Motherwell: Saturday is Service Day

manscript extract three:

Another trip to Aberdeen was coming up in December but I was working on the Saturday morning and wouldn’t make the bus so I became the first to travel by train, on my own. Essential carry-oot was purchased, but as I settled in to my seat the guard informed me this was a dry train, due to Celtic playing at Perth. I asked him to keep it for me and I’d get it after they all got off, there only was a few anyway, but he refused and told me I’d need to leave it in left luggage at the station and get it on the way home. What a waste as it turned out!!! After a pretty uneventful, and far too sober, journey I got off at Aberdeen to find a welcoming committee of around 20 young lads. With nowhere to go I had to go straight through them, I saw their heads turning as I approached and felt my heart beating faster and faster as I got near them. Some of them stood up from the bench they were sitting on and faced me but I didn’t flinch, I couldn’t show the slightest fear or they’d have me. Fists clenched in readiness I drew level with the first one, trying to avoid eye contact whilst keeping my head up and looking straight ahead. To my surprise none of them made a move and I was allowed to walk on by, straight into a taxi in the car park outside. I was sure I heard footsteps behind me as I exited the station but I wasn’t for turning round just in case. Inside the ground Aberdeen were in our end again, mingling in with the crowd, noising up some of our boys. One shouted me down. When I got there an Aberdeen lad asked if I was the one who came up by train, not difficult to determine given the FILA Bj and Skinhead combination. He told me not to go back as the young ‘uns would be hanging about and would probably set about me this time. Fuck ‘em I wasn’t changing my plans for them wee gobshites, anyway I had a carry-oot to collect, but as the game wore on he stressed he wasn’t trying to noise me up, just being honest. He claimed the main ASC mob would just let it go as I was on my own but some of the younger lads were a law unto themselves. This time the game finished without incident, there weren’t that many in our end and these lads had been chatting away quite the thing about clothes, other offs and our favourite subject, just how wank were the Old Firm? One thing they made clear though, we may seem like friends inside the ground, outside anything goes. This was a new development for an ex-Skinhead. Any other mob in our end would have received it, in fact no-one else would have the bottle to come in and chat away like they had with so few bodies. They were true to their word, outside the lad I’d been talking to gave a nod when we drew level with each other, next minute he was off as ASC made their move. They had followed us over the hill, trying to have a go through the line of Old Bill who were separating us. Then, suddenly, they sprinted forward as one to get in front of both us and the OB. Some punches were exchanged as some of our boys tried to make a go of it, but the screws had it more or less sussed and restored order pretty quickly. Didn’t stop them trying though and once or twice it looked as if it was going to go off, but we reached our buses without further incident. I still had to negotiate my way to the station though and began to realise just how dodgy it was going to be. The guy beside me, Cowboy, talked as much sense as the A’deen boy had. "Best to get on a bus" he said. "Aye, probably" was my reply. So I did, and all the way home I thought not only of my wasted carry-oot in Queen Street station, by the time I got back in to collect it, the charges were more than the drink cost so I left it, but more to the point, how we could be friendly with blokes who wanted to kill us five minutes later. It was a strange concept but one which was to mark both our mobs down as different from all the rest who would follow. We never quite had a relationship with any mob apart from them, couldn’t call it a relationship as such, but it was probably more an understanding which took some understanding on it’s own.