Urban Hat€monger ?

Mark E Smith on football......

You grew up in Salford, which is more United than City. Is there a reason why you're a City fan? kick 'em

Not really, just to be contrary I suppose. Also you want to support the opposite team to your dad , and my dad had been a United fan. Back in the 1950s he'd go to away games on his bike - he'd cycle to Leicester. But I converted him to City.

I had another United connection, though. I applied for a clerical job at the Edwards family's meat factory after I left school. It was £9 a week. It might even have been Martin Edwards who did the interview. He said "Well the meat wagons come in, just sit there, fill in these forms and file them." I said, "When would the job start?" and he said "You've started" and he left me in the office.

How long did you keep the job?

An hour. I was there all by myself. He'd locked the door. When he came back, I left.

Did you watch United winning the Champions League?

I was walking to my local pub just when they scored and this huge roar went up. There was a free bus into Manchester laid on half an hour after the game and they said "Come on, even though you're a Blue, you're getting on this bus" and I have to say it was a great night - all the clubs you could never normally get in had their doors open, free drinks and everything. And in a funny way it didn't feel like it had happened to United, it was like they were a cricket team or something.

Did you used to see City regularly?

I used to stand on the Kippax but one of the reasons I stopped going was because of the moaning. Now, when you have to sit down, you can't escape them. In the Peter Reid days, they'd be winning 2-0 and they'd be saying, "Oh, it'll be 3-2..." The thing about the rnoaners is you know they're always going to come back. I remember talking to these young City fans before Joe Royle came and they were practically suicidal and I said, "Look, it's always been like that." When I started supporting them in 1965, they were bottom of the Second Division. But these kids think City's history began with Colin Bell.

Just about the only good thing Oasis ever did was to threaten to take over the club. That galvanised people into action and they got this new guy, Bernstein, in like a shot. Now Sky are involved and it could be the downfall of them. Does Murdoch know what he's taking on -30,000 miserable gets? "Live from Maine Road, it's Man City v Hartlepool." Try selling that in America.

Who were your favourite players?

Harry Dowd, the goalkeeper in the championship team in 1968, was the best. He still worked as a plumber part-time and my dad was a plumber too. We used to go behind the goal and Harry would wander over and talk about washers and copper joints. I remember being at a cup tie once and Harry was saying "Do you know if this goes to extra time today, only I've got a job on at half-five?" then suddenly people are shouting "Harry Harry!" and the team we were playing are charging down the pitch and Harry rushes out, dives at someone's feet, throws the ball up the pitch then comes back and starts again, "So, is this extra time today .. ?"

The local paper had a "where are they now?" feature recently on City's team from the Rodney Marsh time in the early 1970s. There were a couple who just seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth. One was quoted as saying "if I wasn't a footballer I'd be a tramp" and I think he's done it.

Did you collect things like football stickers?

Yes, I had the 1970 Mexico World Cup set. The Romanians had been photographed in black and white then coloured in. You'd open a packet and it would be one of the east Europeans and you'd scream. And then when the World Cup came around, half of them weren't even in the squad. The pictures were all from about 1962.

Did you go to see other teams in the area?

Quite a few. Prestwich Heys were the local non-League team and I went to see them in an Amateur Cup tie against Sutton United. I was on the pitch celebrating a goal and got arrested by my neighbour, who was a part-time policeman. At Bury you could get in for free if you went though the cemetery behind one end and jumped over the fence. They were always losing though, because they had the best pitch, this great lush grass that all the other teams liked to playon. We used to goto see Oldham when they had Ray Wilson from the 1966 World Cup team and he could hardly walk. You could see why he became an undertaker, because he was halfway there. They were bottom of the Fourth but they suddenly started winning every game and in three seasons they were up near the top of the Second.

Was the first player you met?

Funnily enough, I met George Best a few times - first was in some drinking club in London in the early I 980s. He heard I was from Manchester and went into this big rant about how he'd used to get all this stick from the crowd at United when they thought he wasn't doing enough. It was true he did used to stand around doing nothing for 80 minutes but I thought that was all right, given that he'd still win them the game. But he'd still get stick when he was going off from Bobby Charlton and the other players. He was the type who'd just walk into his local boozer and there will always be people wanting to have a go, if you're like that.

The Fall did a song about football, Kicker Conspiracy, back in the early 1980s.What sort of reaction did it get at the time?

You couldn't mention football in the rock world then. We were on Rough Trade and I told them "This is about football violence" and it was all "You don't go to football do you?" I remember Melody Maker saying, "Mark Smith's obviously got writer's block having to write about football." About five years later, the same guy reviewed something else saying it was a load of rubbish and "nowhere near the heights of Kicker Conspiracy". And now, of course all the old music hacks are sat in the directors' box with Oasis.

Have you ever watched a game from the directors' box?

My worst experience at City, actually, was when the agent we were with the time got us into the directors' box for a David Bowie show at Maine Road. And it was a disgrace. They had pennants on the wall, like the European Cup-Winners Cup, all creased up in plastic. They hadn't changed the photos since 1968, they still had black and white blow-ups from the Manchester Evening News and the trophy cabinet hadn't been cleaned. The bar itself was like a kiosk- it was worse than anything on the Kippax. Alex Higgins was there too and he sort of collapsed into it. I've been to United's, and of course that was like something on Concorde.

What is your favourite football book?

The best one I've read is Colours of My Life by Malcolm Allison, which covers how he turned City around. When he came back in the late 1970s he was totally broke. He'd go into all the best clubs in Manchester like it was still 1968 and take a load of mates, like an Oliver Reed scene. He'd be asked to pay at the end and he'd just say, "Pay? What do you mean, I'm Malcolm Allison." But sometimes it didn't work and they'd have to have a whip round, he'd go around collecting fivers and loose change in his hat. As far as football writing now, the newspaper coverage here is terrible. I was looking at
One paper during Man Utd's games in Brazil and I thought, "Am I reading the financial pages?" It was all about Man Utd haven't got a press guy and what a disaster it was they were the only club who didn't have one. And I'm reading it, thinking "Yeah, but what was the score?"

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