When the final whistle went, me, Jimmy and Wardy had a two-minute game of ring-a-ring o’ roses, which didn’t look out of place amongst the wreckage of the emotional bomb that hit the Curva Nord. It was a scene of total ecstasy, with quite a few tears thrown in. A lad near me was sobbing and being consoled. ‘He’s thinking of someone,’ his mate said. It’d be quite a few years till I’d understand where that lad went to that night, though he wasn’t in the zone for long. Minutes later he was buzzing alongside me on the front fence, watching the Reds parading on the running track. In between us a line of paranoid-looking bizzies ring-fenced our end. It was my first-ever glimpse of Big Ears. It looked massive, and it dazzled under the floodlights, shining brighter than Emlyn Hughes’s teeth. We all milked the glory till the boys disappeared down the tunnel through a posse of photographers and flashing cameras. Everyone was emotionally punch-drunk. The moment felt surreal, like something from a movie. But it was no illusion. We weren’t dreaming. Rome had just been conquered.
Arrivederci, Roma
To keep the rail hordes away from the city centre after the match, the I-ties diverted us all to Tibertina station, north of the city. They’d announced it in the stadium, though we never heard Jack shit. I don’t know what happened to Vinnie. The last I saw of him was when Phil Neal’s pen went in. He took off into the crowd like a rip-rap, screaming like a fella on fire. I was half looking out for our kid after seeing a lad called Gerry Cornett in the Curva Nord, who told me, ‘Your Mick said if I see yer, to tell yer they’ll meet yer at the station.’
Jimmy’s gravel throat needed oiling, but he got a few songs going in a cafe near the station. ‘We all agree, the FA Cup is an ashtray’ was one. Then a classic: ‘We all hate bambinos’, which came about after some tithead told him that bambino was the Italian word for a dipper.
By 1.30 a.m. the queues outside the station were all over the place. No one asked to see our tickets. We squeezed through the gates into a commotion on the platform over packed-lunch buffets that some Reds had paid extra for – they’d all been snaffled or blagged. The train we boarded was all compartments. Most were chocka, apart from one that a fat, pissed-up fella was inside. He was shouting abuse at some harmless arl fella and his middle-aged son, keeping them out of the compartment by jamming the door. It ended up a tug of war with him and Wardy. Thirty seconds later we were all sitting down in the compartment looking at the fat beaut staring at us through the door. He kept coming back in and giving the arl fella stick. After the second time Wardy jumped up and launched him down the corridor, then sat back down … grinning, with his hat in his hand. After that it was all boot-room talk. We kicked every ball of the match before finally crashing out. Jimmy and the arl fella’s son took first shift in the luggage racks.
The worst part of any footy trip is coming home. You just wanna get back. The buzz levels are back down, party horns have faded, corks have popped, fizz gone, adrenalin gone, laughter gone, conversation gone and wedge gone. The overnighters I’d had at Wembley were always quiet trips back, mainly involving popping Rennies while staring out the window of a train or van, eyes flickering, thinking of nothing apart from maybe me own bed. The joy of seeing us lift Big Ears for the first time definitely took the pain out of the first night’s journey back, but waking up on the Thursday morning like a bag of shite knowing we had another day and a half to go was a killer. All’s I had was four ciggies in a squashed Marlboro packet. They were that flat it was like smoking lollyice sticks. I badly needed a Rennie. I’d asked for some in a shop in Rome, but it was like talking to Manuel from Fawlty Towers. My heartburn was so severe that I could’ve lit a ciggy with me breath.
The arl fella in our compartment didn’t exactly cheer us up. ‘Most of the planes will be home by now,’ he said, which was hard to take when you’re still chugging through Italy. He was right. Plane loads of Reds had been arriving back at Speke from the early hours. A lot were applauded by airport staff as they came through. While all that was going on, we were over 1000 miles away, listening to the arl fella’s son snoring in the luggage rack like a pig with sinusitis. If it got too loud, his arl fella would poke him with the stick end of a chequered flag. Jimmy woke up looking like something out of Tales from the Crypt. His sunburnt kite had bloated up, and his cheeks were full of criss-cross rope marks. He slid down from the rack groaning, saying, ‘Where are we?’ Then he looked out the window and shook his head: ‘Them fuckin Alps again.’ It captured everyone’s mood. On the way over it was like going through paradise. Going home it was no different than going past the heights on Netherfield Road.
By midday the hunger was on top. A trip to the buffet car was a waste of time – it was as bare as Everton’s trophy cabinet. The psychological side of it was the hardest – knowing you were trapped on a train for another day with no scoff or drinks. Most people were suffering. A few lads formed sarnie-raiding parties, mooching up and down the train hoping to swoop on a rare buttie bag while people slept. Others came round offering ciggies for food. The most offered was by some desperate fat fella who was opening compartments and pleading ‘Twenty Embassy for any buttie’.
No one took a chance drinking the water in the bogs. The only time I went near it was to swill the dryness from me mouth, but it was like swigging a mouthful of lead filings. Adding to the torture was the hygiene grief. I don’t care who you are, after roughing it on the piss for four days in searing hot temperatures wearing the same gear right down to your under-kecks, you’re gonna start festering. BO was rampant. The worst part was passing someone in the narrow corridors. I had to hold me breath a few times. One fella I brushed past smelt like a YMCA mattress. The arl fella’s son in our compartment was minging, and I mean badly minging. To be honest, if we’d dug up the body of a dead gladiator in Rome and brought it with us, it would have smelt better. At one point he took his suede boots off – fuck me, it was as if someone had just opened a mummy’s tomb.
It was the same score when I opened the compartment of the Stewart brothers (the lads with the coal). The stench was pure, unadulterated sock-cyanide. Mick Stewart got the rancid socks and threw them out the window. What happened next was nuts. By some fluke the socks blew into the window of the compartment behind. It had the same effect as a stun grenade. There was a big commotion, groans of revulsion, cries of ‘Dirty bastards’, then the sliding door burst open and about five lads bailed out into the corridor, holding their mouths.
The Stewarts and Ged still had their pieces of coal, though by now their white jeans looked like they’d just crawled out of a coal bunker with them. Visual degeneration was everywhere. Clumps of bum-fluff and stubble were on everyone’s kite; some were at the half-beard stage. Hairstyles were a mixture of mousey, greasy strands or dry, frizzy straw. The women on board were struggling. You know how birds are about appearances, being organised, change of clobber and all that carry on. They can’t slum it or doss like fellas can. On a train full of lads it must’ve been murder for them, with their perms fucked, no make-up, minty underwear, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink, couldn’t fart. Most of them ended up looking like fellas in drag. Even Jackie – the one we were all perving on the way over – wasn’t the same bird going home. She walked past our compartment with a gaunt white face full of spots and her perm in tatters. It looked like a giant tarantula on her head. Jimmy took no prisoners: ‘I’d rather shag Tommy Smith.’
At every station the train would slow and crawl through without stopping, but then, somewhere in Germany at around 6 p.m. on the Thursday, we slowed on approach to a station that overlooked a small, picturesque village … then stopped. What followed was like a scene from The Vikings. Every door on the train burst open, and hundreds piled out and stampeded down a steep hill towards the only shop in the tiny village. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t organised and it wasn’t malicious – it was sheer desperation. A few villagers froze. One woman ran. God knows what they must’ve thought, seeing hundreds of unshaven fellas steaming towards their secluded little town. The shop had bread hanging on hooks and fruit baskets outside. Every loaf was ripped down and eaten in the street. The fruit lasted about twenty seconds. Inside was like a massive rugby scrum. Anything edible was wolfed on the spot. Tinned stuff and drinks were slotted. Loads threw lire notes on the counter before emptying the shelves, though the Italian notes were no use to the Kraut shopkeeper, who was picking them up shouting,