He's putting a load of interesting stuff on FB so I'll stick it on here as well

Sex Pistols gig at Ivanhoes Huddersfield Christmas day 1977 So it’s Christmas Day and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Very few options, really, so I went round to Chris’s house. We were bored stiff. Same old films, Queen’s speech, etc. We looked at each other and I said, “Fancy going to Huddersfield for the Pistols gig?” Chris thought a minute and replied, “Yeah! Fuck it. Why not. Nothing else to do around here.” “The Sex Pistols’ message is more important to us than the Queen’s”, we shouted to Chris’s parents when they asked us where we were going. We realised we would have to walk, but for some strange reason it was a lovely sunny afternoon instead of the usual drab winter’s day. So, we just set off walking. We both lived on the Huddersfield side of Bradford anyway, which made it a little easier. When we got to Odsal Top we bumped into another Bradford punk who came from Holmewood and was a big Bradford City fan. He readily agreed to come with us. By the time we got near to Wyke we were really thirsty. This other lad spotted a garage, so he nipped in and nicked us a bottle of milk each.
Three hours later and 11 miles down the road, we arrived in Huddersfield. It was just growing dark by the time we got to the venue, but once we did, we were told that the gig had sold out. We were so tired from walking from Bradford that we sat down to try and get some rest because we couldn’t face walking back again yet. There were about ten other punks outside, standing around next to us. We spoke to some of them; they had come from Wolverhampton, Manchester and Liverpool. The queue was just full of non-punks - old hippies, Tetley bitter men, striking firemen and people who were curious to see the band, I guess. It looked as though Keighley was going to prove to have been the better gig because that audience had been full of punks. This one might be well dodgy by the look of this crowd.
We were so exhausted that we just sat down on the floor. Shortly after, a door opened and someone passed us out a large plate of sandwiches, left over from the kiddies’ party earlier that afternoon. We were starving after our walk so they were gratefully received. We passed the sandwiches around amongst the other punks. Not so long after that, the doors were opened and everyone went in the gig, except for us ten or so punks. It was a horrible feeling to have the door shut on us, especially after an 11 mile walk to see the band. We were still too tired to walk back, so we just hung around outside. A short while later, two blokes came out and had a look around. One of them was Malcolm McLaren and the other one, I assumed, was the promoter. The Sex Pistols’ manager was telling the other guy, “The Sex Pistols will not play unless you let these punks in.” Then they both went back inside the venue again and closed the doors. We all kind of looked at one other and our reaction was mostly of people not expecting much at all. But, within a few minutes, the promoter came back outside and told us, “We’ve decided to let you in. You can pay in on the door.”
We were overjoyed and suddenly felt energised again. We formed a disorderly queue to get in and descended some stairs, paying in through a little hole in the wall on the right hand side. After I handed over my money I received a yellowish looking ticket with ‘The Sex Pistols’written on it. I noticed not all the tickets were the same. Some had question marks where the band name was supposed to be. When we got to the bottom of the stairs and into the venue it appeared, as it was looking outside, that the crowd did consist of mainly non-punk types. The only other punk I could see was Simon Snake, the singer of local punk band the Jerks who were from Mirfield. He stood out from the crowd with his bleached blonde hair. He also seemed taller than everyone else down at the front. The gig was rammed. It was so full that we couldn’t get near the bar - in fact we couldn’t move at all. We were still so tired from walking and had no energy left, so we just sat at the bottom of the steps we had just walked down, and waited.
Very shortly after, the Sex Pistols walked on stage in good spirits and seemingly full of Christmas cheer. Once they started playing, we realised that there were far too many people in the venue, which looked as though it could hold about 400 at a push. I’ve no idea how many there actually were in there but it was extremely uncomfortable. The space seemed to get tighter. Sid, who was directly in front of us, displayed his scarred chest; something he seemed proud of. He was pouting and trying to look hard. Rotten spoke to the crowd and seemed like a really friendly guy. Maybe relaxing with the kids in the afternoon had put them in a good mood? Chris and I were getting shoved all over the place but we had no energy left to push back. We had to take turns at giving each other a piggy back just so we could see the band. I looked round the walls of this club and could see Pistols’ posters everywhere, so I thought I would have some of them at the end of the gig. The band was on form it seemed, and enjoying the gig as much as we were. Rotten came onto the dance floor at one point to join in with the crowd. He seemed to like being close to the audience after being denied that at Keighley. It was a magical moment when Rotten shouted, “Here’s your Christmas national anthem!” and went straight into ‘God Save The Queen’. I thought to myself, if only the Queen could see this now.
After the gig finished everybody just left, piling past us, as we were still by the stairs where we’d come in. I was keeping an eye out for posters but with each person who passed to leave, there seemed to be one less poster on the wall. Eventually, by the time everyone who was leaving had left, from what I could see all the posters appeared to have gone. I gave a sigh of disappointment. We were still knackered by this point and could still hardly move so we just sat down again. Still thinking of the posters though, I thought I would go for a closer look on the off-chance that any had dropped onto the floor. As we were about to take a walk around the room, I spotted some posters left on the far wall, so we headed in that direction. There we bumped into some other punk mates from Bradford who were just about to leave: Sham, Nigel W, Keith P, Mark , Murph and Skin, who were equally surprised to see us. We started chatting about what we all thought of the gig. Then all of a sudden Rotten came up to Nigel and said, “You got a spare fag, mate?” Rotten was wearing a plastic desert hat and an old suit jacket. We were a bit nervous of speaking to him really but he seemed so friendly. I asked him what he’d thought of the Keighley gig. “The crowd were good but it was a strange venue having the stage so high on a wall and the crowd dancing below us”, he told me. We then asked him about the punk scene in London. He said, “You should go down and check it out for yourselves. Some places are good and some not so good but there’s a lot happening down there.”
I told him I had already been there and visited Seditionaries on my last trip to London, but I was hoping to go down again soon. What really struck me about him most was that he was a really down to earth guy. No airs or graces. He appeared to be genuinely interested in our opinions and seemed comfortable being around people. We must have talked to him for about half an hour. Then I look round the back wall and shouted, “Damn! There are no posters left again.” Rotten said, “I have a ‘Holidays in the Sun’ poster backstage if you want it?” I said, “Yes! Please.” He came back a few minutes later with the poster and a flyer, and said, “Maybe see you in London sometime, and if you do get there I’ll try and get you on the guest list.” Then he walked off to talk to some other people at the bar. I went off into the toilets to see if there were any more posters there. By the time I came out only Chris was left and he had no idea where the others had gone. It had been a great gig but now we had to get home somehow and neither of us was sure we had the energy to walk back to Bradford.
We walked back up the stairs to the outside. Those stairs seemed even steeper than before. Once outside, we began hearing reports from people that things were a bit hairy. The local Huddersfield Town fans were on the prowl, looking to batter some poor little punks. We weren’t sure what to do but we didn’t think we could walk all the way back to Bradford. So we headed across the road from the venue to the local police station. I’m not sure why, maybe to see if the police would give us a lift back to Bradford because Chris was technically still a minor so they might go for it, or ring his mum to come and get us. But luckily, just as we were crossing the road, we spotted our friends from Bradford again, who just happened to be getting picked up by their dad, so we hung around waiting with them for a lift back to Bradford. It was an extremely tight fit in the car with eight of us but it was much better than walking home. I was never sure what happened to the other lad from Bradford who’d walked over there with us, because we never saw him again once we got inside the venue. What a night though - and sober!