Rangers and the Famous ICF: My Life With Scotland's Most-Feared Football Hooligan Gang (29 page)

The mob got bigger and bigger. For most of the boys it was back to nodding-acquaintance time. There was no organisation or hierarchy. Guys just went to the football, met up, had a wee ruck and went home to their estates on a Saturday night to do the same thing.

There is a postscript to the Aberdeen story. Later in season 1983/84 they were guests of Rangers and for weeks beforehand all the ICF boys were asking every nutter they met to come along. We were desperate to have another go at them. Before the game, Aberdeen, being an organised bunch of lads, came off the train, stuck together and took their usual liberties. However, after the match, Rangers got their act together. I can honestly say I have never seen a mob like it in Scotland. Maybe the quality wasn’t there in some cases but in terms of quantity it was phenomenal. And it wasn’t just casuals either. There were all sorts of nut jobs, from skins and punks to scooter boys and scarfers. We trailed Aberdeen all the way from Ibrox to the city centre, skirmishing with them as we went. Then, as they approached Queen Street, we knew it would be our last chance. The whole unruly Rangers mob went nuts and launched a mass charge. Aberdeen to their credit tried to face us up but they had no chance, due to our vastly superior numbers. The Dandy Dons took a right pasting.

The Rangers ICF had come of age.

My first outing with the ICF came when I was thirteen. It wasn’t a great start because we got a right chasing from the Capital Service Firm who are, of course, attached to Hearts. Because I was always playing football on a Saturday I didn’t go with the mob again until I was seventeen. For my ‘comeback’, which turned out to be a Rangers versus Motherwell game at Fir Park, I went with six other lads from my scheme.

I was wearing a pair of dungarees, a pair of green Kickers (Unlimited ones) and a short bubble jacket. I thought I was the dog’s bollocks but looking back I must have looked a real prick. That said I wasn’t as bad as some of the other boys,
a couple of whom were sharing two pairs of Adidas Gazelles, one pair red and the other blue. They each had a red trainer on one foot and a blue trainer on the other foot, which (thank you guys) took the heat right off me.

We headed down into Queen Street to get the train and when we got there a couple of the guys who were with me noticed a few ICF at a table in the station bar. In fact the place was full of ICF, laughing and drinking. The ICF boys at the table invited us over and asked if we wanted to go to Motherwell with them.

‘Why not,’ we replied.

So, about two o’clock, with everyone having gulped down the last dregs of their pints, we went onto the lower deck of Queen Street to catch a train. There were around sixty ICF there, a pretty good mob. We stayed with the younger element and let the older ICF get on the train first. During the journey everyone was talking about what was going to go off when we got to our destination and what they were going to do to the Saturday Service, Motherwell’s firm.

Everyone piled off at Motherwell station and marched up the hill towards Fir Park. To our left there were a few Saturday Service following us and they were giving us dog’s abuse, letting us know in no uncertain terms what was going to happen to us when we got a wee bit further up the road. A couple of the younger firm tried to go across the road to have it with them but they got shouted back. ‘Keep it tight,’ they were told.

A few yards further on someone shouted ‘It will happen here,’ and with that we heard a loud roar from across the street. Fifty Motherwell were running at us. We started jumping about and clapping our hands, excited that it was about to go off.

‘ICF, ICF, ICF,’ we shouted, a chant that made the hairs on my neck stand up, and one that has the same effect even today.

We ran towards our opponents, who by this time had picked up traffic cones and were throwing them at our front line, but we were too strong and we pushed them right back. Fist fights broke out all over the shop and a couple of them got decked and then stamped on. It wasn’t long before the Old Bill turned up in their vans and they held us there, before giving us an escort to the match. I went into the stadium but some of the older boys went to the pub. After the game we met up with the boys who had gone drinking and although we ran into some SS as we headed back to the train station they got chased and nothing major went off.

On the train back to Glasgow a lot of people were talking about how we might run into the CCS because Hibs were playing the Beggars at Celtic Park that afternoon. When we got to Queen Street we all came out together down the steps, then passed a pub called Berlin and on to George Square. We saw a few lads outside a pub called Chambers; they were CSC, Celtic Soccer Crew. More and more
of them piled out of the pub and fronted up to us at the edge of the square. Before we could steam in there was a huge roar from the other side of George Square. It was the Hibs mob. Celtic charged them and we charged Hibs and Celtic. With three mobs going at it there was chaos. There were scuffles all over the place, with no one giving an inch. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a CCS lad get thrown through a plate-glass window by a couple of Celtic.

Next thing I knew the sirens were blaring and the polis were piling out of their vans to break it up. I have never seen so many cop vans in one place, when the reality is that it only takes a couple of Glasgow’s boys in blue to break up even the biggest brawl. Everyone started running their own way (it was like something out of the movie ‘
Warriors’)
and as I made my way home with a couple of my pals I felt a warm glow of satisfaction about the day’s events.

1989 was a big year for ICF going to Chelsea matches. One of the lads used to run buses from the city centre and they were always packed out. There was one particularly memorable day out in March 1989 when both Chelsea and Man City were in the old English second division and were battling it out for top spot. We left the Toby Jug early in the morning with a bus full of lads, but with a few scarfers on board as well, and headed for Maine Road. Most of us were going in the Chelsea end but a couple of lads had City as their second team and so there was plenty of banter on the road down.

The plan was to go to the game and then head to Blackpool for a night out and for that reason the bus wasn’t hoaching with drink although as usual there were a few guys getting tore into a carryout. We hadn’t arranged with Chelsea to have a go at City; it was a take-it-as-it-comes scenario, where, if it kicked off, then fair enough. As soon as we arrived at the ground we were shepherded inside straightaway and I will always remember the strange sight of giant inflatable bananas in the home end (there was a craze for inflatable objects at the time). Not to be undone Chelsea had inflatable celery sticks, which I presume was to do with a witty Chelsea tune that still gets chanted to this day:

As it happened Chelsea won a five-goal thriller to go top of the league and we could go on our merry way to Blackpool.

Everyone was game for a good piss-up and after we parked up we hit the first pub we came across and started to get the lager down our throats. There was a £20 football card doing the rounds and Walesey (R.I.P.) stood up on a stool and pretended he was scraping the card to find the winner. ‘Celtic’ Walesey shouted and with that some bloke jumped out of his seat and cheered, thinking that a score was coming his way. The poor guy got the pish ripped out of him and he quietly slunk out of the pub, tail between his legs.

Just as we were getting ready to move to a pub down the road another mob walked in. Maybe we could have a little fun before we left. As they were getting the beer in one of our lads asked who they were.

‘Derby. Why, who are you?’

‘Rangers,’ our mate replied.

‘We hate Rangers.’

Bang. It kicked off big style and we gave those Derby boys a right kicking, with one of our boys using the confusion to go behind the bar and try to nick the till.

Job done we headed out into the night in search of a new pub. The jungle drums must have been beating because we struggled to get in elsewhere and a few bouncers got a sore face in the process for knocking us back. The only thing for it was to split up and I ended up going to a bar with a with a few east-end lads, where we had a great night.

Our bus was due to leave at midnight but although we were on time there were only about twenty lads there, which was a bit of a headache for SC who was the convener. Then out of the blue, ten lads appeared and were hanging about, looking menacing. Without hesitation we steamed in and as they ran we kicked them to fuck and back. We were later told they were Leeds but that was never confirmed.

It was 12.30 by the time the bus left, with about twenty of our party missing. This of course was in the days before mobile phones, so it was only over the course of the next couple of weeks that we heard how the rest of the lads got home, with eight of them hitching and getting a lift in the back of a lorry!

A great day out was had by one and all and on the way back SC was already planning the next trip. I know he got a lot of stick from Rangers security for organising these trips so fair play to him for doing so.

Sunderland away in 1993 was one of the most-publicised ICF events ever and depending on your perspective it either made us or destroyed us. We were flying and the mob was at a stage when the babes were no longer babes and the guys who had joined in the early 1980s were now the main faces.

We took a bus down, which was a mixture of new and old faces from all four parts of the city, although if I remember rightly Shettleston went down on their own bus. We got there early and had a walk round the city centre before heading for a pub called the Londonderry. The problem was it was packed out with Rangers fans so we found another decent pub and hung our ICF banner up on a window. There was no sign of any trouble and I can remember being more worried that our ginger-headed friend, who owed one of the top east-end boys money for a drug deal, might end up bumping into him and the Shettleston mob.

We moved onto another pub and went to the bar downstairs. It was the time when our little ditty ‘Father’s Advice’ was being sung at games and we were giving it laldy when some Sunderland came in and started on a few of our younger boys. Then one of them shouted ‘Celtic and the IRA’ and that’s when it kicked off. They got chased out and everyone left the pub thinking we had done their mob, but it wasn’t them.

Sunderland had not yet shown their faces but as we walked to their end there they were, team handed. We backed them off towards their end of the stadium and I remember Carrick taking a punch from a bloke who may not have realised he was one of our top boys. Our attitude was that if a main face got punched it was up to the lesser faces to lash back, not back away, and that’s exactly what we did. It went on good style for a couple of minutes before the Old Bill broke it up and escorted us into the stadium. During the game there were coins flying about everywhere with ‘We’re the Famous ICF’ being the main song of choice.

We went back home to Glasgow thinking we had got a right result, not realising the maelstrom that was about to be unleashed by the Joke, sorry the Jock, press. It turned out three Sunderland lads had been slashed and to me the media, and especially the Daily Record, went right over the top. One group of people were however very happy with our trip to Sunderland: yes, you’ve guessed it, the Newcastle fans. We played them at Ibrox shortly thereafter and they loved us for it. The whole Toon Army sang ‘Thank you very much for slashing Sunderland’ to the tune of the Roses chocolate advert.

A few days later I remember standing in work and this boy who used to run with Celtic in the Eighties was holding up a paper. He was pointing to it and laughing. Lo and behold, on the front page there was a picture of the pub in
Sunderland along with a seven-page spread on the ICF. At first we thought it was cool and we kept all the papers. But as the weeks went on the dawn raids started and the three brothers who were suspected of doing the slashings were plastered all over the papers as they got lifted. Most of us ditched anything that could tie us to the ICF. I had an ICF tattoo and it suddenly dawned on my mum and dad that it was not an innocent football tattoo after all. After pressure from Mum I agreed to get my tattoo covered over and she paid for a new one, which now proudly guards my secret tattoo. I also got hassle at work. I got pulled into the office and was asked if they were to expect me turning up in the papers. I told them ‘no’, as I had given all that up years ago.

My assertion that Sunderland could have been the event that destroyed our mob is perhaps a bit harsh. Some of the boys packed it in around that time, no doubt because of the heat we got from the police but also because someone sold the story of the slashings to the newspapers, which caused a great deal of distrust among us. At the same time however some people had their resolve strengthened and it did put Rangers back on the map as a travelling mob.

The ICF Youth, as we became known, came about one day in late October 2005, when we weren’t even playing. It all happened when one of the younger lads in the firm tried to get a few of the newer members of the main ICF together and have a dash with Celtic, who were at home to Hearts that day.

We met up early and made contact with the CSC then moved around from pub to pub in the city centre trying to get them to front up. It soon became clear that the Celtic boy was a timewaster and that they had no intention of taking us on. They were having a drink in a pub at Glasgow Cross, he told us. So our little mob, numbering about twenty-five, headed down there and a few of us went into the pub to look for Celtic. Of course they weren’t there, which is par for the course for the CSC.