As I write this account of what would be up there in my top 3 most scariest trips to a football match, it is funny to think that exactly 50 years ago to the minutes, I was sat on a football special train somewhere between Southampton and Bradford.

It cannot be denied that Saints had the luck of the draw in their FA cup winning season of 1975/76, in the 5 game run up to the final, we only met 1 First Division club in Aston Villa at the Dell where a Hugh Fisher equaliser in the last minute earned us a replay at Villa Park where two Jim McCalliog goals saw us through after extra time 2-1.

In the 4th round we met a team in our own division in Blackpool and the same again in the 5th when it was West Brom who were the opponents.

When the draw was made for the 6th round or quarter finals, call it what you want, we expected to be playing another First Division club in Norwich City who had been due to play Fourth division Bradford City, but the game had been postponed.

It was surely going to a formality for the Canaries on their own ground, but they lost 2-1 and our destination was going to be Yorkshire not Norfolk.

The game was controversial from the moment the tie was confirmed, Valley Parade had an official capacity of 23,000, indeed 21,000 had attended their 4th round game, but that had been a bit of a surprise for a team whose average that season was 2,916 and they hastily started to install crush barriers to try and avert a reduced capacity being enforced.

There was a reduced capacity although what it was was is now lost in the lists of time, but what meant that neither side sold out their tickets was the decision by the Bradford board to increase ticket prices from 65p for standing, to a whopping £1.50 with no concessions.

Saints objected but the FA let Bradford get away with it, the equivalent of Fulham increasing their price from £30 to about £80 today.

The final attendance was 14,195, around 4,000 of those were Saints supporters.

So back to the train, as I said I went by a football special run by the club from Southampton Central train station, the journey up was uneventful and when we arrived at Bradford there was a fleet of buses to transport us to Valley Parade.

When we got there being only 14 I headed into the ground to meet up with a couple of friends who had gone up on a coach.

We were on the Kop at Bradford, a large open terrace, which was crumbling and at the back you could peer down into the open roofed toilets behind, not to mention a grass bank littered with rocks stones and a host of other potential missiles which would be hurled at us.

The Kop was not exclusively for away fans, officially it probably held about 10,000 and there was no segregation.

About 30 minutes before kick off it kicked off on the terraces when a large mob of Bradford (some say Leeds fans) entered the ground and led by a fella wearing a white crash helmet charged at Saints supporters, who responded in kind.

The backwards and forwards battle lasted for about 10 minutes before the police restored order.

There was an air of danger on that terrace that day, that I have rarely experienced at any other game in the next 50 years, the main block of Saints fans massed in the block behind the goal, surrounded on each side by mad Yorkshireman out to get some Southerners.

The police presence was small and as I say no segregation and there were constant sporadic outbursts of fighting throughout the match and a Saints supporter was stabbed at one point.

Saints as you know won a scrappy game 1-0 and that feeling of euphoria soon subsided when I realised I now had to get back to the train station about 1/1/2 miles away, my mates laughed pointing at their coach literally 100 yards from the ground, that turned out to be no picnic either.

No problem I thought, they will lay on a fleet of buses back to the station, no such luck not a bus to be seen and I was informed by a Yorkshire Bobbie as they are known up there, that there was only one way back and that was to walk.

Back then it was not easy to mingle in, most fans between 12-25 years old wore their club colours, so if you weren't showing them, you stood out almost as much as if you were and at this point, my jean jacket was done up right to the top with my Saints scarf hidden underneath.

I am not ashamed to admit that, it was the norm at away games in those times and anyone who tells you that they walked back to the station that day, is either lying or more likely only recently got out of Bradford Infirmary due to being in a coma for the last 49 years.

As I walked down the long road to the station, anything Southampton was being attacked, a car load of Saints fans had locked the doors as the car was battered by a mob of Bradford boot boys.

Various Saints fans were being found and attacked it was only a matter of time, I practised my best Yorkshire accent and tried to look Northern when the inevitable happened and I was sussed.

That didn't take long and I was accosted by a small group (those who heard this story back at school on the Monday afterwards may remember small being described as around 30-40) of 18-20 year olds, their leader grabbed me and said in his Yorkshire accent " Give us thee scarf and we can all go home safely"

Now losing your scarf back in those days in this manner, was a big embarrassment, at the next game when you turned up without it you would be ridiculed, it didn't matter whether you told tales of 150 rabid Bradford bootboys being repelled and that you had knocked out 110 of them, but as tiredness set in the last 40 overwhelmed you and took the scarf, you would be tainted for life.

So this was not going to happen, barging thought them (Again any of my old school mates reading this may recall this being more like a teenage Bruce Lee Kung Fu'ing his way through, leaving several unconscious on the ground and other begging for mercy) I set off in the direction of the station with this group in hot pursuit.

I didn't have to go far before there was a lone policeman walking along the road, I stopped just in front of him and started walking, said group did the same a little behind.

It was like walking through a war zone, Saints fans and cars were being attacked, this lone policeman did nothing and kept on walking and the group behind kept following, perhaps deciding whether to risk getting arrested and launching an assault (Alternatively from the 1976 story, they were probably waiting for bigger numbers to arrive before risking getting knocked out by me)

We walked about a mile in this fashion, when we approached the square that the train station was on, but it was the other side of the square.

The Yorkshire policeman who had said nothing, nor seemed aware of what was going on around, suddenly spoke to me and said " I'm turning right here, you need to go left across the square, I suggest that you start running now and get a good head start before they realise your off"

I know wise advice when I hear it and shot off on the 100 metre dash to safety in the train station.

There were other Saints fans there and soon arriving, all telling similar stories of the journey back to the station, we were all glad to get back on the train.

Before it left the police came down the carriages and told everyone to pull down the window blinds and not lean out of the windows till we were out of Bradford, as their were home fans up on the train embankments preparing to throw bricks as we departed.

The train journey home was one of excitement, we were in the FA Cup semi finals, the last time being 13 years ago in 1963, that doesn't sound a lot now, but back then it was a lifetime for those under 20.

So thankfully I have endured few other games such as this where I have genuinely feared for my well being, bizarrely Leeds United in a League Cup semi final at Elland Road being one of the few such days, it must be a Yorkshire thing.

Anyway it is strange to recount this tale exactly 50 years to the day, indeed the second in part of the tale that it happened.

At this time exactly 50 years ago I would have been staring out of the train window, probably about an hour away from arrival, thinking that Bradford supporters would be like Orient's, one of the few away games I had been to earlier in the season, how wrong could I be.

Via Reuters or Authors Own