APPROACHING THE war zone at 2.40 on Saturday afternoon, I walked along Newbridge Avenue to the press ticket-holders’ gate at Dodder Bridge. At that time, at that corner of the ground, the only indication of demonstration activities was the fairly substantial grouping of police.

Inside, there was new barbed wire on top of the approaches, several pass-gates were locked, the Havelock Square terrace was banned to spectators, and there was a heavy concentration of police.

I went over to the Wanderers pavilion to meet some BBC people. Jammie Clinch was looming outside it, a desolate buffalo barred from his watering-hole. He told me, wryly, that none of the bars would open until the end of the game.

By now the voices of the anti-Apartheid demonstrators could be heard from Lansdowne Road, and I climbed to the high terracing overlooking the road to have a look at them. There was no sign of violence, only a waving of placards, the rhythmic chanting of “Sieg Heil” and an occasional cry of “traitor” as match-bound people known to some of the demonstrators passed by.

From inside the grounds three rather loutish looking adolescents were shouting back: “Go home and marry a Nigger!”

When I got to the press box, the full strength of the Verwoerd Line became evident. Right round the entire touchline, where the protective straw had been moved back to the boundary railings, there was a solid line of uniformed police, interspersed with IRFU stewards, each wearing a red plastic armlet to indicate that they were “Ours” and not “Theirs.”

An odd colour to choose for an odd occasion, I thought. In the stands, a man told me that he had been hit by an egg thrown by “demonstrator rats.”

Another man said the demonstration wasn’t a patch on the one in 1965. Another man disagreed with the first man, and the match began.”

For the duration of play I only noticed two incidents. One was when an East Stand spectator made a loud noise during the reverent hush that traditionally precedes the taking of a penalty.

The other was when Ken Kennedy, before the throw-in at a lineout, was hit on the back by a bottle thrown from the spectator area. Kennedy wasn’t hurt; the bottle thrower was hustled off, and it has since been established that he was a disgruntled sport, who intended the bottle for the South African hooker as a gesture of disapproval, not of Apartheid, but of certain aspects of the hooker’s play.

Afterwards there were many favourable comments on the size of the protest march, and some criticism of stone-throwing by small groups of demonstrators.

“We wanted it to be peaceful and dignified, and it should have been kept that way,” said a young man who had been beaten at Burntollet.