Big Monday night Sky game

[Duncer]

Well, it is a big game for ichkeria and I.

The Cobra is ready and in the fridge, but my confidence is away on holiday somewhere; ichkeria, are you prepared? Linfield's form this season has been the epitome of erratic but here's hoping for a big crowd and a thriller of a game to try and tempt some armchair fans back to Irish League games?

[Duncer]

I missed that one, fortunately, but I was at the one where the referee gave a goal for a shot that went wide, claiming afterwards it had gone through a hole in the net. I remember the manager threatening to take the players off the pitch, although I think the game was finished.

I also remember quite a few battles around the town and railway station, battles which I tried to avoid as best I could. Not really my scene.

[ichkeria]

Yes I remember that game, though I wasn't there being away at uni at the time.
Alan Snoddy was the referee and he was the only person in the ground who thought the ball had gone in the net by a conventional method.

Visits from Cliftonville had the added spice of naked sectarianism :-)
In one tie in 1979 the RUC waded into the Reds fans to confiscate a tricolour, when then mysteriously ended up being set on fire by the Coleraine fans!
This is a game mentioned by Henry MacDonald, a young member of the "Red Army" athte time, in his book "The Colours".

[Duncer]

I have the book but have yet to read it, although I have read excerpts and it looks very interesting.

Cliftonville's "acquistion" of a Red Army made for interesting times in the late Seventies and early Eighties. I used to pop down to Solitude and watch the Reds before it became an exclusively nationalist team/support and was even there the night of the riot v Glentoran in the County Antrim Shield. Games featuring Clim'ville at Seaview and Windsor were frightening and I can remember hand grenades being thrown at one game, while the number of police on duty for these games was quite ridiculous. Crowds would jump from two or three thousand to fifteen thousand as every trouble maker on both sides turned out. Today, thankfully, Cliftonville bring a few hundred at best to Windsor and that, in turn, has reduced the number of our idiots, so they are almost pastoral affairs in comparison to the games I grew up with. wanting to go

[ichkeria]

I went to Solitude a few times, once in Cliftonville's amateur days and a couple of times at the height of the Red Army.
There was a North Belfast derby between Crusaders and Cliftonville where for an anticipated crowd of 5000 (surely an exaggeration) they had 1000 police. Just to put it in perspective that's the equivalent of 10,000 police for a Wembley Cup Final in the old days.
I was also at the 1979 Cup Final between Cliftonville and Portadown where the resourceful fans came prepared with wire-cutters to cut through the perimeter fencing and stage an on-pitch confrontation (which to be honest was a bit of a pathetic cat and mouse handbags affair)

[ichkeria]

Actually of course it's the equivalent of 20,000 police at Wembley!!

[Duncer]

I was at a few Crues v Reds games and they would have had a 5,000 crowd back then, with probably 60-70% of them neds from either side who just wanted a rumble. Once the police got on top of it though, the novelty wore off and crowds dipped back to normal. The main problem was getting the Clim'ville fans to Seaview due to the demography of the area.

I also made the 1979 Cup Final, not to mention quite a few scary Blues v Glens clashes. I was in the Portadown end at Solitude when the Reds fans charged it and nearly broke through - an Irish Cup replay around the early 1990's. I discovered adrenalin was brown that night. All part of the rich tapestry of growing up in God's own country.