When I first started going there were loads like me, 16/17 year old's let loose from home in a pit village for the first time and just getting a taste for a pint.
Travel was something we knew little of except for an annual trip to Cullercoats or Whitley Bay and that was with your parents where you'd be checked 100 times a day and get wrong a dozen.
The first time I ever went to London, Wales, the NW, Carlisle, Plymouth, etc, was following Sunderland ...... it was crazy and exciting.
Anyone under 30, or even 40, must read some of these posts, regard the posters as barbarians and think they're nothing like them. And, in many ways, they are nothing like them ...... these were days before satnavs & mobile phones, you really had to stick together otherwise you could easily lose your mates and be stranded overnight.
You'd stand out like sore thumbs, on those days, because people from different parts of the country were 'more different' than they are now. These days people, from all over the country, are more similar ..... there's no youth culture or fashion and people are used to mixing with each other on foreign holidays, work, etc.
In the 'old days' it was definitely more tribal as you rarely met Cockneys or Scousers or 'sheep shaggers' unless it was match day. Sunderland lads would go to various places and be confronted with people who were almost like aliens.
Add all that together with the chance to have a good drink and it could be explosive ...... just how it was.