Rangers and the Famous ICF: My Life With Scotland's Most-Feared Football Hooligan Gang (16 page)

The headlines in the Scottish press said it all: ‘Hampden Mayhem’, ‘The Battle of Glasgow’, ‘Battle Stations’, ‘Thugs Battle on Our Streets’, ‘Scrap the Bovver Match’. Politicians, as politicians always do, jumped on the bandwagon. The Labour party’s official spokesman called for the fixture to ‘be put on ice’. John Maxton MP, whose constituency includes Hampden Park, demanded that the fixture be scrapped while Scottish sports minister Michael Forsyth said that he was ‘bitterly disappointed’ by the violence and called for a report into what had happened.

Interestingly, but perhaps predictably, some of the Scottish papers put the blame squarely on the England boys. One argued that ‘Scots soccer fans had been the target for England’s marauding morons,’ while another took the view that ‘English football hooliganism came to the streets of Glasgow yesterday’. We knew different. We were not victims, we gave as good as we got and then some. Never again would the English come to our city, our country, and take the piss. Those days were long gone.

By the time Euro 96 came along my attitude towards the Scottish national team had changed. I was getting a bit pissed off with the Tartan Army’s obvious, and growing, hatred of England and such was my frustration with their attitude that I told one paper I wouldn’t open the curtains to watch Scotland. Paul Gascoigne was also a factor: he was at the peak of his powers as a Rangers player and I wanted him to do well in the tournament, even if that meant he turned it on against Scotland.

I was by then a leading light in the ICF and Harky and Davie Carrick were keen that I should go south for a crack at England, Holland and anyone else who got in our way. But I wasn’t that bothered, mainly for the reasons I have cited above. Then there was my relationship with other Scottish mobs: I had made derogatory comments about some of them and I wasn’t sure about their reaction; down there, amid all the confusion, I would be a sitting duck. So, reluctantly, I decided to sit Euro 96 out and watch it in the pub.

It was the wrong decision.

I put a grand on England to beat Scotland and settled down in Deans’ bar to watch the game. I was delighted to take the money off the bookie but when I saw the running battles after the game in Trafalgar Square I was in turmoil. I knew the boys would be in the thick of it and I realised that I should have been there, standing toe-to-toe against the English. It got worse. Harky kept phoning me, giving me running commentaries on what was going off. That made my guilt unbearable. I had let my mates down; I had let the ICF down. It is something I regret to this day.

Euro 96 was my last chance to have a crack at England. Although the ICF turned out for the Euro playoffs between Scotland and England in 2000 by then the cops had the whole thing sewn up with their intelligence units, closed-circuit television and banning orders. Although I had been enraged when the Tartan Army booed ‘God Save the Queen’ before the game at Hampden I was still keen to have it with England. After the game (which Scotland lost 2–0) we mobbed up in the Printworks pub and then moved from pub to pub, playing cat and mouse with the Old Bill. A rumour spread that Man United were in Shenanigan’s in Sauchiehall Street and we did our best to arrange a meet but the cops were onto us and the same thing happened when we tried to hunt down Aberdeen’s mob. The night just fizzled out and so did Scotland’s playoff hopes despite a 1–0 win at Wembley in the return.

It was another glorious Scottish failure.

I have always had the utmost respect for the boys who make up Scotland’s smaller mobs. They didn’t have the benefit of great numbers, with fifty being possible only on a very good day. Nor did they enjoy great longevity; most of them had only two or three of what I would call good seasons. They were also, perhaps inevitably, always stronger at home, the main exception being big cup games when they got their act together and put a decent firm out. But those special days came along once in a blue moon. For the most part the wee guys had to rely on their native courage and daring, and they had both quantities in abundance.

The Motherwell Saturday Service deserves its place in the pantheon of great Scottish mobs. For me the men of the MSS were the founding fathers of the organised-football-violence scene in this country. Their battle with Aberdeen at Fir Park in 1983 was historic. It was the first time two mobs of casuals squared up to each other and it was also the first time that the media got a handle on what was to become such an important social phenomenon in the years that lay ahead.

There were other reasons to admire the MSS. They were game as fuck and, like their team on the field, would take on much bigger and better-resourced outfits without a moment’s hesitation. That takes guts. In the early days they were a match for anyone, which speaks volumes for their dedication and forward planning.

And I couldn’t help but admire their politics. Many of the Saturday Service were staunch Loyalists and played in a flute band that hails from the town.

Most of the MSS encounters I was involved in came during the mid-to-late Eighties. In December 1985 there was a particularly nasty,
thirty-a-side fight at Argyle Street low-level station. It spilled onto the street, panicking Christmas shoppers. We smashed them with a metal crowd-control barrier and then when they were on the run a few of them got a right kicking. Fair play to Motherwell: a week later they attacked some of our boys at St Enoch Square and gave them a bit of a pasting.

However, the best day from that era was 3 May 1986, when we beat them 2–0 at Ibrox and I was beginning to make a name for myself in the firm. I remember it well because the game was played just after the announcement that Graeme Souness was to become Rangers manager.
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When the ninety minutes were up twenty-five Motherwell walked around from the away end and confronted us in a housing estate behind the Copland Road stand. Despite putting up a spirited fight the MSS got a bit of a doing. Our main man that day was Barry Johnstone, who, as always, was in the thick of the action. I was in awe of the way that Barry steamed into the SS without a moment’s hesitation, displaying exemplary courage and leadership.
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With someone like that on your side you just couldn’t lose.

I have to admit taking a bit of a liberty that day. Motherwell had a big, blond-haired boy in their firm and when he got decked a few of the young ones got wired into him. He got a real kicking and in the course of a frenzied attack one of our boys (not me) slashed him across the face. I remember straightening up after kicking him and noticing that my clothes were covered in red stains. ‘Where the fuck did that blood come from?’ I asked myself. I looked down at Mr Blond and saw that there was a gaping hole where his cheek used to be. I heard later that when he got to hospital he needed fifty stitches the slash was so bad. As I said, a bit of a liberty.

It was always tasty with Motherwell, especially on their patch, and one dash with them in 1991 – just after Graeme Souness announced he would be leaving Rangers – sums that up. Unfortunately, I was in jail and missed it but Mr Blue was there and this is his version of what happened.

As Rangers were marching towards the title in 1991 the world was great. Souness had built a team capable of competing with anybody in Europe, the rave scene was
in full swing – meaning great drugs and birds everywhere – and there was still a spot of football violence if that was your thing.

Everything was fucking great, then . . .

‘Graeme Souness has resigned as manager of Glasgow Rangers to take control at Liverpool,’ announced Rangers director David Holmes.

‘What the fuck! Ya hairy lipped cunt,’ I thought when I heard the news. Although people trotted out that old cliché ‘no man is bigger than the club’ Souness had almost single-handedly brought us back from mediocrity to our rightful place at the top of Scottish football. Now the cheeky cunt was fucking off to the land of the robbing-bastard Scouser.

‘Ah well, never mind,’ I thought. We’ll just pick up a world-class manager from Real Madrid or some other little club. It seems like madness now, but that’s how Rangers fans thought back then, because Souness not only gave us back our dominance, he also gave us back our arrogance. We lost it for a while but now it was back and, fuck me, we loved it. We rubbed every cunt and any cunt’s nose in the fact we were back at the top of the tree. The rest of Scotland fucking despised us and we revelled in it.

Nobody does arrogance like Glasgow Rangers.

Of course, we never got Real Madrid’s manager. We got Walter Smith!

Due to injuries, change of manager, loss of form or loss of bottle our ‘charge’ towards the title was now a bit of a limp. I wasn’t too concerned though as we still had two games to pick up the point we needed and one of those was a game against Motherwell, who had a number of ex Rangers players in their side and of course were managed by Tommy McLean and Tom Forsyth, both Ibrox legends.

For fans under the age of thirty, Motherwell may not seem like an obvious place for one of the best spots of football violence I’ve ever been involved in. But for a period during the 1980s, even into the early 1990s, trips to Motherwell could be fairly lively.

We made our way to the game with a firm of fifty lads from the east end, got off the train at Airbles and walked to the ground unopposed by any locals. We were there to see some goals and Rangers swagger to another title. 1–0, 2–0, 3–0 and that was that – nope, not another title but a 3–0 hammering.

We left Fir Park a bit pissed off and met a few other lads outside. There were around thirty of us and one of the lads had somehow acquired a Motherwell sun hat. We began the walk to Motherwell central when we saw a few lads down a street. There were only a few of them, and they quickly got on their toes as we approached them, but it was obvious they were Motherwell lads. It was even more obvious that their role in life was to tell others where we were. They went to fulfil their role as we happily followed them into their ‘trap’. In fact we had a
cunning plan. One of the lads said, to nobody in particular, ‘Somebody stick that Motherwell hat on. We’ll chase you and crack the first cunt that comes to help you.’ Wee Johnny, always game for a challenge, volunteered for the assignment.

Our route took us to the football pitches on which it has kicked off with Motherwell’s firm several times over the years. We went onto the first pitch at the corner flag and, two pitches away, we could see Motherwell making their way past a corner flag. They were around two hundred yards from us and Johnny ran towards them, screaming like a banshee for help. It was fucking comical seeing him shout to Motherwell, ‘come on, help me here, this mob are shit’. Every ten yards or so he turned round and threw a dummy punch like he was holding off thirty of us himself. It was worthy of an Oscar. Here was this anorexic Rambo swinging at us as we followed in his footsteps. As the first SS lad arrived to ‘save’ him Johnny turned to him and ‘crack’, the poor cunt went down like a sack of spuds. Of our thirty about twenty doubled up laughing, leaving them a fair way behind as Motherwell got to the Rangers lads closest to them. As Motherwell piled in we had to get a grip and to realise the Benny Hill sketch was now over and done with. We had a job to do. The front lads began backing away as Motherwell, who were about forty-handed, piled in, They obviously hadn’t found Johnny’s little charade as funny as we did!

As the Motherwell punches flew in our front lads were struggling badly. This was now urgent and the rest of our firm eventually stopped laughing and joined in the fray. Motherwell had a bit of momentum but we stopped that in its tracks as we got our act together. The fight seemed to go on for ten minutes but in reality it was probably more like five. This was a genuine toe-to-toe. There was another comical moment when it seemed like an invisible bell had sounded, because all of a sudden both sides stopped for a rest. We re-engaged and, slowly but surely, pushed a very game Motherwell firm back. By this time quite a few of them were going down, relying on their mates to pick them up. Then, when the shout of ‘ICCCCCF, ICCCCCF’ went up they lost it completely. The momentum was ours and we weren’t giving it back.

As they ran two things struck me. Firstly, only about five of our lot actually gave chase as everybody was totally fucked after the longest non-stop row I’ve ever experienced; secondly, I noticed that two coppers were sitting on a grass verge watching us go at it. Fuck knows how long they’d been there, but it was probably quite a while because they looked very comfortable.

We made our way back to the station and bumped into another firm of Rangers, about a dozen or so, who told us they’d also had a top-notch toe-to-toe with bigger numbers of Motherwell. Fair play to the Motherwell lads. They
certainly played their part in a very lively dash and, in addition, their team very nearly cost us the title.

For the record Walter led us to the 1990/91 title, and many more besides, as Rangers continued to dominate Scottish football under his leadership.

The most recent encounter with the SS took place in 2006. They were making something of a comeback as a mob and had been involved in a number of skirmishes with the Rangers Youth. We knew they would be fronting up and we put together a tidy firm for the short trip to Lanarkshire. Some boys got tickets for the game, others didn’t, so thirty ticketless ICF, including me, landed up in the Electric bar in Airbles Road, next to the train station.

After the game ended we got the call from the Saturday Service to say they were on their way. I got on the blower to the boys who had been at the game and asked if they had seen any Motherwell heading in our direction. ‘No, we haven’t seen them,’ I was told. To be doubly sure I got a small group together – Swedgers, Bomb Scare, Willie the Bat and half a dozen others – and decided to go for a wee look. I told the rest of the boys to stay in the pub until we had seen the lie of the land.