Motherwell: Saturday is Service Day

manscript extract one:

Those little introductions to life in the lower reaches were to serve me well in the future but I could have done without them quite so early in my travelling career. I quickly learned to watch my back and trust no-one as you never knew where the next punch was coming from.

This was aptly demonstrated a few weeks later at Muirton Park, Perth, home of St Johnstone. We had recorded our first wins over Hearts, Clyde and Dumbarton, we were again on the march with Ally’s Army. The rival fans in the Perth ground were again separated by nothing more than a stretch of no-man’s land, and only a couple of policemen standing at the back watching for trouble, but when a midget (think he was a real midget, not just a small chappie but it was a while ago) casually strolled over and punched the nearest ‘Well fan, they still stood watching. I expected the midget to get a bleaching from the Motherwell boys in close proximity to his victim but no, he was allowed to stroll back across to his mates, taunting us on the way back. That set the scene for the rest of the game, they had a big skinhead element and our front line were subjected to frequent attacks. Again the excuses of ‘toilet’ and ‘pie stall’ were trotted out by those closest to the Saints fans until I was right in amongst it. I had begun the match about 12 bodies in from the dividing line so I thought to myself, "Bugger this" and moved behind the goal. With five minutes left of a satisfying 3-1 win I walked along the top of the terracing towards the gate, ready for a quick exit. Suddenly I felt a sharp bang, right on me nose, it felt like it had exploded. I had taken a bang on my nose that morning, playing football for the school team. Normally it’s difficult to draw blood from me but a combination of two hits in the same day had succeeded in doing just that. My hands instinctively rose to cover my face and when I took them away they were covered in blood. I had on a trendy (at the time) white blouson jacket; it looked more like a Doctor’s coat in Casualty. I looked up and saw a few guys laughing, all of them around 21, big to me, too big to be taking liberties by skelping a 15-year-old just because I was an easy target. I scoured the scene for help but none was forthcoming, save for an older Saints fan who helped me out of the ground, shouting back at the culprits as he led me away and down towards our buses. A couple of guys complained to the police when they saw my face, but got little sympathy so I got on the bus. I looked at them all looking at me and thought, "Where the fuck were you lot". One gave it the "Let’s get them," but not many were for backing him up. All the way home my nose throbbed and when my Dad saw my jacket he went ballistic, threatening to curb my away days for good. I managed to convince him I hadn’t done anything to warrant a bloody nose, eventually, so it was off to Airdrie for a local derby for the next away game as usual.