INSIDE FOOTBALL WITH: James Scowcroft - Bottles, punches and an eye-opening experience as a fan at Leeds v Manchester United

Former Premier League player James Scowcroft recalls his eye-opening experience of life as a fan in the stands at a Leeds United v Manchester United game.

I was fortunate to play nearly 200 Premier League games and at 81 of the 92 league grounds. Since retiring in 2010, I’ve returned to many of them as a fan.

Due to family heritage in Manchester, I’ve always been a Manchester United fan and I’ve really enjoyed watching the team I support over these last five years, though it hasn’t been the best of times for the last three.

The difference between the experience of a player and a fan is stark. Take Leeds United away. Leeds are a very good club. I can remember playing there for Leicester City in the Premier League when Robbie Fowler made his home debut. He was up front with Mark Viduka, who was unplayable. Leeds had a very good side and home crowds of 40,000. Elland Road had been modernised, but still felt traditional.

As a player, we took a luxury coach up the day before and stayed in a five star hotel on the outskirts of Leeds. We slept well and had a lovely meal of protein and carbohydrates before the game. It was relaxed and professional.

We had a team meeting on the morning of the game where we discussed how good Leeds were, with players like Rio Ferdinand at centre-half. Three hours before kick-off, we got a police escort straight to the ground. Roads were closed as we passed, but as we came off the motorway I felt like I was at a proper club.

We were Leicester, hardly Man United, but the roads were packed and we received plenty of gestures to show that we weren’t welcome.

Elland Road had a suited man who has welcomed players for decades. He’s well respected and my former manager Joe Royle once told me that he’d been welcomed by the same official in the 70s. I love football traditions like that.

You’d see the big Leeds United crest on the floor before going into the changing rooms, which weren’t the best, but the place was full of history. We walked onto the immaculate pitch at 1:30.

Back in the changing room, I’d read the matchday programme and then go out for a warm up at quarter past two. I’d clap the away fans already in the ground - maybe only 5-600 at that time - while the Leeds players would clap the fans on their Kop. The game was live on Sky, so that added to the occasion.

We went back in the dressing room for final instructions about stopping Viduka getting the ball. Then we ran into a superb atmosphere with fans singing Marching On Together.

It was a great game of football, real end-to-end stuff. I scored past Nigel Martyn in a 2-2 draw and Andy Gray complimented the strike on Sky’s Monday Night football.

Go forward ten years and I’m getting to around 20 Man United games per season.

When they drew Leeds away in the League Cup, I really wanted to go to Elland Road as a fan and a mate sorted me a ticket. I was a bit wary of driving and going in the away end, as fans would be held back and I’d have to make my own way back to the car. The rivalry between the clubs is fierce and I didn’t want to be picked off by myself.

Instead, I travelled with diehard fans on a bus called the Monkeybus which goes everywhere from Manchester. The fans welcomed me, they were all buzzing for the match when I met them in a pub.

We set off and were on the outskirts of Leeds after 50 minutes, in a convoy of six unofficial coaches carrying fans. We were expected a police escort, but that didn’t happen.

Soon, our coach was stopped in traffic and I saw fans, most of them dressed in black, jumping off the coaches in front and starting to walk to the ground in among the Leeds fans.

I didn’t like the look of it. I was way out of my comfort zone. Twenty-four hours earlier, I’d been in the Sky Sports studio.

I left the coach by myself and tried to blend in. Then I saw a bottle flying through the air, police running down a side street and fans beginning to fight. A girl off our coach was hit and I saw blood on her face. The police, several of them on horses, broke it up and then herded United fans through a tunnel under the motorway.

The tension was incredible, more than I’d ever felt as a player. There were songs about the Munich air disaster, fans of both clubs looking to fight and I didn’t have a clue whether to go with the police escort or not. I stayed back and walked to the ground, mingling in with the crowd.

Opposite the away end, hundreds of fans outside a pub called The Peacock were trying to get at Man United fans. I was among Leeds fans by that point and a lad next to me got arrested for throwing things. As the police grabbed him, I ran through their line and showed my ticket for the away end.

Some Man United fans were singing about Istanbul, where two Leeds fans had been murdered and I’d never experienced anything like it. There was no gent in a lovely old Leeds suit welcoming me into the ground, but a steward quickly frisking me down, then urging me to get in inside to my seat. Inside the ground, nobody sat down.

There were 4,000 away fans, hardly any of them families and the atmosphere was vicious. It was full of edge and anger, though I never felt in any danger as the security was tight. The fans goaded each other non-stop.

At the end of the game, which Man United won, we were held behind for ages. I asked a steward if I could walk back to the coach and he said: ‘Trust me, you don’t want to go out there’. So I waited with the rest of the visiting fans as police cleared the area, then walked back to the coach for the return trip to Manchester.

We passed the Manchester United players’ coach on the way home. I dare say their experience had been slightly different from ours…