May 1, 1982: We've all heard the expression, "It's only a game." Or, "It's just a game." Or, "It's not life and death." And no sport, no competition, no individual game should be treated as a life-and-death matter.
On this day, it was.
Two of London's Football League Division One soccer teams played each other. Arsenal, at their Arsenal Stadium, known as Highbury for its North London neighborhood, hosted West Ham United. Despite their name, West Ham play in London's East End -- then at the Boleyn Ground in Upton Park, now at the London Stadium in Stratford.
The two teams have a rivalry, but neither is the other's most hated rival. Arsenal's are Tottenham Hotspur, less than 5 miles to the north. West Ham's are Millwall, across the River Thames in South London. So there is little reason for aggression -- or "aggro," in English slang -- between these sets of fans.
But this was the dark age of hooliganism in English football. Hooligans were usually organized into "firms," similar to gangs. And West Ham had the most feared firm in the country, the Inter-City Firm, or the ICF. They took that name because of their travel to away games on inter-city trains. They were known for beating an opponent senseless, and leaving calling cards on their prostrate victims.
They were known for winning fights both inside and outside stadiums, often "taking" the section of a stadium with the most passionate home fans. At Highbury, this was the north end, known as the North Bank. In 1968, the ICF took the North Bank, and, when Highbury closed down after the 2006 season, to make way for the nearby Emirates Stadium, this would go down in history as the only time the North Bank was taken by an opposing firm.
Arsenal were not known for having a hard-fighting firm, although they did have The Herd. The Herd would never start anything, but defended hard, and had earned the ICF's respect, unlike such other London groups as Tottenham's Yid Army (using that anti-Semitic slur as a badge of honor, even though Tottenham's Jewish fan base was no bigger than any other London team's), the Chelsea Headhunters in West London, or the Cockney Reds, a group of Londoners who, thanks to the team's success and exposure on television since the 1950s, were fans of Manchester United.
Ask a West Ham fan of a certain age, and they'll tell you that those firms usually only fought when they had the numerical advantage: Given roughly even numbers, those firms were likely to "do a runner" rather than fight fair.
Arsenal, known as the Gunners for their cannon badge and their origins in an armaments factory, were in a tough stretch. They had reached 4 cup finals in 3 seasons, 1977-78 to 1979-80, but won only 1 of them, the 1979 FA Cup Final. West Ham had beaten them in the 1980 FA Cup Final, and that still stung for Arsenal fans, known as "Gooners" as a play on "Gunners."
As the 1981-82 season wound down, Arsenal were fighting to finish high enough in Division One to qualify for the 1982-83 edition of the UEFA Cup, Europe's secondary tournament after the European Cup. (Today, those competitions are known as the UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Champions League, respectively.) They were helped by the fact that Tottenham had won the FA Cup, and Swansea City, winners of the Welsh Cup, were high enough in the table (standings) that a team might only need to finish 7th to qualify for Europe.
West Ham were not going to qualify for Europe, but could still finish in the top half of the League, which, by their standards, was an achievement: They have never won the League, or even finished 2nd. Even when they won the FA Cup in 1964 and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1965, they only finished 14th and 9th, respectively. And their 1980 win remains the last time the FA Cup has been won by a team from outside Division One, although they won Division Two in 1980-81 to get promoted back into Division One for 1981-82.
The game was a good one for Arsenal. Graham Rix and Alan Sunderland scored, and Arsenal won, 2-0. But there was trouble in the stands, well before kickoff. Hammers fans got onto the North Bank early, and there was a lot of fighting, and even a smoke bomb. The Herd protected their ground, the takeover of 1968 was not repeated, and, perhaps for the 1st time, the ICF needed a police escort out of a visiting stadium.
But once out of the stadium, the fighting resumed. Little skirmishes broke out on Highbury Hill, the street behind the West Stand, en route to the Arsenal station on the London Underground. All together, the fighting was as bad as Highbury and its environs had ever seen.
The entrance to the Arsenal station includes a long tunnel to the escalator and the tracks, and if a firm is big enough, it can easily trap opposing fans there.
But it was on the street, on Highbury Hill that Arsenal fan John Dickinson, 24, was stabbed to death. His killer was never identified, although a rumor got around that he was killed himself, in a later hooligan "off." This may not be provable, but, clearly, it was not one with Arsenal fans: If that had been the case, someone would have said so.
Steve Curry wrote for the Daily Express for 30 years,
covering, among other events, the 1966 World Cup
and the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster. He died in 2019.
This wasn't the first time that an ICF man had killed an opposing fan. In 1976, after a game at The Den at Millwall, Millwall fan Ian Pratt grabbed a scarf off a West Ham fan, then got chased into New Cross station by the ICF. He landed on the tracks, and it became a situation of, "Did he fall, or was he pushed?" Whichever was the truth, he was chased into that position, and was hit by a train, and died.
Arsenal ended up finishing 5th, and qualified for the 1982-83 UEFA Cup. After Dickinson's death, security was ramped up at Highbury. Word got around Europe that Arsenal fans fought back, and so, as Arsenal played their UEFA Cup matches, home and away, there were few incidents. Violence at Arsenal home games has been rare since.
Hooliganism seemed to bottom out in 1985, with incidents all over England, especially in an FA Cup Quarterfinal match when Millwall went to Luton Town; and the European Cup Final, in Brussels, Belgium, where Liverpool fans were seen as having caused the deaths of 39 fans of Turin, Italy team Juventus in an accident.
Eventually, security procedures improved to the point where such fights could be prevented, or at least broken up quickly. It also helped that many of the classic "hoolies" grew out of it, and, as would be said in baseball, the farm system dried up.
By the dawn of the 21st Century, "hoolie lit" developed, as former hooligans, from firms up and down the island of Great Britain, wrote memoirs of their exploits. Most of the West Ham fans who wrote such books, whether they were at Highbury in 1982 or not, expressed regret for Dickinson's death. But few mentioned his name, or Pratt's name. Like the Mafia, firms had a twisted code of honor, including a code of silence, never ratting out each other, or even their opponents.
*
May 1, 1982 was a Saturday. These games were played in Major League Baseball that day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-1 at Yankee Stadium. George Frazier was the winning pitcher, in relief of Mike Morgan. Former Yankee Jim Beattie was the losing pitcher, having given up a grand slam to Roy Smalley.
* The New York Mets lost to the San Francisco Giants, 6-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Texas Rangers, 6-5 at Fenway Park. Bill Stein singled home a run to give the Rangers the lead in the top of the 12th inning. But in the bottom of the 12th, the Red Sox got singles from Dwight Evans, Wade Boggs and Carney Lansford, and when Dave Stapleton grounded into what looked like a game-ending double play, Stein himself dropped the ball at 2nd base, and the tying and winning runs scored.
* The California Angels beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-4 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Don Baylor hit a 2-run home run in the top of the 13th to win it. Reggie Jackson hit an earlier home run. For the Orioles, Eddie Murphy went 0-for-5, and Cal Ripken Jr. went 0-for-3 before being replaced. His famous consecutive-games-played streak had started the day before.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the Atlanta Braves, 5-1 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
* The Houston Astros beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.
* The Oakland Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-4 with an RBI.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-1 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-5 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
* The Kansas City Royals beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 8-7 at Royals Stadium in Kansas City. (It was renamed Kauffman Stadium in 1993.) George Brett went 0-for-4, but his teammates picked him up, including Cesar Geronimo, who hit a home run.
* The San Diego Padres beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-6 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. The Padres achieved this without rookie Tony Gwynn, who did not play. For the Phils, Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3. Pete Rose went 0-for-4, but got a run home on a groundout.
* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos, 2-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
The NBA Playoffs were in the Conference Semifinals. The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 91-92 at the Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA, on a buzzer-beater by Sidney Moncrief. But the Sixers would win the series.
The Boston Celtics beat the Washington Bullets, 92-83 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs were in the Conference Finals. The New York Islanders beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-4 at the Colisée de Québec. Wayne Merrick scored the winning goal, 16:52 into overtime. Three days later, the Isles completed the sweep. And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. The Isles would beat the Canucks in the Finals.
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