Great minor football scuffles: Cardiff City vs Luton 1994

Great minor football scuffles: Cardiff vs Luton 1994

I can’t remember what sent us all scuttling off in the direction of a half-empty Grange End on a cold Winter afternoon in 1994, but here’s the scene from our Fifth Round FA Cup clash with Luton Town on the 20th Feb.

Note the guy in the checked jacket at the back helpfully propelling those in front of him closer to the gate.

Great minor football scuffles: Cardiff vs Luton 1994

I can remember it was a bitterly disappointing game: after our incredible triumph over Man City in the Fourth Round, big things were expected against a distinctly unglamorous Luton, but we ended up losing 1-2.

Great minor football scuffles: Cardiff vs Luton 1994

Great minor football scuffles: Cardiff vs Luton 1994

I’m not quite sure where the guy climbing over the gates was headed.

No one from the Luton end seems particularly interested in some wintry fisticuffs, and as I recall everything soon calmed down.

Update: thanks to the folks at CCFC Online (who clearly have better memories than me), the rumpus was because Luton’s last goal was offside, and there’d been trouble outside the ground – plus an earlier pitch invasion.

Update 2: Here’s the controversial Luton goal:

20 Comments on “Great minor football scuffles: Cardiff City vs Luton 1994”

  1. Here’s the controversial Luton goal????

    Are you for real?
    Offside, my ass!!!

    stop trying to make up excuses for your sore losers

    Glad you lost the playoffs. keep it up

  2. Well – He wasn’t offside was he? – Jeez.

    Anyway – well done for putting a brick through my 65 year old dad’s car window – Ypou Welsh are soooo hard.

  3. Sorry Ed, Derek’s use of the apostrophe is right “my 65 year old dad’s car window”= the window belonging to my 65 year old dad.

    I don’t suppose for a second you were guilty of the crime, but there were so many wankers in the football crowds of the 80s and early 90s.

    You’ll hate me for saying this, but I’m glad such people have been largely priced out of the game.

  4. You’re glad the working class have been priced out of the game because they were supposedly responsible for all the violence?

    You really haven’t got a fucking clue, have you?

  5. Ed, you’ve made a very silly assumption there. Just because most football yobs were working class doesn’t mean most working class people were football yobs.

    Most football fans 20-30 years ago were working class. A minority of those working class people caused a lot of trouble, not just at the grounds, but in the residential streets around them and crucially MOST OF THE INNOCENT VICTIMS WERE WORKING CLASS TOO.

    Oh, and by the way, I’m about as working class as they come- grew up on a council estate, now live in an inner city area etc etc

  6. If it was the sort of idiots who caused all the trouble in that era, yes I *am* applauding the fact that they have been priced out of the game, and I’d bet most people who lived near the old Baseball Ground, or any other inner city football ground of that era would agree with me.

  7. So the only people causing trouble were the poor ones, and it’s right that all
    the other poor people should get “priced out of the game” forever as a result?

    (Except many of the thugs weren’t poor and weren’t priced out of the game either – the main reason for the drop in stadium trouble was more to do with better policing, better intelligence, all-seaters and CCTV).

  8. Yes, poor people could afford to go to football in the 80s but they didn’t dare because of all the trouble. Now perhaps they can only afford to go once or twice a season, but at least it is safe when they do.

  9. Except millions of non violent people enjoyed going to football in the 80s and you’re now happy that they’ve been priced out of the game.

    Did you ever go yourself or are you just relying on the tabloids for your information (see The Sun’s Hillsborough coverage for more examples).

  10. I was a youngster in the 1980s. When my dad was young he used to go to the football with his dad. I wanted to go and see Derby County but he wouldn’t take me because of all the trouble.

    My great-aunt lived near the old Baseball Ground and they used to dread Saturday afternoons.

    Good riddence to those days.

  11. I remember that offside goal and a great atmosphere for a Sunday kick off…saw bit of trouble with our hooligans and Lutons hooligans just before kick off in Penarth Road which police soon had under control. Seem to remember Lutons chairman complaining to FA about gas being used on his clubs support which I found amusing considering they obviously had brought a fair old amount of the violent type to S Wales?
    Hartson soon stopped celebrating when he saw he reaction of the Canton End which was packed!

  12. All seems a bit hackneyed ,I’m a Luton fan , just back from watching 3 Wales games in France , I am working class for what it’s worth , and don’t like overpricing or the idea that there was something glamorous or nostalgic about going to a football match and having to deal with getting in and out of a ground dodging local brain dead hooligans . The game has moved on , and the Welsh fans in France had a much better time of it than the English , who still deny they have a brainless mob of would be hooligans ( ‘would be ‘since the Russians showed up their cowardice .

  13. Went to this game…it had absolutely everything from the moment we crossed the bridge. Atmosphere like nothing I’d ever experienced. The Cardiff fans created something that was so tense it made scoring the winner the greatest ever rush! On the flip side, if we had lost I’d still be getting over it now. Right up there as my favourite football experience Iv ever had and fair play to Cardiff for giving me that..👍

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