Football specials

[Paninistickers]

One for the oldies. What's the most elongated trip you've been on? 

 

In my day, they were generally only chartered for midlands games. Stoke via Nuneaton and Tamworth. West Brom (sandwell, I think). Wolves.

 

The games you really needed one - Newcastle, Sunderland etc they never did one. Tho I remember one down to Finsbury Park station for an Arsenal game in the early 90s. Think it went via Peterborough and Stevenage. 

[Angus Scott]

Carlisle away mid 70's. We won 1-0, Bob Lee I think.

I think we went over the Ribblesdale viaduct but the fog was so thick I couldn't see a thing

[SemperEadem]

Bochum to Munich through the night.

[Gamble92]

Was anyone else on the coach on way back from Paulo Sousa's first game away at Palace? Got back into Leicester at 3am because of an oil spill on the M25. Some right weapons on that coach as well. 

[East Langton Fox]

Millwall, FA Cup 3rd round early nineties. Changed at St Pancras. I remember being on a concourse at a tube station in south London along with a couple of hundred City fans and one copper. Maybe it was two, but  I remember feeling like we were very much on our own in enemy territory. 
Rambo was sent off, we lost and I couldn’t wait to get home. 
 

[lestuhfox]

Been on loads of em

1st was Fulham cup game in 74 to St Pancras then tube to Putney Bridge closely followed to Pancras again for QPR in 6th Round. 

Went to semi at Old Trafford to Warwick Road.

Liverpool 81 was a good one to Lime Street. Bussed us to Anfield, walked us back.

Been on specials to Sunderland,  Newcastle ( Manors)  Sheff Wednesday (Waddesley Bridge is it), Palace ( Norwood Junction) Hereford 82 Cup, Derby when they were at Baseball Ground, Forest, Norwich, Lincoln League Cup, Villa (Witton), Witton again for Spurs semi in 82, Northumberland Park for Spurs, Fulham and Oldham promotion games in 83.

Never went to West Brom on one, the walk was miles.

 

[CosbehFox]

42 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

Was anyone else on the coach on way back from Paulo Sousa's first game away at Palace? Got back into Leicester at 3am because of an oil spill on the M25. Some right weapons on that coach as well. 

Yes. My wrist was in plaster. Load of kids at the back just started throwing stuff around. 

[Paninistickers]

8 minutes ago, lestuhfox said:

Palace ( Norwood Junction)

Marvelous how a train wormed its way down there, south of the river.

 

I went on a normal service train to Ipswich once, rather than a special..two carriages. Maybe 50 us got on at Leicester and another 20 or 30.at Melton and Oakham. It wasn't the most pleasant of rides.for our fellow passengers!

 

 

[Corky]

CrossCountry don't even seem to realise there are football matches taking place now.

[PAULCFC]

Coach....Millwall away 1st Jan 2014.....The driver managed to take us round the M25(seeing the building of the olympic stadium)Then managed to get into central London,passing Tower of London and going over Tower Bridge!This was Foxes Travel!

Train..Too many!ZDS semi against Notts County sticks in my mind........everyone trying to get near a radiator to dry off!

[Stadt]

12 minutes ago, PAULCFC said:

Coach....Millwall away 1st Jan 2014.....The driver managed to take us round the M25(seeing the building of the olympic stadium)Then managed to get into central London,passing Tower of London and going over Tower Bridge!This was Foxes Travel!

Train..Too many!ZDS semi against Notts County sticks in my mind........everyone trying to get near a radiator to dry off!

The videos of the ZDS end look unbelievable 

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

I’ve only ever been on one football special and that was the ZDS game vs Notts County, kept my head down the whole way there 😂, so many memories of that evening, the rain, being held at Notts train station as they were unsure if the game would go ahead, the police horses, the amount of fans we took, being escorted to the ground in such numbers and again the rain, the open terrace meant we got absolutely drenched and then the win! Great memories of a different era for watching football. 

[kushiro]

After Ipswich away August 73:

 

 

 

After that, BR stopped running Football Specials from Leicester for a while.

[East Langton Fox]

Supporters coach to Ayresome Park, Middlesbrough last game of the season 1987/88. They only needed a draw for automatic promotion and we won, spoiling their party completely. Their fans were trying to scale the fences at the end to get to us. Coins flying in at every angle. 
Coaches were right by the exit doors and we had a police escort all the way to the A1. Exciting times!

 

 

[ElusiveEd]

Hereford away, in the early 80's. Think it might have been an FA cup game.

 

My first ever away game and the football special train broke down for hours on the way home in the middle of nowhere. 

 

Obv no such thing as mobile phones or devices then so it was just a case of sitting there in old style train cabins waiting it out. 

 

Was wayyy into the small hours when we eventually got back to Leicester station.

 

I was chatting casually to an ex mate a few years back about this, turns out he was on the same train.

Was anyone else on here on it?

[Vlad the Fox]

2 hours ago, East Langton Fox said:

Millwall, FA Cup 3rd round early nineties. Changed at St Pancras. I remember being on a concourse at a tube station in south London along with a couple of hundred City fans and one copper. Maybe it was two, but  I remember feeling like we were very much on our own in enemy territory. 
Rambo was sent off, we lost and I couldn’t wait to get home. 
 

Yes I remember that, they copper didn’t even know who we were when someone asked him where we had to go  

 

Got off the tube at millwall and as we came down the steps from the train station there was some little scrote slowly giving the willy puller sign  

 

What a dump the place was though, I can remember how bad the streets stunk. 

[Vlad the Fox]

Remember being on one that went through crew, some old diesel that attracted all the train spotters, as tthey whipped out their cameras they were greeted to their disgust to all the City fans hanging out the windows getting in the photos  

 

Possibly the same trip but went on one to man city in the cup where we had to get on coaches to main road from the station which were targets for a few local youths to throw stones at.

[East Langton Fox]

St Andrews in the nineties. Train to New Street then a long walk to the ground with police escort. Watched closely by the Zulu warriors the whole way. 

[baldeagle]

Thought this  was a thread about some of our fans to start with . 

[Spudulike]

Remember being chased all of the way back to the station in Stoke. Must've been about 74/75. The train was bricked everytime we got near a bridge and we pulled the blinds down to prevent flying glass from the smashed windows. I think that many went there to give abuse to Shilton who had moved there just before. 

[FoxesDeb]

The infamous coach to Madrid for our game in 1997. Horrific journey, everyone has heard the horror stories and they're all true. 

 

Worth it for that goal though 

[worth_the_wait]

9 hours ago, ElusiveEd said:

Hereford away, in the early 80's. Think it might have been an FA cup game.

 

My first ever away game and the football special train broke down for hours on the way home in the middle of nowhere. 

 

Obv no such thing as mobile phones or devices then so it was just a case of sitting there in old style train cabins waiting it out. 

 

Was wayyy into the small hours when we eventually got back to Leicester station.

 

I was chatting casually to an ex mate a few years back about this, turns out he was on the same train.

Was anyone else on here on it?

1982 (FA Cup 4th round.)    Yeah, me and my m8's were on that train.

 

We'd caught the normal service train to Hereford, so we could have a few drinks around the town.   Which was fun in itself, as we apparently accidentally took over their main pub, much to the disgust of the local skinheads.    That's another story in itself ...

 

Anyway, after the match we decided to catch the football special back to Leicester as "it would be easier".   Bad decision.    As you say, it broke down for hours in the middle of nowhere.   Obviously no food or drink on it.     When it eventually got going, I can remember it slowly trundling through Birmingham New Street, and some people trying to get off while it was moving, and get some chocolate out of one of the machines on the platform.     Funny thinking about it now but rather dangerous.

 

Anyway, we got back to Leicester at about Midnight I think.   At least we won the match and were into the 5th round, so we were still happy.   But it would've been a terrible day if we'd lost.

 

(one amusing thing, was that there was a rail strike the next day (Sunday) and the then rail Union had promised that "no trains would be running".   Well that football special continued on to Loughborough after Leicester, and it most definitely was running on the Sunday!)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 18 December 2023 by worth_the_wait

[CountesthorpeFox1]

12 hours ago, Gamble92 said:

Was anyone else on the coach on way back from Paulo Sousa's first game away at Palace? Got back into Leicester at 3am because of an oil spill on the M25. Some right weapons on that coach as well. 

yes, awful. i’m sure it took about 4 hours to get out of site of the ground! 

 

Either that or i’m that traumatised from the journey that’s my recollection. 

[SkidsFox]

12 hours ago, kushiro said:

After Ipswich away August 73:

 

 

 

After that, BR stopped running Football Specials from Leicester for a while.

I never liked the "football specials", despite liking train travel normally. The train authorities would dig out the oldest, most decrepit carriages to transport the fans, because they realised there was a big chance of vandalism/damage, and the route would often mean waiting on side lines for "regular" services to pass by.  It's no wonder fans (and in particular the squaddies/casuals) moved into travelling by the normal train service (or by car/van).  

[Jobyfox]

12 hours ago, kushiro said:

After Ipswich away August 73:

 

 

 

After that, BR stopped running Football Specials from Leicester for a while.

Oh come on!!!

 

You can’t blame Brendan for everything