Football Forum | Ticket Forum | Off-Topic Forum | All

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."

fossil 11:05 Sat Jan 5
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Harford didn't want to join a team whose best player was over 40. That's what he said.

As for Dickens, it got worse - Paul Hilton was our number 9 for a couple of games. So when Leroy scored on his debut and then the odd goal here or there to stop the drop, he became an instant legend

Takashi Miike 10:40 Sat Jan 5
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Frank was never the same after Kamara almost crippled him

Alex Bunbury 10:00 Sat Jan 5
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

I thought we got Leroy in as a result of every other established striker turning us down after McAvennie left. David Kelly was a cut price replacement for Cottee. In the end we got McAvennie back but it was too late. I seem to remember that we were that desperate at times that Alan Dickens played up front.

cholo 9:54 Sat Jan 5
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

... Yeah, thank the gods that prick didn't fancy it.

Northern Sold 9:51 Sat Jan 5
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Kerry Dixon as well...

cholo 9:46 Sat Jan 5
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Around 88 when TC and Frank had gone and it was apparent that Kelly and Leroy weren't going to cut it, it seemed we went through the telephone book in a search for an experienced striker, the likes of Harford, John Fashanu and Colin Clarke all allegedly turning us down (unsurprisingly, we were in a mess at the time and destined for the drop).

Northern Sold 12:49 Sat Jan 5
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

SDK.... yeah was getting arse around tit ... this was the game I was thinking about... Bonds scored and Davies got sent off....

http://www.doingthe92.com/display_game.asp?Step=40&eventid=190101

SDKFZ 222 8:39 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

the coming of gary 8:02 Fri Jan 4

That sounds right, good memory.

the coming of gary 8:02 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

didnt Harford say ' i dont want to join a club where the star player is forty ' ?

(i may be thinking of someone else)

SDKFZ 222 7:40 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Northern Sold 1:51 Fri Jan 4

It was Colin Todd of Birmingham and they beat us 2-1 to effectively stop us from getting promotion. I was in the North Bank that night and saw it clearly.

SDKFZ 222 7:38 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

If memory serves me correctly, Lyall tried on one or two occasions to sign Harford but he turned us down. I can’t remember the exact reason but I think it was the along the lines that Harford thought of West Ham as being ‘too soft.’

Takashi Miike 7:09 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

team that night was......

Parkes, Potts, Dicks, Martin, Strodder, Parris, Keen, Brady, Ward, Allen, Slater

Subs : Fashanu, Devonshire

eusebiovic 7:04 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Just type "Kevin Muscat" into YouTube

Enough Said

wanstead_hammer 7:02 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Peter Storey was another nutter.

Sarge 6:58 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

cholo 8:23 Thu Jan 3

That was one hell of a night - rumour had it that the FA barred ITV from showing highlights.

I went bonkers when mad dog scored.

Justin Fashanu played for us that night IIRC

southbankbornnbred 2:17 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Though I should point out that Harford did score in that final! He didn't get much of a sniff afterwards.

;-)

southbankbornnbred 2:15 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

In the 1989 league cup final, Terry Wilson of Nottm Forest marked Harford out of the game (while Des Walker dealt with the skilful Roy Wegerle).

Yes, Terry Wilson.

I can barely remember him.

Good teams did not get intimidated by the likes of Harford. Forest (Clough) dealt with him, and Luton, relatively easily in that final.

southbankbornnbred 2:07 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

NS,

I take the point about those cup semis. We were crap in those games. But he played quite a few games against us down the years and, equally, I remember some of our lesser defenders marking him out of the game in Div 1 matches etc.

Sure, he had some good games against us (who didn't back then?!). But they were the exceptions, not the norm.

I never really walked away from a game as a fan and thought 'blimey, that Harford bloke has us in all sorts of trouble'. I did with many other forwards!

Even among the big, physical strikers of the time, he was no Regis, Hateley, Withe, Fashanu, Chapman or Bull. He could put himself about, sure, particularly with those elbows out, but so could half of the division at that point.

He was just Mick Harford - a legend in his own underpants.

Northern Sold 1:51 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

I seem to remember being at a game just before the Cup final and Bonzo getting sent off and everyone sweating.... Cardiff City and Dai Davies (their keeper) he had a punch up with?? Or am I going mad??

Northern Sold 1:50 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

` I can't say I ever thought he was particularly difficult to play against`.


Tell Alvin and co that .... he absolutely battered us in BOTH of those semi finals... we looked like the battered few coming back after the Charge of the Light Brigade.... he was a right elbowsy cunt of that you can be sure...

Far Cough 1:16 Fri Jan 4
Re: Were Birmingham City FC, 1984ish, the dirtiest team ever?

Franny Lee was a cunt

Page 1 - Next