Rangers and the Famous ICF: My Life With Scotland's Most-Feared Football Hooligan Gang (19 page)

‘Glad to see you’re here. Hope we’ll see you later on,’ I sneered.

‘Yeah. See you soon,’ they replied.

By the time the game had finished, at about half-past nine, we had regrouped in Doc Brown’s. Some of the boys went out scouting but saw no sign of Sunderland. We didn’t, perhaps surprisingly, have a phone number so we couldn’t call them. I was still confident it would only be a matter of time before they turned up. However, by quarter past ten, with no sign of our friends from the north-east, some of the boys were getting restless. A few even drifted away. At half past, with nothing on the horizon, I advised those who lived furthest away to go and catch a train, which reduced our numbers to thirty. Fifteen minutes later, with the rest of us ready to call it a night, I took a call. It was one of our spotters, who told me that fifty Sunderland were in the Bristol bar, a well-known Loyalist pub in Duke Street.

‘Game on,’ I thought.

Most of the group piled into taxis, while I went in a white Mercedes owned by Colin Bell, an ICF member who sadly is no longer with us. We bombed the two miles to Duke Street, and got off at the Louden Tavern, another Rangers howff.
¹⁹
There were fifteen of us, with another fifteen en route.

Colin and I were waiting for no cunt. He went into the boot of the Merc, pulled out a baseball bat and with a shout of ‘Let’s have these fucking English bastards,’ we steamed right in, ably backed up by the other boys. Sunderland had obviously been expecting us and had dozens of bottles to hand, which they threw at us in volleys. It didn’t deter us in the slightest and the front five ICF, of which I was one, soon had them on their toes. I had a bottle in my hand, which I was swinging about for all I was worth, until I launched it at the head of one of their boys, missing him narrowly.

Sunderland must have realised how few of us there were because they regrouped and charged, surrounding me and another five ICF. Colin had been wildly swinging his bat, doing an excellent job of keeping them at bay, but some sneaky twat hit him on the shoulder with a bottle, causing him to drop the bat. ‘Shit,’ I thought. ‘It was fucking silly not to wait for the rest of the mob.’ By now there were bottles whizzing past my head and I could hear the unmistakeable sound of boys trying to trip me up. Colin meanwhile had already been tripped up and was taking a pasting from fists
and feet. Worst of all he took two sickening blows to the head from his own baseball bat. It wasn’t looking good.

Then the cavalry arrived. After what seemed like an age but in reality was only about thirty seconds, the ICF taxis pulled up and our boys stormed out. A cry of ‘ICF, ICF’ went up and we re-engaged, helping Colin to his feet in the process. One of our boys found a set of aluminium ladders, which we proceeded to use as a battering ram on Sunderland. We managed to trip some of them up and now it was their turn to experience a bit of pain. But give the Mackems their due. They came right back at us, with the advantage swinging one way and then the other. The air was thick with flying bottles and a few of our lads got hit on the head and went down. For some reason the Old Bill took an age, in FV terms, to get there, which meant that we were able to battle it out for a good fifteen minutes. The violence was so bad that buses had to stop on Duke Street as the rival factions fought toe-to-toe in the middle of the road. There was even time for a moment of comedy as the ladders were used as a missile by us and seconds later by them.

It was one of the best fights I have ever been involved in and it only stopped when we heard the wail of the sirens. Finally, the cops had arrived and it was time to get to fuck. In any event, by that time both mobs were exhausted.

In the days after the battle with Sunderland I found out that five of my ICF pals had been hospitalised. Colin Bell had concussion, others had cuts, one or two suffered broken bones. Sunderland ‘won’ that particular contest: twelve of them had to go to hospital, two with broken noses. It was just so ferocious. I wish every fight could have been like that but we were helped by two factors: Duke Street is slightly off the beaten track; and the police took a long time to get there.

Fair play to Sunderland. They were as game as anyone I have ever encountered. The last place we expected to find them was in a Rangers pub in the east end. I would say that honours were even that night even if they did outnumber us fifty to thirty. The ones I felt sorry for were the street cleaners because Duke Street looked like the aftermath of a war zone the next day. It was strewn with bricks, broken glass, stones and even items of clothing. I would also like to pay tribute to Colin Bell, a true Loyalist who did time for gun-running for the UDA. You are sadly missed Colin.

I had never been to Liverpool in my life so when, in July 1997, the opportunity came along to go down to Goodison Park for the Dave Watson testimonial I jumped at it. Liverpool Football Club has never had much of a mob but Everton had a fearsome reputation in hooligan circles, and an even more fearsome one for being blade merchants. The city of Liverpool is also renowned for its nightlife so what could be better: drink, great drugs, a riotous night out and last but by no means least a spot of football violence.

Despite Merseyside’s admirable tradition of hosting Orange walks – the biggest takes place in Southport – many Rangers fans believe that both the city’s clubs are pro Celtic. There may be some truth in that but despite their apparent sympathies I have always had a soft spot for Everton, the club that provided both Trevor Steven and Gary Stevens to Rangers.

It was an evening kickoff so we left at the crack of dawn on the day of the game. Some ICF went by car, others on the train, but I travelled down on the bus being run by the Shettleston Rangers supporters club. By one o’clock Rangers fans had taken over every boozer in the city centre as well as those close to Goodison. I was in a city pub with ten other ICF and a group of boys from Shettleston. Although it was generally quiet in the afternoon there was one incident of note. We heard that some Everton boys were giving Rangers scarfers the ‘big one’, which of course is a no-no as far as we are concerned. Without hesitation we steamed out of the pub and a little skirmish with Everton ensued. With the cops quickly on the scene it was nothing to write home about, apart that is from what happened to Harky, one of the most fearsome hooligans of them all. This wee ginger-haired, spec-wearing cunt knocked him on his arse with a punch that Floyd Mayweather Jr. would have been proud of. As you can imagine Harky got a severe ribbing for it later on.

Talking of the Merseyside police they took no shit from any cunt. Even the happy drunk wasn’t safe with them. I remember seeing three pissed-up Ranger fans being dragged up an alleyway and getting a few slaps and kicks for their trouble. It was a fly move by the cops, making sure they were out of range of closed-circuit-television cameras as they indulged in a spot of casual brutality. In fact most of them had a zero-tolerance policy towards anyone of a blue-and-white persuasion, and didn’t hesitate
to lash out at the slightest provocation. I remember being surprised that the locals didn’t bat an eyelid at the police violence.

At six o’clock we made our way to the game, having split up into small groups to avoid detection. Word was coming back to us that there was a lot of trouble in the pubs around Goodison and that the Everton mob were trying it on with our scarfers, who, to their credit, were giving as good as they got. We also heard that Everton were tooled up, although coming from Glasgow that wasn’t exactly a big deal for us. Some of us were too; a couple of boys had CS gas while more than a few of us were carrying knives.

As we got closer to the stadium it was going off all over the shop between the scarfers. Then we saw them. Everton’s mob. Forty strong. There were only twenty of us but that didn’t matter. We charged, backing them off with comparative ease. I went toe-to-toe with this fat lad who was shouting his Scouse mouth off. ‘You Orange cunt,’ he was yelling, which I have to say surprised me as I landed one of several punches on his ugly coupon.

That was the last violence we saw that day, although by all accounts it was a tasty day all around the ground and in the city. The game itself was disappointing. It was Marco Negri’s debut but we lost 3–2. I was surprised by how old and really quite antiquated the stand was because I had always thought Everton were a big-six club in English terms.

Sunderland and Everton are one thing. Man United are quite another. When we drew the Red Devils in the Champions League of 2003/04 the excitement in ICF ranks went right off the charts. The simple fact is that the three groups attached to United – the Red Army, the Men in Black and the Cockney Reds – make up the biggest one-club mob in Britain, perhaps even in the world. There was also, as I have explained in a previous chapter, our history with them, which goes back to the early Seventies when we took the Stretford End and gave them a right going over. As Tony O’Neill points out in his second book about the United mob (
The Men in Black: Inside Manchester United’s Football Hooligan Firm
) they hadn’t forgotten what happened thirty years earlier and were looking for revenge.

Many of a Rangers persuasion, and not just the ICF, equate Man U with Celtic. There is a little evidence for that view. The club was once
known as Newton Heath and before adopting the name Manchester United consideration was given to calling it Manchester Celtic (an idea that was surely dropped on the grounds of good taste!). The Edwards family, which owned the club for decades, was Roman Catholic, as were most of its prominent managers, who included fanatical Celtic supporter Sir Matt Busby and former Hoops favourite Tommy Docherty. But I don’t buy into the theory that United and Celtic are joined at the hip. Why would Mancunians give the time of day to the scum who glorify the Provisional IRA, the group that bombed the heart out of Manchester, murdering many of their fellow citizens in the process?

Some people ask why United planned to bring such a big mob to Glasgow for that Champions League game in 2003. They argue that it must be down to the fact that United are Celtic-minded and just as anti-Rangers as their friends from the east end. Nothing could be further from the truth. United turned out in force that night to avenge the Battle of Old Trafford in 1974. The other reason, of course, is that by this time the ICF were, by some distance, Scotland’s leading mob and they wanted to take us on. Forget the politics. Forget the so-called Irish heritage. Forget Edwards, Busby, Macari, Crerand and Docherty. This was simply a case of one top mob desperate to take on another top mob.

The ICF didn’t have its troubles to seek at this time. Half of us were on bail following mobbing-and-rioting charges for the fights with Hibs in Dundee and/or Aberdeen in Glasgow. I was the only one on bail for both, having been picked out by Kenny Scott, the country’s top anti-football-hooligan cop, who it seemed to me was intent on breaking the ICF. If I was caught in a further act of football violence I was looking at an immediate 110-day remand, plus a good few years in jail when the Hibs and Aberdeen incidents were factored in. Whatever way you looked at it I was taking a massive risk.

Another factor was general police pressure, which at the time was intense. It was not uncommon for leading ICF to have their doors chapped in the early hours of the morning every six weeks or so and then be hauled down to Helen Street cop shop for questioning. In addition we had a strong suspicion that there was a grass in the ranks of the ICF and also that the cops were sporadically bugging our phones.

Our other problem was that we would be vastly outnumbered by United, even if all the boys on bail had been available. Big Boris, one of our top guys, knew many of the Red Army and he had been told that they would be fielding their biggest mob yet in Glasgow.

I take most of the responsibility for not getting something more concrete organised for United’s visit but the twin pressures of bail and police harassment were almost impossible to overcome. I also had to be careful on a personal level: I was on my second life ban from Ibrox and another incident would surely have put me completely beyond the pale as far as Rangers were concerned. It might sound like I am making excuses but that was the situation on the ground at the time. Strangely, on the night before the game, the ICF drank with Red Army and Men in Black members; the friends of Big Boris. Our first port of call had been a pub in Sauchiehall Street but as we were about to order a drink we noticed five guys in the corner. One was Rab Hynds, the top football-intelligence cop in Glasgow. He was there with four other cops, FI officers from Glasgow and Manchester. Hynds was the bane of my life. He was constantly on our case. We beat a hasty retreat before they spotted us. The presence of the Manchester FI guys brought home to us the scale of the resources the police would be throwing at the game. Not only would we have to take on the biggest mob in the land, there was also a major police operation to contend with.

There was no set plan for dealing with Man U, just a loose one to mob up before the game and see where it took us. Boris’s information about the size of United’s firm was spot on, because more than seven hundred of the cunts turned up in Glasgow. A couple of hours before the game started I was a hundred miles away, between Arbroath and Montrose. I was working as a van driver and with my shift complete I was burning the rubber to get to Ibrox for the pre-match skirmishes with the Red Army and the MIB. Such was my desperation to get there on time that I barrel-rolled the Transit van I was driving. Amazingly, I walked away from the accident without a scratch and somehow got to Govan half an hour after kickoff.

In my absence Man United were taking the piss big time: striding around as if they owned the place; monopolising our pubs; attacking anyone they didn’t like the look of. The only opposition to them was a group of twenty ICF, including Harky, Bomber and Boris. They put up a good show but were swamped by the sheer size of the mob ranged against them. When I heard what had happened I was gutted. I was a main face and the main organiser and I had missed the action, an action that saw our boys take a right pounding. I was determined that we would take it to them before they left Glasgow.