Rangers and the Famous ICF: My Life With Scotland's Most-Feared Football Hooligan Gang

by Chugg, Sandy

  That martial tradition was carried on into the Twenties and Thirties and one gang in particular stands out: the Brigton (from the Glasgow district of Bridgetown) Billy Boys, named in honour of King William of Orange. The Billy Boys, led by ‘King’ Billy Fullerton, numbered eight hundred at its peak and had an excellent flute band, the Bridgeton and Purple and Crown, which Fullerton played in. With the flute band in tow the Billy Boys were regular visitors to Belfast for the marching season and were prominent in many of the sectarian riots of the time. In Glasgow their main rivals were the Norman Conks, a local Catholic street gang, and the two mobs fought many battles in and around the east end armed with knives, bottles and open razors. The police were slow to react to the new threat and it was only when chief constable Sir Percy Sillitoe threw all the resources at his disposal at the gangs that their power was broken. That police response would be repeated half a century later – but this time the police target was the ICF.

  Although many people have compared the Billy Boys to the ICF I believe that modern football violence began with the advent of European football in the late1950s, early 1960s. Rangers regularly got to semi-finals and finals in those days and would often meet English clubs along the way. There was trouble when we played Wolves in 1960/61 and Spurs in 1962/63 and also when we met Leeds in 1967/68 – and that was despite Rangers putting up giant screens at Ibrox to beam back the away leg from Elland Road. Incidentally, that initiative attracted 43,177 to Ibrox, which I believe is a record crowd for a match televised inside a stadium. And unlike Manchester in 2008 the technology actually worked!

  However, it was the semi-final of the Fairs Cup (the equivalent of the Europa League) with Newcastle United in May 1969 that really put us on the map. The first leg was at home and a crowd of 75,580 rolled up to Ibrox, which was yet another attendance record, being the biggest ever crowd for a Fairs Cup match. Although Rangers could only manage a goalless draw the demand to see the return, as you might expect, was phenomenal. When the allocation of 12,000 tickets went on sale the queues stretched for miles around Ibrox and tens of thousands were left disappointed. Although the police on both sides of the border advised fans not to travel it was obvious that Rangers fans were going to follow on to Newcastle in huge numbers.

  Before considering what happened before, during and after the game we need a little historical context. Rangers had just been trounced 4–0 in the Scottish Cup final by a Celtic team that was in the middle of its nine-in-a-row run under Jock Stein and the Fairs Cup was the last chance we had to regain some pride after an awful domestic season. In addition, a week before the cup final, England had beaten Scotland 4–1 at Wembley, a result that according to the Daily Record the English press ‘were still sniggering about’. So losing to an English team in Europe was the last thing Rangers and their fans needed at that point.

  The return leg was a huge disappointment. The light blues went two goals down and were on their way out of the competition. The Rangers fans inside St James Park (many of whom were ticketless but had got into the ground when one of the main entrances was stormed) took it badly. In fact, as Samuel L Jackson might say, ‘they went medieval on their ass’.

  With ten minutes to go thousands of bluenoses invaded the pitch and engaged in running battles with the police. As the fighting raged Rangers chairman John Lawrence came onto the pitch to make a plea for calm but such was the ferocity of the fighting that he had to be escorted off for his own safety. Despite the fact that many of the cops were in full riot gear, and had squads of dog handlers to back them up, it took a full eighteen minutes before the pitch was cleared. Nor was it just the Old Bill who felt the wrath of the Rangers fans: one paper reported that ‘some of the Rangers fans kicked the Newcastle players’ as they scurried for the dressing room. Not that Rangers fans are bad losers of course, but there is only so much you can take. The citizens of Newcastle were next in line. After the game the fans went on a rampage, as the Evening Times of 22 May 1969 notes, ‘smashing house and shop windows’ all over the city. A spokesman for the Newcastle police said it was, ‘the worst violence I have ever seen in the city,’ a statement backed up by local hospitals, which had to deal with dozens of walking wounded.

  After Newcastle our violent outbursts became, if anything, even worse. Our notoriety was sealed in the aftermath of the European Cup Winners Cup final of 1972, in which we beat Moscow Dynamo by three goals to two to seal our first European trophy. On this occasion it was those thugs in uniforms who sparked the trouble. I am speaking of course of our old friends, the Spanish police. Our fans were understandably excited about winning the cup and in the last ten minutes there were three mini pitch invasions, each of them repulsed by the police. Nothing malicious, just exuberance; they wanted to celebrate with the players.

  At the final whistle there was no stopping the happy Rangers fans. They flooded onto the playing surface to hail their heroes. There was no hint of trouble but this time the cops lost the plot. Instead of letting the happy throng celebrate they charged, ‘swinging three-foot batons like windmills among the Scots,’ as the Daily Record noted the next morning. The police lashed out indiscriminately, hitting not only the grown men amongst the Rangers support but also innocent women and children. Angered by the brutality they were witnessing the Rangers fans launched a counter-charge, pelting the riot police with bottles, cans, stones and bricks. When the police backed off most of the fans retreated to the stands but by this time the ‘thugs in uniform’ were out for blood and continued to bludgeon any fan within range of their long batons. The fans launched another charge, breaking up the wooden seats to use as weapons. It would be a full half hour before the situation was brought under control, which I can tell you is an age in football-violence terms.

  After the game the Rangers support, understandably upset after the way they had been treated, went on the rampage, not only in Barcelona but also on the Costa Brava, smashing up cafes and bars, breaking shop windows and overturning cars. The authorities of course blamed the Rangers fans, who they described as ‘dervishes’ and this was echoed by the morning newspapers in Scotland, many of which rushed to judgement without having all the facts in front of them. The Daily Record was typical, its front page carrying the headline ‘The Shame in Spain’ and star reporter Alex Cameron describing what happened as ‘the worst mass invasion ever at a big game in Europe’.

  But there was of course another side to the story and the evening papers, with their later deadlines, were able to speak to dozens of Rangers fans, most of whom had not been involved in the violence. They confirmed that the invasion had been peaceful, a celebration, and that there was no problem until the Spanish cops turned nasty. That version of events was endorsed by the Evening Times, as this extract from its edition of 25 May 1972 confirms.

  The fans were happy and boisterous as they waited for the cup presentation. But after allowing them a brief few minutes of glory, the police staged a baton charge. Some drew their guns while the remainder laid into the fans with batons.

  Of course UEFA didn’t give a flying fuck. Rangers were banned from Europe for a year, while the Barcelona Old Bill, despite their brutality, got away scot free.

  Shafted by UEFA. Set upon by Spanish police. Slated by the Daily Record. That rings a bell . . . .

  The trouble continued throughout the 1970s, especially when we travelled south of the border for friendlies. There was now a new twist to the saga: the media used the violence as an excuse to take Rangers to task for our supposed sectarian signing policy. It was the start of a sinister trend, one that has continued to this day.

  In March 1974, on a Saturday afternoon, we played Manchester United in a friendly at Old Trafford. The Red Devils also had a well-earned reputation for football violence and as soon as the game was announced the dogs in the street knew there would be trouble. They started it. Before kickoff our midfielder, Graham Fyfe, was hit on the head with a bottle, thrown from the Stretford End, as he carried a goodwill banner round the track. Then Unit
ed hooligans came onto the pitch, ran up to our end and dared us to come on and have a go. We didn’t need to be asked twice. The Red Army got a bloody good hiding and if you don’t believe me read Tony O’Neill’s book Red Army General. O’Neill and his boys are no mugs but he admits they were no match for Rangers on that afternoon. It was the start of a feud that has continued to this day, and one that would be played out again and again before and after Champions League games.

  As general manager Willie Waddell said at the time there was ‘a plot by Manchester United fans to bait Rangers fans’ – and it succeeded. They did provoke us but they forgot what happens when you grab a tiger by the tail. Many of the Scottish papers blamed the trouble on so-called religious bigotry, which of course was nonsense. British football was going through one of its regular violent phases, with mass riots kicking off on a weekly basis, north and south of the border. Somehow I don’t think the trouble at West Ham, Notts Forest or Everton was down to those teams refusing to sign Catholics.

  But the ridiculous notion that religion was behind football hooliganism really took off after our friendly away to Aston Villa in October 1976. There was trouble almost as soon as the game started, but it got worse at half time, when Rangers fans launched bottles and cans at the police who were patrolling the perimeter. The cops waded into the Rangers end and a battle ensued, with a semblance of order eventually being restored. Then in the second half, when Rangers went two goals down, fighting again broke out. It got so violent that the referee had no option but to abandon the match.

  Deprived of a game to watch Rangers fans turned their attention to the city of Birmingham. It was mental, as the Glasgow Herald reported: ‘In the city shop windows were smashed, men and women assaulted as they tried to do their shopping and pubs became battlegrounds as the crazed fans went after more drink.’ The disorder prompted a famous outburst from Willie Waddell, who said, despairingly, that: ‘These louts are crucifying us. They’re making it impossible for us to play in England.’

  Looking for an explanation the papers immediately jumped on the signing policy. In an editorial on 13 October 1976 the Daily Record hit out at Rangers: ‘Now it is time – long past time – for Rangers to renounce an employment policy [not signing Catholics] which is as despicable as it is intolerable.’ The Glasgow Herald’s chief sports reporter, Ian Archer (a prissy cunt with an English accent who pretended he was Scottish) went completely over the top, arguing that ‘Rangers . . . are a permanent embarrassment and an occasional disgrace. This country would be a better place if Rangers did not exist.’ And Celtic fans have the cheek to say that the media favour Rangers!

  Of course the fact that we had not knowingly signed a Catholic had fuck-all to do with it. In England there was trouble on a weekly basis. In one of the worst examples – and just a few months before we played Villa – Manchester United and Derby County fans fought a running battle on the pitch at the Baseball Ground. The Birmingham police got it right – alcohol was the real problem. Rangers fans had arrived in the city early on the Saturday morning and had been drinking for hours by the time kickoff came around. That is the problem with the Scottish media. They will never pass up an opportunity to have a go at Rangers, and that was as true in the 1970s as it is today.

  That era of pre-casual football violence came to an end with the most infamous battle of them all. It happened after the Old Firm Scottish Cup final of 1980, when hundreds of opposing fans came onto the pitch from both ends of Hampden and set about each other. The fighting was intense and vicious and, as an eight-year-old watching from my flat in the Gallowgate, it thrilled me. What happened at Hampden that sunny May afternoon is the best-known incidence of football violence in the history of the British game. Those iconic images of mounted police chasing Rangers and Celtic fans over the lush turf of the national stadium are shown every time a documentary about football violence is broadcast. Soon, I hoped, it would be my turn.

  So, yes, we in the ICF had a proud tradition to uphold, one that stretches back a more than hundred years. I hope we have played our part and that we did our bit to enhance the reputation that Rangers fans rightly have for defending a way of life, with our blood if necessary. We bend the knee to no cunt and we never will.

  No Surrender.

  11

  THE UTILITY

  Dundee United had a great team in the early-to-mid Eighties, winning the League Cup and then becoming league champions. They even got to a European Cup semi-final for fuck’s sake. Rangers were of course shite in those days, at least until Souness arrived in 1986 and changed our world forever.

  For a while it was a different story off the field. United could only turn out about twenty boys and their city neighbours, Dundee FC, were just as bad. At a time when Scotland was producing some great mobs, the City of Discovery was a fucking joke in football-violence terms. I remember one time at Tannadice in 1986 when I was just a fourteen-year-old kid. Egged on by my ICF pals I went across to where their casuals were standing and picked a fight. Disappointingly, they didn’t want to know. I was shocked that someone so young could take liberties without meeting any resistance.

  Dundee had to change. There is only so much humiliation you can take. The city was a laughing stock in casual circles and to their great credit the main faces from United and Dundee did something about it. They formed the Dundee Utility, which became the only mob in Scotland to draw equally on lads from two different clubs. Although I would never rank them as top tier, the Utility was a tidy mob, one capable of turning over bigger and better mobs on its day.

  Their progress as a unified mob was however uneven. We went up there again in 1987, on this occasion to play Dundee at Dens Park in an evening kickoff. There were about forty ICF out that night, including my brother Christopher. The game was piss poor and after the ninety minutes had come and gone we walked back to the city via the Hilltown area, landing up in the Wellgate shopping centre. We were confronted by twenty Dundee FC boys, who we promptly charged. They disappeared like the proverbial snow off a dyke. The Old Bill then escorted us through the shopping centre but seven of us broke off from the crocodile and went looking for Dundee. By this time they had regrouped and it went off again in the pedestrian precinct. Although we were heavily outnumbered we fucking smashed them again. At this point the main mob of ICF arrived, along with their police escort. Dundee were sore losers because they proceeded to break the most important rule in the casual code.

  ‘That’s them. That’s the Rangers mob,’ they shouted, pointing us out to the police.

  To me that stank. Not only was it cowardly to expect the police to protect them but also they had grassed us up. I was disgusted.

  The cops escorted the reunited mob to the station but when we got there the officer in charge of British Transport police took great delight in informing us that we had missed the football special and that there were no more trains to Glasgow that night. It was a serious problem for me. I had school the next day! With great apprehension I phoned Mum from a public phone box and expected her to go nuts but she took it better than I thought, perhaps because Christopher was with me. But she probably suspected, for the first time, that I was now involved in football violence.

  We were put onto the Edinburgh train, along with a police escort and, as it was now close to midnight, we expected we would have to stay overnight in the capital, which, to be honest would have been quite a thrill. But when we got to Waverley the BTP told us the train was to be diverted to Glasgow. This was of course completely outwith the normal timetable but the cops didn’t fancy the prospect of forty Glasgow hooligans, many of them minors, roaming Edinburgh’s streets all night. I don’t think the train driver would have been too pleased but he was under orders and had to take us home.

  As we got off at Queen Street we agreed it had been a good laugh but once again we had been distinctly underwhelmed by a Dundee mob.

  *

  Our first clash with the new-look and much-improved Utility came in May 1994 when we played
United in the Scottish Cup final at Hampden. We always pulled a great mob on cup-final day; it was an ICF tradition and this was no exception. It was also becoming a tradition that I got lifted on cup-final day. On the day of the 1990 final, I got arrested, not for football violence – Rangers weren’t even playing – but on drugs charges. Then, two years later, in May 1992, as Rangers again reached the final, I was apprehended in Shettleston after the game when some high jinks went wrong. Four times in six cup finals I got arrested. It was my bogey day right enough.

  After that tale of woe it’s back to ’94. We met up in our favoured boozer of the time, the John Street Jam, on the corner of John Street and Cochrane Street. It was a great pub and had the added advantage that later on it became a nightclub. We could always make a few quid in there: it was a good place to sell ecstasy, although the pub’s management knew nothing about that little sideline. The JSJ was heaving that day with many of our front-liners in attendance, including Carrick, Allen K, Scott N, Ricky C, the Collins brothers, Swedgers, Jeff and the boys from Penilee. We also had fifteen Chelsea with us, genuine members of the Headhunters, and they helped make up a formidable mob, which I put in the region of a hundred and thirty.

  There was no particular game plan that day. The loose plan was to take a train to Rutherglen and walk along Prospecthill Road, which is located close to the traditional Celtic end of the national stadium. We knew the Dundee United fans would be massing in that area and all we had to do was to avoid detection by the police. With such a large group we would have stuck out like a sore thumb so we decided to split into two groups and then took an alternative route along King Street. We weren’t spotted; so far so good. When we turned into Glasgow Road we could see that the two closest pubs – the Sportsman and the Black Bull – were heaving with tangerine-covered scarfers. Even better, there were forty Utility drinking outside the Sportsman.