bigstew's blog: "sorting my head out..."

It's been suggested to me to try and exorcise my inner demons by lettin it all out... well... here's a start to it anyway... Oasis @ Maine road 1996 Saturday Throughout the build up we knew it was going to be trouble that weekend. After what had happened at Sheffield we knew there was going to be fighting and general rowdiness. however while the build up went on it became more and more clear that there was going to be trouble not just from the oasis fans but also from the locals around the football ground and also that on the Sunday there was going to be a clash between man utd n man city fans outside. As the build up went on i got friendly with some of the local kids which i figured might be able to give us some help on where the weak points of the place were and also give us the local gossip. There was a bit of banter that went on between us and some of the locals but all in all it was nothing of any importance. As the Saturday morning came around i was starting to get a bit bouncy, wanting to get involved with anything that was to happen. I was young enough to think i was indestructible and no-one could beat me. We were travelling over to Manchester and i just thought that i was doing good deeds, I think that the truth was that i wanted to prove myself to myself and everyone around me. My head was full of grand ideas about honour and justice. And that maybe i could make my dad proud of me if i was able to stand up and make myself a man. We got over there and i started the morning working on the backstage entrance with someone else. We were stood there looking through a crack in the fence and the guy i was working with turned to a couple of others who were also looking through the fence and asked to see their passes. One had theirs round his neck but the other didn’t. It was also apparent that this other person was noel Gallagher. After some quick smoothing out it was sorted out and the operations manager told the other guy working on the gate to go and have a break. At around one o'clock that afternoon we were starting to get reports about pockets of trouble around the grounds and it was starting to get too busy for the team that we had as an ad hoc response team. I can remember the backstage supervisor and the operations manager being stood with us and i said to them about going and helping the response team out. as we were talking one of the band security came over and said that he had had a call on his mobile phone from a couple of lasses that he had been playing around with who were stuck in the middle of some lads fighting on the other side of the grounds to where we were. It was quickly agreed that i would go and help out and get these lasses back so that was the start of it. I went off in just a shirt and fluorescent bib with a radio. when i got there it did seem to be kicking off a bit and i found these lasses crouching down by a trailer unit as there was some glasses, bottles and rocks being thrown around. I also found the supervisor from the response team ducked down there as well. collecting them up i lead them out of there and, after dropping the supervisor off at a gate i lead the lasses back round to the backstage entrance and the guys round there. The thing is that i didn't think that it was anything much what i had done. After all, all it was was getting to these people and then running like hell with them in tow making sure that they were ok. It quietened down round about then for a couple of hours and i spent most of this time back round at the gate. Then we started having rocks and stones being thrown over a wall that ran along the backstage area from a path. I went out but it soon became apparent that these missiles were being thrown from house backyards that were on the other side of the pathway. We got in touch with the local police over it but for one reason or another they didn't respond to it. All in all over the space of the weekend there was what was called "a minimum police presence" which totalled four police vans with four police officers in each of the vans. Not only that but the police refused to get out of their vans and help anyone no matter what happened. We found out afterwards that the police had wanted a certain amount of money to man the event and the promoter had refused to pay the amount so they had done this. However over the space of that weekend there were countless fights, a rape and at least one stabbing. try explaining to the lass who had her clothes ripped off her and held down that it was just one of those things that could have been sorted out if the promoter had spent some more money on it like i was told by a copper a couple of days later when i saw three police cars a police dog van and the police helicopter chasing after someone who was joyriding. At one point in the weekend i knocked on the window of one of the police vans and said if they weren't going to get out and help if i could have a truncheon and a shield off of them so i could at least do something with them. Saturday turned out to be not all that bad as far as things went. Sunday was to prove to be the real trouble day. Sunday I started Sunday on the same gate that i had started on Saturday. Round about twenty past twelve we started having rocks and stones thrown over the same wall as the previous day. I can remember looking at my watch and commenting that they were starting a bit earlier today than the day before. I went back out and soon came to the conclusion that the stones were coming from the same places as the day before. Not holding out much hope i made my way to the front of these houses to get the address numbers so i could at least give the police the full details as to what had been going on. As i was doing this i was fairly surprised to see a police car pulling up down the road. The police took the details but i was informed that they had been expressly told not to get involved with anything to do with the concert. As the day went on i went to several reports of fighting from around the grounds. This also included going and helping some of our guys who were stuck in the middle of some man utd and man city fans who had arranged to meet up outside to have a fight between them. This turned out to be around fifty to sixty people all nicely tooled up and looking for fun. As the day went on and it started to go dark there was a call on the radio about a serious problem at the back of one of the stands. I ran around there from the backstage area where i had been responding to a fight backstage. What i saw when i came around the corner was just absolute bedlam. Between thirty and forty people scrambling over each other trying to get inside, through a turnstile that had been kicked in, with more and more people joining them all the time. With the occasional fluorescent jacket in the midst of them. I can remember thinking “ah shit” as i started running towards them to try and help our guys out. I dragged several people away and got to what i tend to think of as an old fashioned turnstile. The sort that only seem to go half way up to the ceiling as opposed to the newer sort that stretch from the floor to the ceiling. After a couple of minutes of scuffling with people we managed to stop people getting in and got some of our guys who had been injured through the turnstile to first aiders who were inside. The supervisor who i had helped the day before was involved here as well and he started getting the rest of his staff through the gap to the inside behind me before going through himself. As he went through he turned to me and told me to hold the crowd back while he organised things inside and got the turnstile shored back up again. This left me in a little trouble as i was left out there on my own quite literally fighting for my life. Stood around me was a crush of people wanting inside and very pissed off that i was stopping them. I can remember seeing a couple of metal bars and someone with a stick trying to swing them around at me as i fought. Luckily for me they were all too close and being pushed towards me by those behind to be able to stand there and do some real damage, however my luck was not to hold out for long. I caught a metal bar in the side as i fought there which i later found out cracked a couple of my ribs. All i can say looking back on it now is thank god for adrenaline because it did a couple of things for me then. Firstly it made me not feel anything wrong with my side for several minutes and secondly it riled me up enough to face down someone who started to pull a pistol on me while i was stood there. Looking back i keep thinking how stupid i was to do that and also to have stuck around out there in the first place. As the adrenaline started to wear off and the fighting started to calm down i looked back over my shoulder to see that there had been some wood placed in the gap of the turnstile. The fighting changed into simple arguing with people and, well, i don’t like to admit it but my emotions started to get the better of me and i started crying. It just seemed that after everything that had happened i was a) still alive and b) stupidly stuck out there on my own with no help whatsoever. Some of the people who i was arguing with had tickets but were unable to get inside. Unbeknown to me there had been a crowd surge inside which had moved the outer barrier on the floor by four to five metres. This had caused the remaining turnstiles to be closed down and the safety officer to be seriously considering a full ground evacuation. I could see through a gap in the turnstile that there was between twenty and thirty security guards lined up in there in case i was unable to hold it. I was unable to get either some more staff outside to help me or myself and the ticket holders inside. This continued for twenty minutes before i was eventually told to take the ticket holders to the other side of the grounds where we would be able to get inside. I feel that on that day i was broken. Not only that but i broke up in front of a lot of people. It still makes me feel ashamed over it and i wake up even now at night after dreaming about it in a cold sweat. I’ve been told that i have post traumatic stress disorder from it and that i may always keep having these nightmares. I’ve also been told that it might help to talk about it which is why I’m now writing this down. Stewart.