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Athletico Easthamico 5:54 Thu Jan 3
Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Got to give Dirty Leeds a run for their money?


MICK Harford will never forget his notorious wild days at Blues - he's still got the odd scar and bruise to remind him.

Harford was one of the Brummie helaisers who gathered at St Andrew's in the early '80s under manager Ron Saunders.

They were to become infamously known as the Crazy Gang - long before the phrase was conceived in leafy south west London.

Reports of punch-ups in pubs, escapades with taxi drivers, alight drinking sessions and run-ins with the police for drunken behaviour were common place.

Wherever the Crazy Gang went, trouble was not far behind.

"We got into a few scrapes, you could certainly say that," Harford admitted with a chuckle this week after bringing down the curtain on a nomadic 21-year professional career.

"We never went out looking for trouble - it just seemed to find us. We'd make the Wimbledon side of today look like pussycats."

The only requirement for membership to the Crazy Gang was a penchant for the high life. Fully paid-up members included Robert Hopkins, Pat Van den Hauwe, Tony Coton, Noel Blake, Mark Dennis and Howard Gayle.

Between them the Birmingham Six, plus a young impressionable 16-year-old apprentice Julian Dicks, were guilty of a litany of indiscretions that would have embarrassed Liam Gallagher or Oliver Reed even on one of their more boisterous evenings.

At one time, Gayle was romantically linked with the manager's daughter which led to an unsavoury brawl between boss and player while "TC" and Hoppy had a habit of making as many appearances on the magistrates' court list as the match-day programme. No wonder, magazine Total Sport recently dubbed them "The hardest team ever."

"Ron Saunders was a disciplinarian but once we left the training ground there wasn't a lot he could do," said 39-year-old Harford who played twice for England after leaving St Andrew's.

"We used to enjoy each other's company and tended to socialise with each other. We liked a few pints, of course, but we became an easy target for trouble in the clubs and pubs.

"It all seemed to centre around Hoppy. He was smaller than the rest of us and was picked on because he was a Blues' supporter who had played for Aston Villa. Every time we went out someone wanted to have a pop at him. It was only natural we looked after him, whatever it took."

Legend has it that Sunderland-born Harford once laid out four guys single-handed in a Birmingham night club after Coton was being abused by a group of revellers.

The heavyweight centre-forward - he wouldn't have looked out of place in a boxing ring - would be the first to admit Blues were no shrinking violets.

"But we weren't thugs either," he said. "It became a stigma we couldn't get rid of but we weren't a bunch of nutters. Some of the incidents got blown out of all proportion. Obviously Ron read the papers and knew what we got up to but outsiders would also ring up the club to drop us in the s***.

"Once we were on the training ground we worked our socks off. We trained hard and lived hard."

Hopkins agrees. "Saunders didn't care if you drank all night so long as you trained properly. He'd pull my eyelids down with two of his fingers to see how red they were. Then he'd smell my breath and realise I'd been boozing.

"If there was no game in midweek we'd drink Monday night, Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday night, Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night. But no one drunk after three on a Thursday, we were professionals."

Hopkins and Harford developed a quick understanding at Blues.

He added: "Mick and I would take it in turns to sort out the other team's hard man, that was just what was expected of you."

mallard 5:58 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Harford, Van den Hauwe, Dennis and even Dicks would never survive in today’s snowflake game

Northern Sold 6:07 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Yeah tough mob for sure.... Mark Dennis was a fucking lunatic... big on the charlie IIRC.... Mick Harford was the most elbowsy' of footballers I have ever seen....

Takashi Miike 6:08 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

one of the hardest teams ever, not sure you could call them dirty. that award would go to the Leeds cunts of the seventies

Northern Sold 6:12 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

The Dons played on the fear factor.... one of my fav nights ever was when we stood up to their bully boy tactics and kicked the fuck out of them in the League Cup.... Julian, Alv and Mad Dog were legends that night.... fuck me I even saw the Bish go in for a 50/50 with Vinnie Jones and not only won the ball but leave the so called hardman in a crumpled heap.... Bunch of bullies

DaveT 6:19 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

See Mick Harford regularly and he still looks a rough sod.

Takashi Miike 6:24 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

soldo, yes alf buksh refereed the carnage. I remember alvin piling in to eric young and his brown headband. you're right about them being bullies, fashanu bottled it from billy in a game at plough lane

ATBOG 6:37 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

"If there was no game in midweek we'd drink Monday night, Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday night, Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night. But no one drunk after three on a Thursday, we were professionals."

Hahahahah!!

the coming of gary 6:45 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

1986 world cup, Uruguay were absolute animals . Against Scotland Batista was sent off after about 30 seconds.
Souness, who gave it out all year, didnt play

"they put their fingers where fingers shouldnt go" - Graeme Sharp
.

Lato 7:57 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Northern Sold 6:12 Thu Jan 3

That was the night Dicksie deposited Wise into the Lower West Side seats, he didn't bother waiting for the Ref to get out the red card. Pile driver from 30/35 yards from the Mad Dog won it that night.

Lato 8:02 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

I also recall a mass brawl over By the East Side involving every player on the pitch in which Eric Young made the mistake of backing away towards the East Side and very nearly got pulled in there for a kicking

cholo 8:23 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Lato wrote...

Pile driver from 30/35 yards from the Mad Dog won it that night.




Not quite, but a great volley from inside the area. Absolutely one of my favourite nights ever though, you just don't get nights like that any more.

*thinks of the Boleyn and weeps*

SDKFZ 222 9:04 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

They were a very hard side indeed.

Every player in their team was a nut-job, even their winger, Robert Hopkins. They totally steamrollered us in the FA Cup 5th Round in 1984, both on and off the pitch (this was just a month after beating us also by 3-0 in the league at their place.)

I remember our away coaches being bricked and having to run the gauntlet back to the coaches after the cup match. A brick wall was also pushed over in a day of total mayhem.

Sir Alf 10:49 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Takashi Miike 6:08 Thu Jan 3

Yep 1970s Leeds take the award.

Takashi Miike 10:53 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Alf, the thing is they could also play brilliant football and that's probably what semi attracted Clough. i'd just love to have been there the day he called them dirty, the bloke was fearless

Far Cough 10:53 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Duncan Ferguson would have have laid them all out

Northern Sold 11:02 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Wasn't Mick Harford who fucked us up in the semi final at home?? Dicksy had a broken eye socket... Alvin had his head split open... and Allen McKnight was raped with no lube.... all very horrific

Takashi Miike 11:04 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Bonds is the toughest player I've seen, even lunatics like Keith Robson idolized him. I met him last year, he was 71 and is still a unit. it must have been reassuring having him in your corner against some of those filth sides of the 70s&80s


this is from a 2010 guardian article where they talked to johnny giles.......


"We were involved in some rough matches. But not every week. It was occasionally. Look at the videos where we played Manchester United or Southampton and it was some of the best football I've seen anywhere. Eddie Gray, Peter Lorimer, Allan Clarke, Norman Hunter, Big Jack [Charlton], Terry Cooper – all individually brilliant players.

"I don't mind if someone says to me: 'You were a dirty little bastard.' I don't mind that. But please say: 'You could play a bit.' Same with the Leeds team. I wouldn't mind if they said: 'You were a dirty set of bastards, but you couldn't half play.'"

Northern Sold 11:19 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Makes me laugh how the great unwashed rated that fucking Hurlock gypo... and that hook nosed cunt Stevens.. fucking poofs....

Roy McDonagh (Southend and Colchester) could handle himself back in the day.... nasty fucker as well.... Kenny Burns another right dirty cunt who would gladly snap your neck.... at least he could play football mind you... which is more than that hatchet man Chopper Harris could do...

cholo 11:22 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Another so called hard man that didn't really cut it s Graham Roberts, fucking Charles Hawtry would look hard standing next to Glenda.

Northern Sold 11:27 Thu Jan 3
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Yeah never rated Roberts.... his shorts were always too tight !! My old man still says the hardest/toughest bloke he ever saw play was Andy malcolm... reckoned he used to train in army issue boots !! Pretty sure I read an interview with Jimmy Greaves saying he was his toughest opponent...

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