No Ticket Required

By Robert Davro

No Ticket Required

A story of jibbing the turnstiles and the trains to go to the match. From jumping the gate to simple pass-backs, elaborate scams and fake tickets. A roller-coaster ride following Robert and a group of mates from Reading to Rome, from Manchester to Monaco, from Bournemouth to Bristol. Crawling under a turnstile at Aldershot to full corporate hospitality at the Stadio Olimpico for the champion's league final in Rome and a free flight to Barcelona. Our tale starts in the 70's and ends in Stockholm on a memorable night in May.

As ticket prices increased dramatically over the years and they became harder to come by, I had a decision to make. To stay at home or to go to the match and Jib in. This is my story of how I have spent 30 years following my team and the lengths I have gone to in order to get in.

If you love a trip down memory lane, standing on the terraces, 80's casuals, Italia 90, overnight trains and transit vans then you'll enjoy this trip down memory lane. It's not all about the match, its getting there, the characters you meet, the strokes you pull, the occasional skirmish with the locals. An honest and often amusing journey at home and abroad with Manchester United and a couple of chapters covering the 80's with AFC Bournemouth.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Davro
• Release date: Apr 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386239246

Book preview

1. ABOUT ME

I was born in 1966, and most Man United fans will know that was a very good year as Eric Cantona was also born. Dad wrote for the local paper and Mum, well she was a mum. We lived in a nice little bungalow in a nice road and although my parents never appeared to have much money, I had a very happy childhood and I thank them for that. Dad as I’ve mentioned was a journalist, and Mum looked after me and my sister who came along two years later.

As a kid I loved Dinky and Corgi models and also toy soldiers. I watched ‘Thunderbirds’ and ‘Captain Scarlet’ on TV, climbed trees, fell off pushbikes and kicked a ball against the kitchen wall for hours at a time. Sadly, all that practice never really paid off. I played football for my junior school, and in the first year at senior school, but by Year Two I was no longer good enough to get a game. Many years later, I played a few Sunday league matches - division eight and often as a sub - until the rave years ended my playing days. Dad drove an Austin Maxi and listened to Cat Stevens and Neil Diamond – loudly! (The Maxi was shite, but Cat and Neil are absolute legends!) As a boy I went to Cubs, sailed Dad’s dinghy in Christchurch harbour and spent the holidays in Wales.

We lived in Christchurch, which borders Bournemouth, and I went to a small junior school that had one class for each year. My dad’s passion in life was his sailing. He had no interest whatsoever in ‘The Beautiful Game’. The only family member who had any interest in football was my Grandad Alf. He was a big Ipswich Town fan, and as a youngster I used to listen intently to his stories about the Tractor Boys and their fans and his trips to London to see them play. Dad only ever took me to football once - Bournemouth versus Tranmere in Division Four on 18th October 1975. It was also my first ever football match and a great game it was too. The Cherries won 4-2. We sat in the seats and I can recall looking over to my left at the South End and seeing all the lads singing and jumping about. To me, as a seven-year-old boy, this looked magical and I longed to be able to go and stand with them behind the goal. The South End looked massive as the roof which covered the back half of it left a part of the stand permanently in shadow and from my seat I couldn’t see the back of it. It was a year or so before I returned to Dean Court when a family friend who had a son one year younger than me offered to take me along. He was a steward in the main stand and used to rent out cushions to supporters. The seats were wooden boards and for five pence you could hire a cushion to make sitting there a bit more comfortable. John and I used to get in with his dad and then help to clear up all the cushions after the match. If Bournemouth had been particularly poor that afternoon the fans would throw the cushions onto the pitch in disgust at the end. I loved it when they did that as I got to go on the pitch, which gave me a buzz.

In 1976 my best friend was Aron and he supported Manchester United and had an older brother who told us stories about the ‘Cockney Reds’. These characters sounded really cool and I thought I’d like to be one of them. I didn’t actually watch the Cup Final in ‘76 as Aron and I preferred to play football in the back garden but I remember my dad coming outside to inform us that Southampton had won the cup. Dad, knowing nothing about football, assumed this was good news as they were a southern team. I wasn’t bothered but Aron was devastated and was in tears. Shortly after this I started supporting United and got a red, white and black bar scarf that Christmas which I still have to this day. I used to wear it around my wrist and swing it in the air whilst hanging out the school bus window shouting, United!. It was soon confiscated by a teacher but I got it back.

I watched the next few cup finals at Grandad’s house. They were magical days. He would pick me up and we’d get fish and chips from Parley chip shop before sitting down for the big game. The 1977 FA Cup Final between United and Liverpool was the first final that I watched on TV. It didn’t get bigger than this with the two biggest teams in the country at Wembley. I made a banner with paper and two bamboo sticks and waved it wildly when the teams took to the field. The match came to life in the second-half with three goals in four minutes – Stuart Pearson and then Jimmy Case for them before Lou Macari’s shot deflected off teammate Jimmy Greenhoff to secure the trophy for United. It was brilliant to watch and my boyhood hero Steve Coppell played which made it even better.

The following year Ipswich faced Arsenal in the final, which was great as I wanted Grandad’s team to win. They had a very good side back then and hit the woodwork three times before a left-footed strike by Roger Osborne gave Ipswich their first and only FA Cup triumph. In 1979 the run of great finals continued with United back at Wembley again to face Arsenal. To be fair, Arsenal dominated most of the match and took a two-goal lead but when big Gordon McQueen pulled one back and then two minutes later Sammy McIlroy banged in the equaliser I was convinced we would be lifting the trophy again. Unfortunately, my joy lasted all of one minute before Alan Fuckin Sunderland ruined the day.

Man United’s next Cup Final appearance was against Brighton & Hove Albion in 1983. I watched the first game of that final at my uncle’s house in London as we’d gone up there as a family to visit. I managed to avoid the family afternoon walk to see the Reds escape with a 2-2 draw. The only upside to the day was a visit to Honest John’s records in Camden where I purchased ‘The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle’ by the Sex Pistols, much to my parents’ disgust. I was a punk at this stage of my life - well, I liked punk music and had a Siouxsie and the Banshees pin badge but that was about as wild as I got.

As a school kid in the late Seventies, I badly wanted a proper football shirt and after a lot of nagging I finally got mum to take me to the local sports shop to buy my first one. Unlike today, the choice was very limited. I remember it boiling down to a straight decision between a QPR home shirt - which was very modern and looked the nuts - or an old school plain United shirt - red with white cuffs and neck. The old school George Best top won hands down and it was the cheaper of the two, which meant Mum was happy. I wore that top for years until I could no longer get it over my head.

As I neared the end of my school days I looked a scruffy bugger in tight black jeans and Dennis the Menace jumper. I was unsure which way to go when the Casual thing arrived in Bournemouth. My first memories of this new look were whilst still at school. It was about 1982 when a lad I knew started talking about Fila and Sergio Tacchini and getting the odd item. I left school in May 1983 and set about getting myself some clobber. My early purchases included a V-neck Pringle jumper, Grand Slam polo - which I’m sure is what ‘Penguin’ was called back then - and a pair of Diadora Borg trainers. A Patrick raincoat completed the outfit. I thought I was The Bollox even though I was still rocking the tight black jeans - the split and frayed jeans would follow shortly. OK, OK, so we were a little behind the Scallies and Mancs who were years ahead, but it was the Cockneys who we got our ideas from as we’d go on the London-awaydays a lot more frequently than we headed up north. Bournemouth’s home end, the South End, was a mixture of Skinheads, Mods, Rockabillies and tramps, so we stood out a mile, especially when the diamond jumpers and peach cords made an appearance. (Where have all the tribes gone today?) We also had Breakdancers, New Romantics, Rockers and Goths. (I’ve probably missed a few but what is there now?) Kids who wear all the terrace clobber today are just copying their dads. I see a few surfer-looking youths wandering around Bournemouth but that’s about it. Come on kids sort yourselves out! It’s surely time for something new!

So let’s just recap, I went to school in sleepy little Christchurch on the South Coast. The local team was AFC Bournemouth who were in the fourth division and everyone I knew supported either Manchester United or Liverpool. The odd kid may have followed someone else but I can’t remember. It was 1977 and the United kids would sit at one end of the playground and the vermin at the other. We would chant at each other but with this being Christchurch it never got out of hand.

The United kids were the cool ones who were popular, handsome and well dressed. The vermin contingent all looked like Stig of the Dump and smelt of piss. This may not be exactly how it was but I’m sure my memory isn’t too far out. I guess if I’d been sat at school in Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield or Bristol then we’d have all followed the local team and not two clubs two hundred odd miles away, but that was just how it was. Most kids who followed United or Liverpool where I lived grew out of it as they got older but I never did, and thank goodness I didn’t! Supporting two teams probably sounds strange to a lot of people but an awful lot of lads here in Bournemouth do. Most support The Cherries, especially now they have made it to the Premier League, but have always also followed a bigger side as well. That said, it’s not just down here, I have United mates who also go and watch Stockport. I have never had any issues with it as Bournemouth have been a third or fourth division team for much of their existence and United, ‘Divvy One’. Since Eddie Howe took The Cherries into the Premier League though it’s been a different story. I’ve not enjoyed any of their encounters with United and prefer not to go. When you’re at the match a tribal instinct kicks in, right? It’s not pure hatred in every case but for the 90 minutes you certainly don’t like the opposing support. You might like their ground, respect their support and admire some of their players but for the day you don’t like them at all. All the songs they sing are shit, they all look like wrong-uns and if they score it’s going to severely piss you off. If you go to a Bournemouth v United match, United are going to laugh at ‘Little Bournemouth’ and sing: Our club shop is bigger than your ground and Bournemouth are going to sing: You only live round the corner, or some other nonsense. OK, so in this case it would actually be true! And if United score against Bournemouth I’m not going to celebrate and vice-versa, it just doesn’t work in my world.

2. THE FIRST JIBS

If you’re reading this book and don’t know what a ‘jib’ is, then allow me to educate you. To jib into a football ground is to get in without paying. There are numerous ways of jibbing, as you’ll discover as you read on, and once you’ve started jibbing it’s easy to get hooked on the buzz. Jibbing is certainly an addiction of mine as I’ve been at it now for over 30 years! I’m also very, very good at it and can claim to have jibbed into most of the top stadiums in England and around Europe.

I don’t really know where my love of a jib comes from or why I’m still jibbing today when I’ve got the money to pay for tickets. In my younger days though, a lack of funds was certainly a major contributing factor in why I did it. From an early age I loved going to the football and often faced a stark choice of either staying at home or throwing caution to the wind and looking to jib it, with the reward of a day out if I was successful.

My first jib actually happened purely by chance. In August 1984, I’d travelled to Aldershot with Bournemouth with the intention of paying for entry like everyone else. The Recreation Ground was a dump back then and had very antiquated turnstiles set around the park perimeter. We were all crowding around the turnstile eager to get in when I just ducked under it and crawled in. It probably saved me about two pound fifty but back then that would have got me 10 Bensons, a pint and some chips on the way home. I shot off before the stewards could get me and walked up the side of the ground and into the end behind the goal. It had a high segregating fence down the middle and the other half was full of lads bouncing about and trying to get over. My initial thought was: Shit! Aldershot have got a right mob! but then I started recognising faces and soon realised ‘the mob’ was actually Bournemouth. What a buzz! Bournemouth didn’t usually take too many fans away but the relatively short journey had brought a few more out than usual. I bumped into my mate Hatrack and together we went down the front where the police let us through to the area for away fans. It was a memorable game as Bournemouth got slaughtered 4-0 and we took it badly and invaded the pitch in the second-half and got into the North Stand, which is occupied by the home supporters. It was mint! Coming out of the ground after the match we bumped into Aldershot’s young football hooligans and ran them down the road before their main lads appeared and we did a quick U-turn!

Another of my early jibs with Bournemouth was in December the same year at Dartford in the FA Cup. It was ridiculously easy to get in. Outside the ground there was a big entrance without gates that cars went through before parking behind the small terraced end. I just walked in and wandered around unchallenged to the stand that ran the length of the pitch. It was easy as that!

It didn’t take long before I began honing my new craft at music venues. The local Bournemouth International Centre, known as the BIC, was an early favourite and an easy jib for me. I have seen some top acts play there over the years including Oasis, Doves and Paul Weller – and all for free. The door security is a joke there and we’ve used the same scam for the past 20 years. It’s one that I’ll keep under my hat as we’ve passed it on to the next generation with a few of my mate’s kids now very proficient at obtaining entry.

I would usually pay for entry at Bournemouth home matches (You don’t shit in your own backyard). However, I have always looked young for my age and I would go through the juvenile turnstile at Dean Court until I was at least twenty-one! I can’t remember how much a child’s ticket cost in the late Seventies, but I’m guessing about 50p. The oldest ticket stub I have shows 70p to get in but at ninety nine percent of matches you could just pay at the gate. A couple of my mates went to a school for mischievous kids. Today, they’d probably be diagnosed with ADHD and get given a care worker and a free taxi to school, but back then they were just very naughty boys. The one benefit they’d get was free entrance to AFC Bournemouth. On a few occasions I’d use this as a jib by turning up at the turnstile and saying I was from this school to gain access in the South End for free. It didn’t always work though, as you were supposed to be with the teacher who supervised them at the game but the odd steward who wasn’t on the ball would fall for it now and again.

Another early memory of mine is when Bournemouth played Bristol City at Dean Court in the mid-Eighties. We were in the third division and most weeks only a few hundred away fans would turn up to watch their side. City though brought a hell of a lot more, including a few hundred casuals who all looked the part. They marched across the car park straight up to the Main Stand and literally all jumped over the turnstiles and plotted up in the seats. The stewards and the Old Bill just left them to it. I was mightily impressed with their behaviour and their ‘don’t give a shite attitude’. Fans these days sing about doing what we want - well these lads did. They were a shite third division team with a division one mob.

We foolishly took a minibus from Bournemouth to Bristol City’s Ashton Gate around this time and soon regretted it. We had stopped for a few beers on the way and were approaching the ground about 45 minutes before kick-off when we got stuck in traffic just down the road from the entrance to the away end. A couple of hundred lads mainly wearing wax jackets clocked us and came across the park and surrounded our minibus. They then started rocking it and tried to get the back doors open. My mate Cliff was up for getting out and having a go, but nobody else was. This was a seriously dodgy situation and thankfully the mounted police charged down the road and City’s firm backed off to allow us to get out and make our way into the stadium. I did feel for our driver Popey who had to bravely drive off and park up.

After the game, City’s firm were outside waiting for us – not the ‘scarfers’, just Bournemouth’s Casual Element. The police rustled up a few dogs and escorted us back towards our van. Unfortunately, when we turned the corner our van came into view and we found it on its side minus most of the windows, and surrounded by lunatics. Again, the police chased City’s lads away and then righted the van for us before advising us to leave Bristol as soon as - as if we needed telling! The police can be out of order on occasions at matches but in the Eighties when I was part of a small crowd following Bournemouth away, we were thankful for their presence on more than a few occasions.

My first foreign trips abroad were with England during the period between 1985 and 1990 when English teams were banned from Europe following the Heysel Stadium disaster. There were always plenty of lads without accommodation or tickets. I went on an organised trip to Germany for Euro ’88 with tickets and accommodation all sorted. When we got to Germany we soon met up with a few other Bournemouth lads who had made their own way out and had nowhere to stay. We had three extra residents in our room most nights as we sorted the Bournemouth lads out whenever possible. I never viewed these lads dossing on my floor as freeloaders or anything like that. They were sound lads who had made the effort to travel abroad and support their team and deserved all the help I could give them. What goes around comes around and I like to think that all the subsequent hotel floors, shared rail tickets and other forms of help that have come my way has been the result of my earlier good deeds.

Outside the stadiums in Germany, ticketless England fans would aggressively try to obtain some. It certainly wasn’t a good place to be a ticket tout as I witnessed a good few Germans, who thought they could make a few Deutschmarks, getting smacked and having their tickets taken off them. United’s followers, just like England’s, often went without tickets but definitely took a slightly more sophisticated route to getting hold of one. The England plan was simple: punch people and have their tickets away. United had a hundred and one ways of getting in right under the noses of the stewards and without them even realising what was going on. I liked this approach far better, as being 5’ 8" and not very good at punching people it suited me.

As I’ve already mentioned, getting a match ticket legitimately was a cost issue in my youth but when I was older and could afford one, a lot of the time I had no interest in buying one. Fifty quid to sit - although I usually stand - in some shite away end with usually a poor view of the game is daylight robbery. The prices for tickets today are utter madness!

Man United, like Liverpool, have always had a good tradition of jibbing, but our numbers have been dwindling fast since the mid-Nineties when the Taylor Report ushered in all-seater stadiums following the Hillsborough disaster. I see myself as one of a dying breed, although I’m certainly doing my best to keep this art form alive and to educate the younger generation. To be honest, I really enjoy it. There’s something about swerving into a ground without paying that I enjoy. Some folk get a buzz from driving fast cars, fighting or jumping off bridges attached to a bit of string. Me, I get my buzzes from jibbing. The lads I go to the match with also love it. They differ from me a little as if a ticket is available they will buy one, but not having a ticket doesn’t stop them going as they’ll also jib one. They also seem pleased whenever I get in and even get a buzz off helping out with a pass-back.

My early foreign trips with United were an education in the art of jibbing abroad. I paid for tickets and travel on my first couple of excursions into Europe, although I soon learnt that most things were free to anyone who had the right attitude. By the mid-Nineties, the number of jibbers that I’d come across when travelling through Europe was astounding - everyone was at it! On the train to Barcelona in November 1994 I was really impressed by these lads and their carefree attitude. Like me, they’d done the maths and figured out that if they jibbed the euro train they’d have enough cash to buy a Lacoste jumper or some other exotic treasure.

The first Manchester United match that I went to was a friendly against local Southern League side Poole Town on November 11, 1981. Ron Atkinson had just signed Bryan Robson and Remi Moses from West Brom and I was hoping to see them play. United coming to town was a big deal and the local paper was full of stories for the week leading up to the match. I recall one scruffy United fan turned up a few days early and became a sort of celebrity tramp with pictures of himself in the paper. Years later, I discovered that this character had been the legendary ‘Paraffin Pete’ who refused to shave his beard in the Eighties until United win the league. He usually hitchhiked to matches and once thumbed a lift to Aberdeen for a friendly, which was called off due to fog. I went to the match with my friend Aron and his dad. Poole Town Stadium was a 6,000 sell-out and packed with mainly United fans who sang throughout the 6-0 victory. 

I remember Yugoslavia international defender Nikolai Jovanovic played for United but there was no sign of the recently signed Robson, much to my annoyance. At the final whistle, Aron and I went straight onto the pitch and I hugged one of the players. It was my first taste of watching United and made me even more devoted. I now needed to go to a ‘proper game’ without anyone’s dad taking me.

Southampton was my nearest big club and it was there that my first steps were taken as a proper match goer. I didn’t get to see many United games in the Eighties, just the ones played at The Dell or in the south, along with the occasional visit to Old Trafford. I obviously continued supporting Bournemouth as they were my local club and every other weekend we’d hire a large removal van to help our Aunty move house. We’d acquire a load of old settees and twenty of us would pile into the back to watch The Cherries away from home. We usually just sat on the floor, which was fine until someone with a weak bladder had a slash in the corner. We’d all then have to get to our feet as waves of urine washed up and down the back of the van. Picture the scene as we arrive in some poor unsuspecting residential street. Mr and Mrs Jones are out tending their flower beds when a hire van pulls up and a couple of chaps get out of the cab and open the shutter at the back. Four gallons of urine and 20 sweaty young blokes wearing brightly-coloured casual sportswear fall out of the back singing: Harry Redknapp’s Red & White Army. Happy days!

3. WHITE HART LANE

I always enjoyed my visits to The Lane. It was a proper away fixture with a great atmosphere that still had an edge to it. The Spurs fans may not appreciate me saying this, but because they never win anything their support hasn’t been diluted by new fans and oddballs - unlike the other lot in North London.

Before they knocked it down to make way for their bigger new stadium at the end of the 2016/17 season, White Hart Lane was smart inside and reminded me of Real Madrid’s stadium. I know comparing White Hart Lane with the Santiago Bernabéu is stretching it a bit, but the roof was similar in the way the big screens were built into the front edge of the roof.

I first went to Spurs in September 1986. I was with a Leeds-supporting mate from Bournemouth and had gone to London shopping. I’d spent most of my funds fairly swiftly on the Kings Road and with new clobber purchased we looked in the paper to discover that Spurs v Chelsea was the main game that afternoon. There was none of your seating and tickets nonsense back then as you could just pay on the day. We pitched up at The Lane and paid to get in on The Shelf, the raised standing terrace then in the middle tier of Tottenham’s East Stand, as we’d heard it was where the lads went. It was indeed the lads’ enclosure - there were shit loads of them!

Chelsea bossed the game and won easily 3-1, which didn’t go down well with the locals who invaded the away end in the South Stand. All sorts of mayhem ensued with fighting in the Chelsea end and on the pitch by the corner flag. We didn’t hang about and ducked out early as we wanted to avoid the battle, which no doubt would have continued outside the ground. I didn’t want to risk losing my new top - which sounds a bit girly I know - but clothes meant a lot to us back then and a decent top cost a week’s wages.

My next visit to Spurs was with United, but this time I went with a few Reds, including ‘Barry the Fish’ (no he wasn’t good at swimming!) and a Spurs lad called Jim from Bournemouth. He was sound and said he would take us for a beer in their main boozer. Jim was a well-dressed fella who also went to Bournemouth games. He was a farmer and would sometimes give us a lift to the pub after a match in the back of his pig van. I used to prefer walking, if the truth be told, as it did smell in the back... mainly of pig dung. I remember that