A little more on the Ipswich game I mentioned earlier. Talking to Donkin on the way home, on the Inter City, he told me that he "liked going away with Chelsea because they used their heads". He was taking the piss somewhat though because I'd been done for ABH having for no apparent reason run across the gap between the Chelsea and the Ipswich while in the Ipswich end., grabbed this Ipswich fan in a headlock and punched him in the face a few times. I was 16 then - I know that because my old man went with me to Ipswich Juvenile Court. Got a £40 fine if I remember rightly.
What I also remember of that time up Ipswich is feeling confused. "He's Tottenham, and he's with us?" Not just with us but acting matey with Danny and his mates. That's who I'd been standing with in the Ipswich end, by the way.
I once used his name to save myself a kicking when caught on my own in an evening game at Tottenham. I'd come straight from work, got there late, and the only people I could find that I knew were Arsenal fans. Little Donald and the Black Twins, that lot from Highbury. Donald was a snake who later ran with Cockney Reds. I'm sure he grassed me up to the Tottenham. Either way, after the game, I was on my own apart from these two Arsenal birds I knew, with literally 100's of Tottenham behind me. One of them kicked me up the arse. I turned round and said: "What's your f**king problem?" The y*d replied, "You're Chelsea you c**t." "Not me," I told him, "I'm Millwall - you ask Donkin", Don't ask me why I said "Millwall" but I did. The bloke looked at me again and said: "You know Donkin?" .. "Yeah I know him from Orient" ... "Go on, f**k off", he said, and I f**ked off heaving a huge sigh of relief.
Almost needless to say I didn't actually know Donkin from Orient, just from Chelsea aways, but I'd been told my a mate who used to live in Leytonstone that he regularly used to see him at Brisbane Road.
On the Arsenal connection, I would never, ever class myself as a "legend", maybe a leg end, and in later years, a drunken fool, but there was a time when I was quite well known all the same. I never rowed with Arsenal because I knew too many of them. Even went away with Arsenal a few times, either when we weren't playing, or when I was skint and went up in a carload of Arsenal mates. Everton away one year in the FA Cup. Another mate had a spare ticket, so I went along with them. In the Arsenal end, I was spotted, but I was ok. When asked "what the f**k are you doing here?" they were satisfied with my reply that I was just up there for the day with my mates.
Got split up on the way from the ground, managing to lose the driver, so bunked back on the Arsenal special with the others who were in the same the car. It was so obvious that half the special knew I was Chelsea, they even knew I had Chelsea tattoos, which I kept covered nonetheless. As long as I played the game that I was with them, it was all good. Another time me and another couple of mates ran into a mob of Arsenal - nothing to do with football, just out for the evening. I happened to be wearing a Leeds hat that I'd acquired the previous weekend, and it was this that attracted their attention. Getting the usual "who he?" looks. I laughed and told them I'd nicked the hat. One of the black twins mentioned above spoke up. "Oh I know you. You're Chelsea but you were with us the other week. You know Donald, don't you?" I nodded and told him, yep, how you doing? "Great thanks, see you later." And that was it.
Those kinds of non violent encounters between London fans were common enough I'm sure, as was the occasional away trip with a rival mob, and to go back to the question posed in the first post of this thread, I think it's the sheer number of teams in London, along with the size of the city, that makes it different from anywhere else.
