Fans used to wear scarves, then didn't, then did.
Time for a study
I'm looking at an action photo from a Spurs-Wolves game on 3 November 1951. Nothing memorable about the match and the picture's a bit blurry. It's a professional one, Fox Photos, with a ticker-tape caption stuck on the back.
I got it from our window cleaner, Alan. I always ask people I meet if they follow football and, if so, which team. It leads to deep philosophical conversations with postmen, milkmen, publishers, consultant rheumatologists. I have quite a sheltered life. As you read this, I'll be in the West Indies, on my annual hols. On the beaches, in the bars, I'll be chatting up strangers. And, yes, the answer is usually Man United.
Our window cleaner is a Spurs fan, always has been. He went to games with his dad as a boy, collecting programmes, plus tickets, which he gave me last year, knowing I would treasure them, not sell them. Recently he gave me a bundle of 1951 Spurs action photos. His uncle knew someone at an agency who got some pics for little Alan.
The photo shows Alf Ramsey and Bill Nicholson, two Spurs defenders, clearing the ball. What strikes me is how small they are. They went on to great managerial fame, which turned them into Big People, but in reality neither of them was more than 5ft 8in. They were also very tubby. Most players were stocky until modern times, unless they were wingers. They all ate cow pies before a game.
Then I looked at the crowds filling every inch of the terraces, like polka dots, a sea of little spots. Peering hard, I was surprised to find them bare-headed. For some reason, I thought hats were worn in the 1950s. I must have it confused with the 1930s.
They are all standing, or at least leaning, being pushed forward by the seething masses behind. I recognised the little white wall that separated them from the pitch, still there when I first went to White Hart Lane in the Sixties.
I tried but failed to find the peanut sellers. There was a gang of them who sold unshelled peanuts in white paper bags. You would signal you wanted one and they would throw it to you expertly over a hundred heads, as of course they couldn't reach you, then you'd pass down the money.
You got crushed, knocked over, forced forward, hoping desperately to land against one of the crush bars. People would have a slash beside you, in front of you, sometimes over your legs.
There is a study to be made about the History of Crowds in Football, how we've changed in dress, decoration, social class, sex and age, attitudes, participation. No one in this 1951 picture that I can see is wearing a scarf, which they all did in the 1970s, or a rosette, as they did in the 1930s.
Going to Spurs and Arsenal today, I rarely see gangs of either schoolboys or young working men, as I did until the 1980s. They have all gone. They can't afford it. Or prefer the pub and wide-screen. They still exist at lower-league games. I see them at Carlisle United. They're probably at Newcastle United, too, judging from the TV pictures. But then the Toon is in a time warp.
Crowd chants, songs, signs of approval have changed subtly over the decades. Funny costumes for big events have been with us since the 1900s. Police bands at half-time have all gone.
Fergie attacked the Man United crowds the other day for being too quiet. At Newcastle, they have been too vocal - at least Big Sam probably thought so, blaming those who shouted, "You're shit" at him. What it showed is that, after all these decades, we still do have some powers.
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