Toon Army - The Seventies

Watching the Defectives

The steady decline in the number of people attending matches since the fifties continued unabated throughout the decade. The average Division 1 attendance in 1969/70 was 32,074, by the end of the seventies it had dropped by a fifth to 26,327.

Newcastle's average in the same period fell from 37,553 (1969/70) to 23,345 (1979/80) but had fallen as low as 20,494 in 1978/79. This drop obviously reflecting United's dramatic decline as much as any general trend.

The 1977/78 season saw United drop out of the top flight and the 7,986 crowd that witnessed the last game of the season was the worst turnout since before The First World War. A year later and only 7,134 saw the last game against Wrexham.

As usual there was a lot of soul searching within the game and many factors were put forward. Too much football on the television, boring football (the average number of goals per game in D1 fell to an all-time low of 2.54), player indiscipline, rising unemployment, poor facilities and last but certainly not least hooliganism

Disaster and Reconstruction

On January 1971 sixty six people lost their lives and over a hundred were injured when barriers collapsed during the Rangers Celtic derby at Ibrox. It was an accident waiting to happen as many British grounds were in a very poor state of repair and there was inadequate crowd control at big games.

The Government commissioned a study and within months The Wheatley Report was published which recommended that football grounds should have to meet the same health and safety laws as other entertainment venues such as cinemas. However it took another four years for the Safety at Sports Ground Act to become law.

Newcastle had been attempting to upgrade St. Jims for years but the deadlock with the council was as entrenched as ever as the decade began. Perhaps the Ibrox disaster clarified their thinking because soon after agreement was reached on a new one million pound stadium which was to be developed over a 10 year period.

Phase 1 started with the demolishing of the Popular Terrace that ran alongside Leazes Terrace (1971/72) and the construction of the East Stand in its place just over a year later. Significantly the cost was £420,000; almost half the anticipated cost for the whole stadium.

But in the rest of the ground there were very few improvements and there was a near disaster in the FA Cup match against Man City in 1976/77 when surges within the crowd at The Gallowgate caused crushing at the front with children having to be hoisted out onto the cinder track.

A lack of cash and the need to invest almost £400,000 in the ground to comply with the new regulations delayed further work until 1977/78 when the Leazes End was demolished in preparation for a new stand. But the money ran out and the Leazes became an empty shell for the next 15 years.

That Petrol Commotion

Hooliganism blighted football throughout the decade. It occurred before, during and after matches and neither the football authorities nor the politicians were capable of coming up with a solution.

During every season there were incidents of fighting, missile throwing, pitch invasions and wanton destruction of property. Town centres became no-go areas for some on a Saturday afternoon as extra policing within the grounds simply led to the trouble spilling out into the surrounding areas.

Ex hooligans now make money from writing books and the past troubles are now filed under "football culture". This is the same culture that led to a Blackpool fan being knifed to death at Bolton and these are the people who injured thousands of people and destroyed the property of innocent bystanders.

There is no doubt that the fans of some clubs gained a worse reputation than others and Newcastle yobs were down there with the dregs. Indeed in 1974/75 a Leeds police chief described them as the second worst behind Manchester United.

Their exploits were often on the front pages of the local rags and nationally the 1974 FA Cup invasion against Forest and the 1980 West Ham petrol bomb incident earned national coverage.

No Future

Sensationalist reporting of trouble at football matches made it big news; the anti-social exploits of disaffected youth have always made good copy. Indeed the football authorities often pointed the finger at the media, blaming them for exacerbating the situation and clubs often complained of unfair coverage.

It is true that the Fourth Estate rarely sought to bring any thought or balance into their coverage and television pictures of violence is inevitably counter productive (scaring the innocent and publicising the thugs) but the problem was not going to go away if it was ignored.

The football authorities often sought to deflect criticism by blaming society as a whole. League Secretary Alan Hardaker was the most outspoken but there were many more like him.

The vast majority of attempts to solve the problem were punitive. Fines, detention centres and exclusion bans were handed out to those who were caught but they had little if any effect. The clubs were also punished for their fans behavior both at home and abroad. After the 1974 invasion United were forced to replay the match and also were prevented from playing FA Cup games at home in the following season.

Vast police operations were set up for certain games but in reality trouble could start at any game at any time.

Hardaker's replacement at the League (Len Shipman) suggested the re-introduction of the birch and even concentration camps. Other off the wall ideas included banning the under eighteens and the introduction of match classification along the lines used in the cinema

There were some who were thinking along the right lines but their ideas were not carried though for practical or financial reasons.

As early as 1972-73 FA Secretary Denis Follows stated that the only truly effective solution would be the construction of all-seater stadia whilst accepting that this was not economically viable.

Clubs were forced to improve facilities to meet the new safety standards and some were attempting (like United) to upgrade their grounds but this was a period of recession and the combined cost almost put a number of clubs out of business

In 1973/74 a Working Party was set up by the government and it suggested the use of moats at grounds with the idea of fences being discounted on safety grounds. It was seen that these would prevent fans from safely exiting the terraces if there was a bomb scare.

However this did not stop some clubs, notably Chelsea, from erecting them.

Minister of Sport Denis Howell proposed the introduction of ID cards and in 1974-75 the Newcastle Supporters Club pioneered the idea. But it was an expensive business and virtually impossible to enforce; after all the clubs needed the gate money too much to restrict attendance at their games.

Supporters Clubs

Newcastle Supporters Club went from strength to strength and they certainly tried their best to curtail the trouble amongst Magpie supporters.

Fans travelling with the club were not allowed to bring alcohol and at various times there were bans on "unfriendly looking" boots and "half-mast" trousers.

In 1974/75 they became the first Supporters Club in Britain to introduce ID cards; without which you couldn't travel on any official excursions.

In the same season the club celebrated it's 20th anniversary and also (with the help of United's good cup runs) it reached 5,000 members for the first time.

Travel to matches was still invariably by coach but train travel was organised for certain trips with the club hiring a carriage. The League bought it's own train "The League Liner" in 1972/73 and this was made available to United supporters for the first time for the 1973/74 cup match at West Brom. A lack of the advertised features made it a bit of a let down.

Wrecking of trains on more than one occasion meant that "soccer specials" were eventually withdrawn for a period.

In 1976/77 the club moved to its new premises in the now destroyed prefabs of Prudhoe Place.

Snatch of the Day

TV was still seen as one of the major factors for the falling attendances. A Football League survey at the start of the decade found that although 93% of males admitted to watching football regularly on the box only 10% went to ten or more games a season.

The survey also asked what was stopping more people attending and the two major reasons were ground facilities (53%) and trouble (42%)

As a result 1971/72 saw the introduction of a new set of rules which included a reduction in the number of televised midweek games and the right of a club to opt out of a showing if it had featured in any two of the last four weeks.

A new camera stand was installed at SJP in 1975/76 to greatly improve the view of the armchair spectator.

In 1978/79 the established order of BBC and MoD on a Saturday night and ITV's regional programming on a Sunday was thrown into chaos when ITV signed an exclusive deal with The Football League to show Saturday night football.

The BBC complained and the Office of Fair Trading supported them; as a result a compromise was reached where the Saturday night coverage was alternated.

Board Sick

United supporters were a pretty dissatisfied bunch during much of the decade.

In the first couple of seasons United struggled and the crowd were often demanding "we want our money back" whilst certain players (especially Tommy Gibb) were singled out for special treatment by the Gallowgate boo boys.

A survey of fans carried out by the Sunday Sun at the end of 1971/72 revealed that 79% would accept an increased risk of defeat if it meant more attacking football whilst 60% thought more money needed to be spent on improved facilities.

Allocation of tickets for Cup matches was an ongoing issue. At the start of the decade it was the very unpopular first come first served . For the 1974 Cup Final vouchers were issued at one particular match which were then used in a "raffle".

Failure in the 1974 Cup Final saw the fans turn on manager Harvey and he was "moved upstairs" but for some the move backfired when instead of the "big name" replacement they had craved they got the very short named (and unknown ) Lee Gordon.

1975/76 saw Cup (near glory) and the usual League disappointment. Lee was trying to change United's style and when they were winning Gordon Lee had the "Black 'n' White Army behind him but when things were not going so well the mood was only black. There were calls for the board and manager to go and a sit-down protest in the Gallowgate.

The sale of Supermac was the next big issue the fans had to wrestle with and there was even talk of a fans boycott; when Lee followed him out the door 5 months later the antagonism towards the board went up a few more notches.

Whilst most fans made do with chants and abuse shareholder Malcolm Dix decided more formal action was required and he called an extraordinary general meeting with the aim of passing a vote of "no confidence" in the Board.

United's surprise qualification for Europe and a concerted smear campaign by The Board prevented him from achieving his aims. Undeterred he formed the Newcastle United Supporters Association during the following season (1977/78) with the aim "having the name of Newcastle United spoken with pride once more".

In order to achieve this he wanted new younger directors on Board and argued for the need to issue shares to raise extra capital.

Over the next couple of seasons he attempted to raise support among the smaller shareholders but interestingly the NUSC made it very clear that they did not support them in any way.

The Streak

A new craze spread from America which involved a person removing most if not all their clothing and staging a one man or woman pitch invasion. The first streakers were witness during the 1973/74 season