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

  Rangers and the Famous ICF:

  My Life with Scotland’s Most-Feared

  Football-Hooligan Gang

  Rangers and the Famous ICF:

  My Life with Scotland’s Most-Feared

  Football-Hooligan Gang

  Sandy Chugg

  First published in 2011 by Fort Publishing Ltd, Old Belmont House,

  12 Robsland Avenue, Ayr, KA7 2RW

  © Sandy Chugg, 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

  Sandy Chugg has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be recognised as the author of this work.

  Printed by Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow

  Typeset by Kerrypress Ltd

  Graphic design by Mark Blackadder

  Front cover and Ibrox-disaster commemorative photographs by AC-FotoWorx, Cambuslang

  ISBN: 978-1-905769-28-5

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-905769-29-2

  For my wife, Kerry, and my three kids, Elliot, Nathan and Olivia

  (and to Callan, the one who got away)

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Prologue: Belly of the Beast

  1. Mean Streets

  2. The Soccer Babe

  3. Meet the Mob

  4. The Not-So-Dandy Dons

  5. Celtic

  6. Assault on the Gallowgate: Mr Blue’s Story

  7. I Will Follow On

  8. Hibs: The Road to Slateford

  9. Slateford: Mr Blue’s Story

  10. A History of Violence

  11. The Utility

  12. The Jambos

  13. The England National Team

  14. Catching the Small Fry

  15. English Club Mobs

  16. Marching Through Europe

  17. Marching Through Europe: Twenty-First-Century Boys

  18. The Scottish National Firm (1): Domestic Disturbances

  19. The Scottish National Firm (2): Taking on the Tartan Army Bampots

  20. The Scottish National Firm (3): The Road to Salou and Thirteen Years of Grief

  21. Tales from the Mob

  22. Love and Marriage

  23. Drugs

  24. My Life Now

  ICF Hall of Fame

  PREFACE

  I want to be clear about what this book is. It is an autobiography. It is not a definitive history of the Inter City Firm. I would love to have mentioned every fight and every incident in chronological order, but that just wouldn’t have been possible. It is also my interpretation of what happened. I have tried to be fair to everyone and I have respect for every ICF (and SNF) boy I have gone with. But at the end of the day it’s my name on the cover. It’s my book.

  I have a lot of people to thank: all my family and friends but especially Mum, Tom, my brother and sisters, nieces and nephews, my mother- and father-in-law – mainly for putting up with me, and the baggage that goes with me, for all these years.

  Special thanks to Paul L, Alan K, Andy McC, Porky, Pedro K and Big F for their valuable contributions and for sharing their memories. Thanks also to James McCarroll of Fort Publishing, Andy from AC Fotoworx and my lawyer, Kevin McCarron, of Turnbull, McCarron Solicitors.

  I would like to mention my late uncles, James, Douglas, Sonny, and my late nephew, Grant. Also the Chelsea Youth lads, especially Liam, Big Dan, Ben, Michael, James and the twins. Also Brains and his firm from Birmingham, the Young Guvnors from Man City, Crazy Gaynor from Millwall, Andy and Graeme from the Chelsea/Palace Massive, Big Jan from Feyenoord and finally to all my friends from the Coventry Loyal, especially Tony and Cameron.

  A big hello to the parents, and especially the players, of Drumsagard football academy. Come on the Drummie!

  Sadly many ICF boys, and girls, are no longer with us. They will never be forgotten.

  Rest in Peace

  Barry Johnstone, Walesey, Pandy, Joe Bradley, Glen Goodwin, John McNair, Jeanie O’Brien, Ginger Jase (Cardiff), Andy Curran, Peter MacGregor, Big Laff (Airdrie), Deek Smith, Berwick, Andy Sinclair, Billy Kirkland, Colin Bell, Wee Roby and Bert (the auldest casual in town)

  Sandy Chugg, Glasgow,

  September, 2011

  PROLOGUE: BELLY OF THE BEAST

  ‘I can’t believe you lot never got murdered,’ said the big Glasgow cop. And how right he was. We had just pulled off the most audacious – and foolhardy – attack in our long and glorious history. It is one to tell our grandchildren about. It was that special.

  The date was Sunday, 2 May 1999. The day of an Old Firm game at Celtic Park. Every Rangers–Celtic encounter is tense; the anticipation builds for weeks, even months. It is all-consuming. But the importance of this fixture made it even more special. Rangers only needed a draw to regain the league title from Celtic, who had won it the season before, thus preventing Rangers from winning ten consecutive league championships, which would have been a record for Scottish football. A title win would be some consolation for our failure to complete the historic ten-in-a-row, and to win it on the home turf of our bitter rivals would add yet more spice.

  As always, the game was a nightmare for Strathclyde’s finest, who do their best to keep a lid on one of the most volatile fixtures on the planet. It is not only the ninety minutes or the immediate aftermath the cops have to worry about; nor just the area around the stadium. In packed pubs and clubs the length and breadth of Scotland, the drinking starts early and goes on into the wee small hours as one side savours victory and the other drowns its sorrows. It doesn’t take long to light the fire: a roar of triumph, a spilt pint, a throwaway remark. Before the night is over men with stab wounds and broken heads will be carried into casualty departments from Denny to Dumfries.

  The ICF didn’t need an excuse. We went to the game for one reason and one reason only. To attack Celtic fans. We attacked them whether they were members of their firm, the Celtic Soccer Casuals, or just standard-issue Soap Dodgers. That principle wasn’t applied to other clubs, to your Aberdeens, Hibs, Hearts or Dundee Uniteds. We only fought their mobs; for those fixtures scarfers were civilians, non-combatants. Not so Celtic. In our eyes their scarfers were fair game. We fucking hated them.

  It is not an irrational hatred. A significant number of them support the Irish Republican Army and its murderous campaign against all things British. They sing songs that celebrate the IRA, like ‘Boys of the Old Brigade’; they proudly wave the flag of a foreign country; they jeer and catcall during the minute’s silence commemorating Armistice Day; they deride the Protestant religion and the Protestant people of Scotland.

  Yet they are ferocious when the boot is on the other foot, seeing a sectarian slight in the most innocuous situation. Who can forget the daft bastards (some of whom are in prominent positions in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland) who argued, in 2008, that any football fan who sang the nursery rhyme ‘Hokey Cokey’ at a match would be guilty of a hate crime? Or what about the (sadly successful) campaign by the Celtic-minded to stop Rangers fans singing the so-called ‘Famine Song’, which encourages Celtic fans to go back home to Ireland because the potato famine is over. Can these cunts not take a fucking joke? Celtic fans will go anywhere to be offended. They have never been able to shrug off that sense of victimhood. And they never will, despite the fact that the Scottish establishment has been colonised by people sy
mpathetic to their cause.

  These things were on our mind before every Old Firm game. The hatred runs deep and violence is never more than a heartbeat away. Even more so with so much at stake. What happened on 2 May 1999 went above and beyond the norm. It took things to a whole new level.

  In the early afternoon, with the kick-off scheduled for six o’clock, the ICF, in keeping with tradition, gathered in three Rangers pubs in the east end: the Bristol, the Alexandra and the Louden, all of them less than two miles from Celtic Park. The glory days of the casuals were now no more than a sweet memory; the two- or three-hundred-strong mob had gone forever. But to me that was an advantage, because the fifty boys who turned up were hardened thugs, front-liners, and, just as important, they were all rabid Celtic haters. These boys would give their all and then some. After a few hours of alcohol-and-coke-fuelled banter we set off for the game and within minutes were at the junction of Duke Street and Todd Street, where we noticed that some Rangers scarfers were getting dog’s abuse from Celtic fans outside the Netherfield bar, or the ‘Nerry’ as it is known locally.

  That, we thought, is a right fucking liberty. There was no hesitation. We steamed in, forcing their tormentors back inside the pub, where the doors were quickly locked in our faces. In normal circumstances we would have tanned in the windows and stoned the cowardly cunts who were skulking inside. But the Nerry doesn’t have any windows so, reluctantly, we had to leave it and move on.

  Our mood had changed. Before an Old Firm game we are always in high spirits, full of anticipation at what lies ahead, praying for a fix of football violence, full of the joys of spring. But after what happened at the Nerry we were fucking raging and thirsting for revenge.

  It was at that moment we made the fateful decision to head for Parkhead Cross.

  The belly of the beast.

  Parkhead Cross and the streets that radiate out from it are home to a raft of Celtic pubs. It is a dangerous area for Rangers fans at the best of times; a no-go area half-an-hour before an Old Firm game.

  Not that we gave a fuck. As we passed the Pippin Bar, which was a Celtic hotbed on matchdays, we decided it was time to introduce ourselves.

  ‘We’re the famous ICF,’ we chanted.

  That was enough to let slip the hounds of hell. The shutters on the Pippin came up and about forty of them poured out.

  ‘Come on then you fucking Orange bastards,’ they roared. For the first couple of minutes we were showered with bottles, glasses, snooker balls and cues. But when their stock of missiles ran out we were able to go toe-to-toe, quickly forcing them back inside the pub. It was our second easy victory of the afternoon.

  The next item on the agenda would be a very different proposition.

  Twenty yards further on, milling around Parkhead Cross, there were about a thousand Celtic fans. Some were on their way to the game while others knew what had happened at the Nerry and were lying in wait for us. But when they heard our signature tune of ‘ICF, ICF’ every one of them put thoughts of the game to one side and got ready to deal with the alien presence in their midst. If you have ever had any doubt about the hatred they feel for us you should have seen the looks on their faces at that moment.

  A hundred of them squared up to us and battle was joined. They were punching and kicking and mouthing sectarian insults. The other nine hundred were no less vocal but they held back from the fray and contented themselves with launching volleys of bottles and stones, hoping that their braver compatriots would put us down or force us to run. The numbers we faced grew rapidly as Celtic fans streamed out of the pubs to either join in the fight or to launch missiles at us from a safe distance. Within minutes we were confronted by upwards of two thousand Beggars, surrounding us on every side. We were fighting for our lives.

  When a new recruit joins the IRA he is given the Coldwater Strategy by his commanding officer. ‘You will either be killed in action or spend the rest of your life on the run.’ Neither option is particularly palatable. We had our own Coldwater Strategy that day. Stand and fight and risk serious injury, or perhaps even worse. Or turn tail and run, which would give us the chance to get away but with the distinct possibility that we would be tripped or pushed to the ground, leaving us helpless in the face of a mob baying for blood.

  We stood and fought. And we didn’t give a fucking inch, despite the constant waves of attacks. All around me boys were going down; some got a right kicking, one was slashed across the back. But we didn’t retreat; we didn’t let them push us back. It seemed to go on for a lifetime, much longer than any fight I have ever been involved in. That reflects the danger we faced; if we had been pushed back the rest of them would have joined in and we would have been annihilated. It was vicious, no-holds-barred stuff, with both sides fuelled not only by drink but also by naked sectarian hatred. One of our mob, Rico McGill, later told me that he will never forget the terrified look on a traffic officer’s face when he saw what was unfolding; understandably, the cop made himself scarce.

  We were close to exhaustion when the main body of police arrived and separated us. They escorted us down Springfield Road, where the Celtic fans continued to pelt us with an array of missiles. The cops would never admit it but I believe they were impressed by our audacity, by our willingness to do whatever it took to get at Celtic.

  When the game kicked off the atmosphere inside the ground was poisonous. Later my Celtic pals told me that what we had done swept through their support, ratcheting up the tension to a degree I have never experienced before or since. It caused, I have no doubt, the trouble inside the stadium, which erupted after Celtic’s Stephane Mahe was sent off in the forty-first minute for a second bookable offence. Mahe was outraged and angrily confronted referee Hugh Dallas, before being persuaded to make his way down the tunnel.

  Cue mayhem.

  A few minutes later Dallas was struck on the forehead by a coin thrown by a Celtic fan and, in pictures that flashed round the globe, was left bleeding and disorientated on the Parkhead turf. As the game boiled over two more Celtic players, as well as Rod Wallace of Rangers, were dismissed, while a number of Soap Dodgers entered the playing area in an attempt to get at Dallas. A Celtic fan, in fuck-knows what circumstances, fell forty feet from the upper tier of the stands and almost killed himself. At the final whistle, as Rangers players celebrated a 3–0 win and regaining the league championship, the so-called greatest fans in the world, ‘sportsmen’ to the last, pelted them with coins and spat on them.

  The fun didn’t stop with the final whistle. In Duke Street, minutes after the game, Rangers scarfers taunted the Celtic hordes about winning back the league, which resulted in a full-scale riot. Later that night, Hugh Dallas, relaxing at home with his family, had his windows smashed by a Celtic-supporting neighbour, someone he had known socially for twenty years. As passions ran high in the wake of the most explosive Glasgow derby for decades violence erupted across the west of Scotland, with police reporting more than a hundred arrests, including many serious assaults and several stabbings.

  In the wake of the match our rivals went into, what to me and most Rangers fans, was full paranoia mode. Celtic employed the services of a psychologist to examine Dallas’s performance during the game and duly presented his findings to the SPL’s commission of inquiry.1 Maybe that is one reason they got off so lightly; the £45,000 fine for ‘on-field disturbances’ was a slap on the wrist for a club with their resources. Referee assaulted; the opposition abused, attacked and spat on; three players sent off. What do these cunts have to do to get a real punishment?

  That game changed football forever. Never again would the Old Firm be allowed to play a title decider. Never again would the two sides meet in the early evening on a Saturday or a Sunday. For its part the Scottish government, disturbed by what had taken place, also got involved, demanding an urgent report on the debacle from the SFA and SPL. That ninety minutes also made Hugh Dallas the most famous, and controversial, Scottish referee in history, prompting many Rangers fans to have ‘
DALLAS 12’ sewn onto the back of their replica strips.

  Not that any of us in the ‘famous fifty’ were concerned about the historical implications. That night in the pub we toasted the greatest feat of arms in the history of the ICF. We had marched into the middle of enemy territory, outnumbered but never disheartened, and stuck it to them. The players had done their jobs on the field of play and we had done ours off it.

  Football doesn’t get any better than that.

  MEAN STREETS

  As a boy I was a Celtic fan.

  There, I’ve admitted it. People who know me as Billy Britain will be surprised but, unfortunately, it’s true. My only defence is that I was a victim of circumstance. You see I grew up in the Gallowgate, in Glasgow’s east end. The Gallowgate – an area strongly associated in the popular imagination with Glasgow’s Irish Catholic community – is a stone’s throw from Celtic Park but about three miles from Ibrox. So if I was going to the football, which I did from the age of seven, the Piggery was the logical choice.

  Like many boys I was attracted by the sights and sounds of the professional game and, let’s face it, Celtic Park was a very atmospheric ground in those days. One day my brother Christopher, who is four years older than me, took me to watch an Old Firm game there. He lifted me over the turnstiles and into the Jungle, the area occupied by the hardest of hardcore Celtic fans, while he went into the traditional Rangers end without me in tow. At that first game Celtic won 1–0 and the passion exhibited by the supporters was overwhelming. I was hooked. I think I also supported Celtic to wind my brother up. At the age of eleven he was already a committed Rangers fan and in our bedroom his wall would be covered in Union Jacks and Red Hands while mine was festooned with Irish tricolours.

  My childhood infatuation with the Hoops was short-lived. I was becoming more and more aware of what was happening in Northern Ireland and it slowly began to dawn on me that most Celtic fans identified with the Irish Republican Army. They would belt out songs like the ‘Soldier’s Song’ and vile ditties like ‘Ooh Ah, Up the Rah’. I knew British troops were being murdered by the IRA and as my ambition at the time was to join the army I began slowly to turn against the Republicanism that infected Celtic Park. By the age of eleven I was a fully fledged Rangers fan and have been ever since.