Terracing at football has been back in the news again recently after the Football League voted in favour of safe standing. The League still needs Government approval to make standing legal, but it’s a start. Standing is a cheaper way of getting more people in to watch the game, and hopefully generate some atmosphere. It’d be great to see terracing return to England.
However, what we probably won’t be seeing is a return of colossal terracing that used to be an essential part of any respectable British football stadium. We’ve all heard of United’s Stretford End and Liverpool’s Kop, but there were plenty of other awe inspiring stands that have taken on mythical status since their demise. Life on the old terraces could be rough; my Dad told me that he lost a shoe and all the buttons off his coat during during one post-goal surge on the North Bank at Highbury (he was Italian, so I imagine it was a good a shoe and a decent coat). He also told me about rivers of piss running down the terraces at some grounds. Lovely. Having grown accustomed to the facilities at modern grounds, with such luxuries as working toilets, the old terraces would would probably seem terrifying to most of us now. Even so, if I had the chance to experience some of the old monsters first hand, here are a few I’d like to tick off the list.
5. South Bank, Molineux
The West Midlands’ terrace game was strong in the olden days, as demonstrated by the enormous South Bank that Wolves’ fans used to call home. It’s easy to forget that Wolves were kind of a big deal once, attracting crowds of 60,000 and winning the league three times in the 1950’s, which must have been around the time that this was taken:
Fast forward to the 1980s and the South Bank ain’t looking so hot. Wolves were in a death spiral, plummeting into the fourth tier, and the South Bank was pretty much the only bit of the ground still in use. A decaying relic of former glory (hello, 80’s England!). Of course, Wolves were eventually saved from total destruction and Sir Jack Hayward’s money rebuilt Molineux into a functional stadium. But the modern South Bank has nothing on this beast. RIP South Bank.
4. Fulwell End, Roker Park
A lot of tired cliché gets written and spoken about football in the North East, and I’m going to indulge in some here, because nothing screams ‘proper old football ground’ like Roker Park. It looked about as welcoming as a kneecap to the bollocks, and with North Sea winds whipping through it, and no roof on the away end, it probably wasn’t on the ‘best away days’ list for many fans. A shit hole, basically, but a tremendous shit hole made all the more glorious by the ‘Welcome To Sunderland’ sign at the back of the home fans’ Fulwell End.
3. The Jungle, Celtic Park
Any of the old Glasgow grounds could feature here. Ibrox and Hampden Park both featured enormously huge terraces that must have loosened the bowels of many opposition sides. But, if I was going to experience one, it’d have to be Celtic Park. The Northern terrace at the old Celtic Park is an outlier in this list due its orientation – it runs along the touchline, while the other stands are all behind the goal. But, the fact that this stand was given the nickname ‘The Jungle’ sets it apart. The Jungle. Jesus. It must have been magnificent.
2. The Kop, Hillsborough
Borussia Dortmund’s ‘Wall’ can fuck right off – this Yorkshire behemoth came first. Look at it. Just look at it. Imagine you’re the opposition goal keeper and you have to walk towards this magnificent bastard of a terrace, packed with fans. There are other, more famous Kops, but the Hillsborough Kop’s scale deserves respect. It was fucking massive.
A manager at Hillsborough with one or two spectators on the Kop in the background.
1. Holte End, Villa Park
To finish, a genuine monster of a stand. This one I was able to see with my own eyes a couple of years before it was pulled down, but from the opposite end of the stadium. It was so deep the crowd seemed to disappear into the vanishing point. When Villa scored the whole thing erupted into noise and motion, surging and roaring. I spent most of the match staring at it. In its prime the Holte End could hold around 30,000 fans on its own. That, friends, is a terrace.
