Your mates have just mullered me in town.’
It seemed that the whole of my body was aching, even my eyelashes hurt, or so it felt. I sat down beside Chirpy and we chatted. He was all right and this was the first time I’d had the chance to have a proper chat with him. He told me that Wednesday and their firm had cost him his first marriage. I reassured him that, if she couldn’t understand a man’s need to stick up for his mates and club, he was better off without her. Chirps was old school, code of conduct and all that. I shook his hand as he was released. I think we both went up in each other’s estimation that night.
The first time in court I was put in the dock with them. I shouted the usher over and said that I was not a part of this group and had actually been fighting against these cunts. A few of them laughed at the comment but I was dealt with separately. However, I did take note of the address of the lad who had been the main instigator that night. In the end I was fined 160 quid but that wasn’t the end of it.
Around a month or so later, I was driving home from training at Bramall Lane. As I drove up Frecheville, I spotted a face I recognised – the very same Wednesday lad, who was walking with another one of their boys. On instinct, I slowed but realised that Colly was in the car with me and it was nothing to do with him. He knew something was up and, after I’d explained, he told me to turn around and we would sort it. I drove past them and pulled up a side street, got out of the car and waited. They walked past oblivious. Colly walked swiftly past them and turned, as I tapped the Wednesday lad on the shoulder.
‘Not got 30 of your pals with you now, have you?’
He pushed his arms out in front of him and, to be honest, I had won the fight without throwing a punch. We actually get on pretty well now.
It wasn’t the first time I ended up in trouble trying to help Wednesday lads. On Christmas Eve 1987, I ended up in the cells again, this time because I stopped two Wednesday youngsters from getting battered.
It wasn’t unusual for United and Wednesday to get together in town on Christmas Eve for a festive tear-up. These get-togethers started in 1979 and died out some 10 years later. I never bothered turning out for a few reasons, the main one being that no one wants to be locked up on Christmas Eve. It was a time for my family and, no matter who United played on Boxing Day, I never turned out, preferring to go to the match with my family.
Anyway, on this particular Christmas Eve, I had to go to town to get my wife a present; usually I’d got it sorted early doors, but for some reason I’d left it late this year. I met up with my mate Nigel who was in Gossips, along with around 15 other United lads. After a couple of drinks, the two of us walked to Fargate, and my plan was to go to Next and buy her indoors a new suit.
As we walked down Fargate, we saw around 20 lads who we immediately recognised as a group of United lads who called themselves the Suicide Squad. The squad used to go to United games totally independent to the rest of the firm; they were no strangers to trouble and had a lot of game and handy lads. I knew most of them and, as I glanced over, I saw them rush over and it kicked off in a shop doorway with two young Wednesday lads. We jogged over and I recognised one of the lads getting roughed up. He was a game little sod called Winky, and his elder brother was a main face with Wednesday.
I jumped in to protect him, shouting, ‘Leave it out, there’s only two of them.’
The squad were all drunk as skunks and one grabbed a white cricket hat from my head; it had the United badge on one side and BBC embroidered on the other, and I was quite attached to it. To cut it short, the big lad who had snatched my hat wouldn’t give it back so I nutted him with a beauty; it was my only option because I couldn’t hit him as I had a pot on my right hand. It kicked off a bit as a couple of his mates tried steaming me. The OB came running over and apprehended me. I pleaded my innocence and explained that my hat had been nicked. The plod let me go with a warning to behave or I would be locked up.
I then saw the lad who had snatched my hat – he was stemming the flow of blood from his nose with it! I ran over, jumped up and kicked him. I was promptly arrested and thrown in the police van.
One of the officers in the van was Peter Springett. He’d played in goal for Wednesday and was now the community bobby around Bramall Lane. This was just at the start of the football intelligence officers and Peter knew most of the United lads, me included.
‘Your luck run out, Steve?’
‘Looks that way.’
(He sadly died later from cancer and I had full respect for this man.)
At the station, I was charged with being drunk and disorderly, which was a laugh as I’d only had two cokes. But I ended up going Guilty and was fined.
That wasn’t the end of it, though, as there was still the matter of the stolen hat to be sorted. At the end of that season, I was part of a big BBC mob that were walking back up to the station after a game at Huddersfield, when someone shouted, ‘Cowens.’ It was one of the squad, who informed me that his mate wanted a word. It was the lad who I had butted on Fargate four months earlier. It turned out he wanted to fight me so we arranged to meet up back in Sheffield. At the meet, we had a fight that seemed to go on for ages until the OB clocked us and we ended up shaking hands. All this because I had stuck up for a Wednesday fan!
One of Wednesday’s lads at the time was a lad called Slimey; he was the type who didn’t know how to conduct himself and the code of conduct never entered his head. He was a main actor with Wednesday and most of the lads in our firm hated him with a passion. Personally, I didn’t really have a view on the lad, until the day he turned up with his pals one Sunday morning in 1987. What got me about it was that, months earlier, me and Kav had bumped into him and another Wednesday lad on Chapel Walk in town.
‘He’s just walked down there, that Steve Cowens,’ the Wednesday lad informed Slimey just as we had walked back up.
‘Yes, I have,’ I said and Kav walked straight up to Slimey and asked him his name. Slimey denied who he was, even though we knew full well it was him. So, in a two-on-two situation, Slimey didn’t want to know but thought it was OK to turn up at one of my Sunday football games tooled up with four of his mates.
I was warming up on the pitch with four of my team-mates when I noticed five lads walking briskly towards me. One was Slimey, and the others had scarves around their faces. I knew straight away what the score was and shouted to my team-mates to watch the rest as I went to greet Slimey. Straight away, he pulled a steel cleaver out of his crombie coat. I screamed, ‘You fuckin’ divvy.’
As I squared up, Slimey and the rest of them closed in on me. I quickly noted that two had bats and one was holding a large pop bottle. I tried to boot Slimey and a Wednesday lad tried to twat me with his bat. He slipped on the wet grass and I booted him. It was on top but I was putting on a good show, despite none of my team mates coming to my aid, which shocked me, especially as two of them, Holder and Batesy, were United lads. Then they all came at me at once and I had to turn and run. At the side of the pitch, there was a cricket square that had been fenced off for the winter. I ran over and pulled a four-foot-long rustic post out of the ground. I turned and jogged towards the five lads, who stopped in their tracks. I could see they weren’t too sure now.
‘Come on, we’re all tooled up now,’ I shouted.
As I went at them, one threw the Tizer bottle at me. It smashed on my knee, but I didn’t really feel anything at the time, as the adrenaline was pumping like mad. I ran at them with the post held above my head, and they turned and ran. My team-mates who had previously frozen, then joined the chase. I just missed Slimey with the post as I tried to bring it crashing down on him; good job I missed really. The rest of our team were now walking up to the pitch and they attacked the fleeing Wednesday lads. My leg went numb and I looked down to see my leg covered in blood caused by a two-inch cut just above my knee.
The muscle had frayed and was protruding from my leg, but a few stitches in hospital had me good as new.
I was fuming, though; there was no fairer Blade than me when it came to inter-city rivalries and this was how they repaid me, I thought. I vowed to find out the names hiding