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

by Chugg, Sandy

  ‘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.

  As soon as we walked out the front door of the pub there they were, right in our faces. Twenty Motherwell, all of them well up for it. No one had time to think. No one had time to speak. No one had time to get apprehensive. It kicked off in a nano second.

  Swedgers and I were confronted by two SS. As my opponent came at me I backed him off with a bottle of Miller while Swedgers was left to take on this cunt with the height and build of an all-in wrestler.

  ‘I’m British Army,’ Giant Haystacks proudly proclaimed.

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ Swedgers replied, before smacking him full in the face, a blow that put the big man right onto his arse. I doubt if any of the rest us could have knocked the soldier boy down but Swedgers is a roofer to trade and no shrinking violet.

  The fun didn’t last for long. Within minutes the sirens were blaring and we ran back into the pub, ready to play the innocent bystanders when the cops turned up. I took a call from Big Boris.

  ‘The outside of the pub is black with Old Bill. Get your arse outside and I’ll pick you up,’ he said.

  Swedgers and I sneaked out of the side door and jumped into Boris’s car. It was just in the nick of time because as the police questioned the ICF boys in the pub it became clear they were out to get yours truly.

  ‘Where is Sandy Chugg?’ they asked. ‘We have information that Sandy Chugg was drinking in this pub.’ The boys of course blanked them and by this time I was long gone.

  For me that day sums up Motherwell. We didn’t have to go looking for them, they came to us. Despite the fact that we were now the number-one mob in Scotland they had the guts to front up without being shamed into it, which made a refreshing change from some other mobs I could mention.

  More power to their elbow.

  Kilmarnock

  I wouldn’t put Kilmarnock’s mob in remotely the
same league as the Motherwell Saturday Service but they had a couple of reasonably good years in the mid Nineties.17 However, my first skirmish with them was 1986, when they were in the lower leagues. Six of us Rangers Soccer Babes, all from the east end, got the bus into the city centre and got off at George Square. The plan was to hook up with more RSB at our usual meeting place in St Enoch Square and look for someone, anyone, to fight. We didn’t expect to meet a mob of Kilmarnock on the way – Rangers weren’t playing them – but that’s exactly what happened. On our way to St Enoch’s we ran into thirty boys, obviously casuals, and although at that point we didn’t have a clue which club they were attached to we weren’t going to let that stand in our way.

  There were more of them and they were older and bigger than us. But with the confidence of youth we threw caution to the wind and steamed in. It was a disaster. I got decked and on my way down I took a few more punches and kicks. In fact all six of us got a kicking before the Killie boys decided they had taught us enough of a lesson and went to catch their train. Bruised, battered and groggy we got up and inspected our injuries. I discovered that I had a burst nose, a chipped tooth and a black eye and that my five pals were in a similar state. What made me even angrier, however, was that one of the sleeves on my bright-red-and-blue Aquascutum shirt was caked in dirt. Those fucking Ayrshire bastards! That shirt was my pride and joy.

  As we cleaned up in Buchanan Street public toilets we agreed that Kilmarnock were not going to get away with turning us over in the middle of our city. Given their age and the numbers they had with them it was a suicide mission but we were fucking raging. We sprinted round to Queen Street and caught them at the low-level station, where they now had a police escort.

  ‘We want a rematch,’ we demanded.

  They didn’t take us entirely seriously.

  ‘Fuck off wee men. Did you not have enough round the corner?’ one of them sneered.

  His mate was a bit more complimentary.

  ‘Fair play to you, wee men. You’re keen but youse have no chance.’

  By this time the cops had seen what we were up to and we were told to get lost or we would be locked up. We got lost.

  As I said Killie were at their peak in the mid Nineties and in a two-year period between April 1994 and May 1996 we had three outstanding offs with them. The first was on 10 April 1994, when we met them at Hampden in a Scottish Cup semi-final. The game was a rather drab goalless draw and to spice things up we went to look for their mob among the supporters’ buses that were parked on red blaes pitches not far from the stadium. To our delight we came across a bus with about thirty of them in it. We picked up stones and did our best to smash every window on the bus. To their credit Kilmarnock didn’t bottle it. They poured off the coach and, to our surprise, gave as good as they got before the cops arrived and broke it up.

  We weren’t done yet. Hiding up a side street we waited until the convoy of buses started to move off. Then when we saw their bus passing some of us launched a volley of bottles while the rest charged round to the front of the bus, stopping it in its tracks. Once again I was surprised when they trooped off the bus to face us and once again I was surprised at just how fucking game they were. In fact I would say that over the piece honours were even. A few ICF got nicked but I got lucky and managed to sneak away.18

  Unfortunately, I missed the middle off in the trilogy, which took place in November 1995 when we played them in a league game at Rugby Park. I was told the whole story by someone who was there and what a story it is. Twenty ICF went down to Kilmarnock, including some of our heaviest hitters, but they came unstuck against a forty-strong home mob. Even allowing for the numerical disparity between the two groups that surprised me, because I knew the calibre of the ICF who had gone down there. It was by all accounts a particularly nasty fight, in the course of which one of ours, Craig C, got his arm broken after taking a full-blooded blow from a baseball bat. I was beside myself with anger when I heard what had happened to Craig. Taking a baseball bat to someone who is not tooled up is a real liberty. And one, I vowed, that would be revenged.

  As Kilmarnock didn’t trap for the return fixture at Ibrox we had to wait until the end of the season to get our own back, but by Christ it was worth waiting for. It was now 4 May 1996 and we were due to face Killie on their patch in the last league game of the season. This time there would be no mistake, no underestimating them, no going with an under-strength mob. We also went well tooled up, with coshes, knives, CS gas and flare guns. They had chosen to follow that path and would now reap what they had sown.

  We got on the train, stopping off at Barrhead to let the latecomers catch up and, by noon, when we got to Kilmarnock station, we had about forty with us. There was no way we were going to the game. We were there for one reason and one reason only: to kick fuck out of Kilmarnock. In the pub the forty became forty-five and then fifty and finally sixty as more and more boys arrived. I wasn’t the only one who had been angered by what Kilmarnock had done to Craig.

  We were in that pub for three hours, getting drunker and drunker and angrier and angrier. Then the call came. Kilmarnock were on their way. We piled out and sprinted round to the pedestrian precinct in the town centre. There they were, about sixty of them. There was no eyeing each other up, no gestures of defiance; no songs or chants. Fuelled by righteous indignation we charged. They had no chance. We smashed them and when they regrouped we smashed them again. I don’t even remember throwing a punch, such was our dominance.

  Only one of their boys put up any real resistance: a well-built cunt with a shock of red hair, who I believe goes by the name of Beastie. He was a really game lad, and even managed to mix it with Carrick, which, let me tell you, takes some doing. But I am afraid that after his heroics he blotted his copybook by pointing out a few of us to the Old Bill, who by this time had us corralled. It was no doubt an attempt to take the heat off his own mob but to me it is grassing. End of.

  Not that we gave it much thought as we marched happily to the station, chanting raucously as we went. But we had to cut short the triumphalism. We knew that we were likely to be penned in again by the Old Bill as we waited for our train, which might lead to questioning and searches. Given that we were armed to the teeth that would be inviting trouble and, as a result, some of the boys decided to ditch their weapons in a clump of bushes. It resulted in a flare gun going off, causing a fire in the shrubbery, which cracked us up.

  But none of that mattered. We had settled the score with Kilmarnock. The cunts would think twice before taking a baseball bat to Rangers.

  Partick Thistle

  Life is hard for Motherwell and Kilmarnock, both on and off the pitch. But for Partick Thistle, in the shadow of the Old Firm behemoth, it must be fucking soul-destroying. Glasgow’s third force have always been up against it and they always will be. So respect to the club and to their mob, the North Glasgow Express, for even turning up. The NGE has always been competitive with the likes of Airdrie’s Section B and Dunfermline’s Carnegie Soccer Casuals but like their team they are also-rans where Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen are concerned.

  I like many of the Express. They are nice lads and I have particular respect for one of their main faces, who I will call ‘Big H’. Two Asian brothers are also prominent in the NGE – Ben is one – and they too are stand-up guys. While they and their mates have never got the better of the ICF, in recent years they have taken on the Rangers Youth in a number of minor skirmishes.

  That is not to say they weren’t up for the challenge. They have been willing to front up to us, with the result that we have had to put them in their place on a few occasions. Back in 1993 they began to mouth off, saying how much they wanted to do us. At first we tended to ignore them, having bigger fish to fry, but they kept going on and on about it and we thought to ourselves, ‘Fuck this. If they want it they are going to get it.’ The good thing was they were in the same city and we didn’t have to wait for a match day. So this night twenty-five of us went up
to Maryhill, some in cars, the others by tube. Our plan was to attack their boozer, the Pewter Pot, which lies between Great Western Road and Maryhill Road and is close to Firhill stadium.

  We mobbed up and made straight for the Pewter Pot and when we got within twenty yards of the place the front door swung open and fifteen NGE came out. They must have known we were coming because every one of their boys was carrying a baseball bat, a knife or a pool cue.

  If they were trying to intimidate us it didn’t work.

  The cry went up.

  ‘ICCCF, ICCCF’.

  We steamed in, pushing them back, right up to the front of the Pewter Pot. They regrouped and charged but once again we pushed them back, forcing all but five of their mob back inside the pub. As the doors of the pub were barricaded we turned our attention to the five stragglers, relieving them of their weapons and giving them a slap for their trouble. There were still the other mouthy cunts cowering inside the Pewter to be dealt with. We laid siege to the pub, battering the front door and smashing the windows. But it was no use. There was no way through and encouraged by the sound of police cars in the distance we made ourselves scarce. A decade later, after a Scottish Cup semi-final, we did the same thing again, but this time we got into the Pewter Pot and waited for the NGE. When no one appeared we left for another pub and then went back to the Pewter Pot when they showed up. We mullered them, and it was them, despite their claims that none of their boys were actually in the pub.

  There were always long gaps between our encounters with Thistle – we were invariably in different divisions – and if it was going to go off it was going to be a cup competition, which is how we came to face them in September 2008 after a League Cup tie.

  Not for the first time the NGE had been taunting us, telling us they would have a mob out; daring us to front up. And once again we obliged. Before the game we assembled in Wintergill’s, a cracking old-fashioned pub on Great Western Road, while Thistle were ensconced not far away in the Woodside Inn. Their location was a bit of a problem, as the Woodside was owned by relatives of one of the Rangers Youth.