care. I was at Hillsborough for the social/football experience.

This was 1988 and life revolved around buying vinyl and the new football fanzines that had arrived on the scene at Selectadisc.

The music was changing. Back in Nottingham it was the Garage on St Mary’s Gate that was the place to be. A DJ called Graham Park was cutting his teeth and the music was now S Express and Acid House. The eighties were great, away days with all that entailed, then able to get back to go clubbing on a Saturday night to the repetitive beats of House music.

In 1989, me and my housemate Cockney Rob sat together watching the news on a late Saturday afternoon. FA Cup semi-final day. As the bodies were taken out and carried on makeshift stretchers, we looked at each other and realised that only months earlier me, him and Burnley Jon had stood on that same Leppings Lane terracing, with its medieval inhumane spiked fencing. A moment to reflect.

I still love the eighties though.