The_holgate_roof

I,m a Boro fan but when I was a kid, the names were Steve Fiiniston and Gary Locke, they were the players, crossing a ball and scoring, they were Chelsea for me.

The play offs was a one off, Boro did take a huge crew down, unchallenged, but the points about a few Chelsea taking the Holgate in the 70's were valid, the lads were still in the pubs at 2:10pm, as you would expect , and the challenge was left to a few teenagers who were in the Holgate early that day, I know, I was there in the ground, though not in the Holgate, that was the classic 7-2 game,

Even the 1988 plays offs

I was just reading an earlier post about this game, the second leg at Stamford Bridge. Just giving my account, we arrived in London and got to the Kings Road at about 1pm, the atmosphere was volatile, all the way to the ground there were skirmishes between Chelsea and Boro fans, we had bought tickets for the seats and on approaching the ground, unbelievably we were going through the same turnstiles as the Chelsea fans, even worse , when we entered the seats at the side of the ground, we realised there was no segregation, anyway the game kicked off and the atmosphere was electric, And when Durie scored in 18th minute, all hell broke loose in the seats, Chelsea fans taunting Boro fans and Boro fans giving it back, the police realised and before we knew it we all got marched out of the seats and joined the rest of the Boro behind the goal. When the final whistle blew obviously the Boro fans went daft but then we noticed the gates being opened at the Shed end, blatantly by Stewards, as a few hundred Chelsea decided to run across the pitch, but to be honest, I don,t know what could have happened, because the fences separated the rival fans, if a Chelsea fan got over what would have happened, anyway the trouble was quelled and the Boro team was brought back onto the pitch to celebrate with their fans. Getting away from the ground wasn't,t too bad, a few pockets hanging around but nothing major. I know a few lads who were in the large firm who marched across London that day who claim they were unchallenged but it was a strange one, it was the early days of the play offs and in later years Chelsea would not have been in that position. You guys who were there, do you consider this an accurate reflection of the day and do you agree with me that Ken Bates had his part to play in his disregard for safety by blatantly allowing tickets to be sold to Boro fans in a totally unsegregated section of seats.