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

by Chugg, Sandy

Young Rico McGill appeared. He was ashen faced. Something had gone off, that was obvious.

  ‘What the fuck’s happened? I can’t get hold of Big Boris on the blower.’

  Rico gave me chapter and verse.

  It all went off big time. You’ve just missed one hell of a fight. All the lads have been rounded up by the Old Bill. I managed to sneak away. Just after you phoned Boris to tell him you hadn’t got tickets the boys started to go through the security cordon. The place was crawling with what looked like normal PSV fans. They had surrounded us and on a pre-arranged signal we were attacked from all sides. But credit where it’s due: despite being outnumbered four-to-one, the boys kept steaming back into PSV. Our boys were in the thick of some fierce hand-to-hand fighting while some of them got hit by bottles and bricks, which cut them up badly.

  The cops did fuck all. They allowed the fighting to go on for five minutes before stepping in, which surprised me. When they did get involved they quickly separated the two factions before rounding up our guys, helped by a Scottish football-intelligence officer who pointed out the ICF to them. It was then I sneaked away and got through the cordon by showing my match ticket.

  I was gutted. I had missed one of our best-ever fights. I also felt guilty for leaving the boys to go on a wild-goose chase looking for match tickets. Later, while I was watching the game, I realised there was another problem: the one-mile walk back to the station could be very dangerous if PSV attacked again, given that so many of our boys had been taken out of the equation by the police. With all due respect to the Rangers scarfers I didn’t think they were going to come to our rescue. My mood was lightened, albeit temporarily, when Jorg Albertz scored the only goal of the game, enabling us to emulate John Greig’s triumph in Eindhoven in the late 1970s.

  At the end of the game most Rangers fans were herded onto buses and given a police escort out of town. Those of us going by train were held in the stadium and then escorted back to the station by a large contingent of police, who successfully thwarted the efforts of the PSV mob to attack us. We walked past the cop shop where the rest of the ICF were being held and at that point the size of the escort diminished rapidly, which allowed some minor skirmishes to go off.

  We got to the railway station and were herded onto a platform, from which the Amsterdam train was due to leave in about half an hour. There were four ICF there, plus a contingent of Rangers scarfers and a small knot of police. Further along the platform there were some guys from the PSV mob, who were also waiting for a train. One of them was a huge, burly body-builder type, who had a couple of girls in tow.22 He and some of his mates started on the verbals with our scarfers, which of course was a right liberty in my eyes. So I said to Rico, ‘I’m going to have these cunts.’ A couple of our scarfers were from the Coventry Loyal and they were guys I was very friendly with. They had a carry-out at their feet and I said to them: ‘Sorry lads, I might need these,’ and with that I picked up two bottles of beer.

  Rico and I strode over to the PSV boys, accompanied by a well-known face from the Glasgow underworld, a man who could handle himself. I confronted Eindhoven’s answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger, making sure he could see the two bottles I was carrying.

  ‘What the fuck is your problem? Do you want these?’

  The Terminator said nothing, carefully sizing me and my two pals up.

  ‘You are going on that fucking track,’ I warned him.

  I could see that he and his gang were debating whether to have a go. Then, after a few seconds, they made their decision.

  ‘We don’t want any trouble,’ they rather meekly told us.

  ‘Well fuck off before you get thrown in front of a train,’ I replied.

  And fuck off they did, which surprised me given their size and the reputation of the PSV mob. They just weren’t up for it against three very keen Glaswegians.

  Shortly thereafter the Amsterdam train pulled in and we got on. I was standing at the open doors looking down the station when to my surprise I saw Davie Carrick bounding down the platform. He jumped onto the train just as the doors were closing. It turned out that Davie had been released from police custody just as the rest of the ICF were being processed. However, as he was being released the FI cop from Scotland tried to have him rearrested because of his involvement in the mass brawl at the stadium. The Dutch police refused as Davie had been arrested for a separate incident, namely hitting the boy with a bottle outside the pub. To me it was a typically sneaky move by the Scottish police, who later did their best to get custodial sentences for some of our lads, and that was after they had spent two weeks on remand in Dutch prisons.

  After I got home I was depressed for a few days. I was still gutted about missing the fight outside the stadium and not being there to help the boys. I wondered if I should have noticed that was something was amiss before I went to get the tickets. After all I was an experienced hooligan and should have been able to read the runes. My mood wasn’t lightened by an article in the following week’s Sunday Mail, which splashed my face across the news pages. The gist of the piece was that the trouble in Eindhoven was my fault and that I was planning revenge at the return game in a fortnight’s time.

  Chance would have been a fine thing. The problem was that three-quarters of our mob were languishing in a Dutch jail. Revenge was out of the question.

  17

  MARCHING THROUGH EUROPE: TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY BOYS

  In terms of European competition, the twenty-first century brought significant challenges for Rangers and its fans. It was the dawn of a new politically correct era in which certain clubs – Rangers among them – were singled out by UEFA for special measures. This in turn encouraged the police, for whom Rangers fans became fair game. It was now wholly acceptable to use force on anyone of a Rangers persuasion, even when they had done nothing wrong. To me it was a process that reached its logical conclusion in Manchester 2008, when many Old Bill lost the plot and launched gratuitous attacks on my fellow bluenoses.

  Paris St Germain

  Our first real foray of the new century came in December 2001, towards the end of the Dick Advocaat era. We had drawn nil–nil in the first leg of our UEFA Cup tie with Paris St Germain and therefore needed a score draw or better in the return if we were to be in Europe after Christmas for the first time since 1992/93.

  The boys made their own arrangements to get there. I was going with six other ICF on a flight from Prestwick to Paris and we planned to spend three nights in the French capital including the night of the game. But, at six o’clock on the Monday evening, just as we were boarding the plane, the French air-traffic controllers performed their usual party trick and called a strike, throwing our plans into chaos.

  What happened next shows how dedicated ICF boys are to our mob and to our club.

  Some guys booked flights from Dublin to Amsterdam and got a train from there to Paris. Me and my pals got on a train to Glasgow and then jumped into a taxi at Paisley Gilmour Street, which took us to Glasgow airport. From there it was a flight to Luton airport, followed by a train for London. When we got to the Smoke in the early hours of Tuesday morning we hopped onto the Eurostar, which took us to Paris. I am sure most people would have turned round and gone home the minute they heard about those lazy French bastards and their wildcat strike. But when you are part of a mob you don’t want to let your mates down, especially when they are going up against a great mob like PSG.

  In fact PSG has two great mobs, defined not by football but by politics. One is a left-wing tendency; the other is on the right of the spectrum. Politics or no politics these cunts can fight. Liverpool and Arsenal had both got a hiding in Paris in recent years, so we would have to be at our best.

  After booking into our hotel we went straight out on the piss and the coke, keeping closely in touch with the other ICF who had yet to arrive – and waiting for news of the thirty Chelsea boys who were said to be joining us. After a surprisingly quiet night – I think we were exhausted after all the travelling – we got
a good night’s kip and were straight back onto the drink and drugs the next day. Our numbers grew steadily to forty and we were sitting in a cafe near to the old Parc des Princes stadium having a beer and awaiting the arrival of Warren and Carrick and forty more boys, some of whom were the Chelsea contingent. About an hour before kickoff the two halves of the ICF came together, giving us a fighting strength of eighty.

  By this time we were hearing stories about PSG’s mob attacking Rangers scarfers so we decided to hotfoot it to the ground. As we walked we were given the same spiel by the Rangers fans: ‘You’re a bit too late boys. They have been taking liberties for hours. We could have done with your help before.’ That really fucking pissed us off because attacks on scarfers are bang out of order. The PSG mob would have to be taught a lesson.

  Approaching a junction we turned right and suddenly we saw what was going on. We had reached the periphery of the stadium, which was heaving with police. That wasn’t the only thing that caught our eye. There was a huge commotion because PSG’s mob were again attacking our scarfers. Our reaction was instantaneous. We fucking charged the cunts. The French Old Bill fanned out, doing their utmost to stop us getting to PSG.

  Then a weird thing happened. Someone lobbed a smoke bomb at us, sending thick plumes of white smoke billowing into the air. We thought it was the police who had thrown it but whether it was or not they suddenly stepped aside and let the two mobs go at it unhindered. As we came together I noticed that most of their boys were ethnic North Africans, with just a few whites in their ranks. Perhaps because we were disorientated by the smoke they got the upper hand and I suppose it was bit of a let off when the police re-engaged, pushing us back down the road and away from the ground.

  We weren’t finished yet. Not by a long chalk. Running down a side street in a flanking movement we came up behind their mob, who were out in huge numbers, about four hundred-strong I would have said. That meant fuck-all to us. We steamed in, screaming ‘ICF’ at the top of our voices and smashed them completely. I was about halfway back and I didn’t need to throw a punch, such was the disarray in their ranks. I noticed that the Chelsea boys were well to the fore and that they gave a good account of themselves, so respect to them.

  I don’t think any of us could believe how easy it had been. Maybe it was down to the sheer ferocity of our charge. Or maybe PSG thought they had done their job after the first skirmish. We will never know. The Scottish football-intelligence officers assigned to the fixture then turned up and warned us not to go near the French mob, simply because there were so many of them. ‘You’ll get a fucking doing,’ they confidently told us. Little did they know that we had already given the cunts a right chasing.

  During the game I was with a group of thirty ICF, right in amongst the French fans. Surprisingly, and despite the poisonous atmosphere, it didn’t go off with them but there was a little disagreement with the stewards. At half-time some of our boys got into a fight with the men in luminous yellow jackets, at which point they sprayed us with CS gas. Enraged by this over-the-top action we picked up a metal crash barrier and pushed the stewards right down the stand steps. After that they left us alone.

  As we mobbed up after the game – in high spirits after winning a penalty shootout and progressing to the next round of the competition – we were sure PSG would be out for revenge. But the second front never came. I, however, ran into a spot of bother. After slipping through the police cordon I was marooned in a sea of PSG scarfers. One of them started mouthing off at me in French, gesticulating wildly as he hurled insults in my direction. The guy was obviously looking for a fight. He was a rugby-player type, six foot four and seventeen stones, and he was wearing a leather waistcoat and sporting a fine moustache. If you can imagine a combination of Desperate Dan and one of the Village People you will get the general idea.

  Within seconds Dan and I were going at it. The big cunt wrestled me to the ground and we rolled around trading punches and kicks before we staggered to our feet ready for round two. I launched a karate kick at my opponent but it just bounced off his vast bulk. We grappled again and I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to get a kicking off one of the Village People right in front of the rest of the mob. I’ll never live it down.’ The gendarmes were only feet away and I was sure I would get arrested but they seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. Maybe they took pity on me because a couple of minutes later they dragged the big Frog off me and marched me back to the massed ranks of the Rangers support.

  Of course the rest of the ICF had seen exactly what had transpired and were pissing themselves at my antics. And no, I never did live it down.

  But the fisticuffs with the man mountain couldn’t put a dampener on my day. We had got a right result, on and off the park, and that night in a Paris cafe we celebrated like there was no tomorrow.

  Feyenoord

  The ICF had been getting some good results by the time Feyenoord came to Ibrox on UEFA Cup business in 2002. Our main problem, as ever, was the Glasgow Old Bill. We were getting some serious heat from them. Boys would get a knock on the door at six in the morning and then be dragged off to Govan police station for questioning on this incident and that fight. It was part investigation, part intimidation. So although we knew Feyenoord would bring a mob we would have to be cute to avoid early detection by the cops.

  In common with most of the other main faces I was banned from Ibrox so any thoughts we had of attacking them before kickoff were quickly discarded. I went to a pub in Sauchiehall Street to watch the game on television along with the rest of the banned contingent, while the ‘unbanned’ boys went to the game. Imagine our surprise when a news report came on, stating that Feyenoord had broken through the police lines inside the stadium and were taking on Rangers fans and, presumably, the ICF. It was the first time for years that anything had gone off inside Ibrox and it ended with thirty-four people being arrested, eight Dutch and twenty-six Rangers fans.

  The news gave us a boost of moon-rocket proportions. Although we had no phone contact with them the Dutch were clearly up for it and there was the potential for Glasgow city centre to be a war zone later that night. Feyenoord are a formidable mob but we fancied our chances, having been buoyed by our recent exploits against PSV and PSG. And the bonus was that, thus far, we had managed to avoid the police.

  When the game finished we decided to sit in the pub and bide our time. That would not only give Feyenoord the opportunity to get back into the city but would also ensure that we avoided detection by the boys in blue. After an hour we were ready to make a move. We were thirty-strong but to make ourselves less conspicuous we split up into groups of four or five and headed for Central station. It was as good a place as any to start our hunt.

  We got lucky. When we got within a hundred yards of the station we saw them. Seventy Feyenoord, standing around the entrance to the Central hotel. Even though it was dark we could see they were all big, hard-looking lads, including two giants who were clearly of a South Pacific or Polynesian background. We quickly mobbed up and walked at a fast pace towards our Dutch visitors.

  At first they didn’t spot us. It was only when we got to within fifty yards that the penny dropped. This was it. We had to take the initiative. ‘ICF, ICF’ we chanted as we charged. I expected, and hoped for, a severe test. It never materialised. Feyenoord turned tail and ran. Not one of us got to throw a punch. I was disappointed, given our previous experiences with Dutch hooligans. I can only put it down to the element of surprise. That and the fact that we were close to the top of our game in those years.

  As the police sirens whined we made ourselves scarce, dividing once again into small groups. I was with Davie H and Neilly S and we kept in close contact with Carrick and Boris and the rest of the boys. I was sure Feyenoord would be pissed off at having been run and would be looking for revenge. I was right. While I was striding along Sauchiehall Street, talking away to Carrick on my mobile, my two pals and I walked right into sixty of Feyenoord’s finest. They ran across the street, su
rrounding us. We looked at them, they looked at us and then they made their decision. Instead of giving us a hiding they took the piss. I was given a couple of clips behind the ear. ‘Go away little Scotty boy,’ one of them said. There was nothing I could do. I had to stand there and take my medicine.

  Fair play to them. They could have taken a right liberty and demolished us. It had been a lucky escape. I should have been relieved but my blood was boiling. I had sleepwalked into the middle of a foreign mob in my home city. I was dying to fight them but there would have been no point. My night was over.

  I didn’t go to the return leg in Rotterdam. Nor did the rest of the ICF. After what had happened in Eindhoven we were threatened with instant arrest if we set foot in the city. It turns out there was a lot of fighting between Rangers scarfers and Feyenoord’s mob, before and after the game. When I heard that I regretted my decision not to travel, as did the rest of the boys. Even though we would have been well outnumbered we would have given a good account of ourselves. We might even have avoided the clutches of the Dutch police.

  Osasuna

  The fans in Spain don’t have a tradition of organised football violence – they leave that to the police! In the spring of 2007 Rangers became the latest British club to suffer at the hands of Spanish cops. Not only did we get a battering from the riot police, but also when we got home the Scottish media were ready to give us another kicking. For once, however, we were innocents abroad.

  The scenario was that Rangers had reached the last sixteen of the 2006/07 UEFA Cup and had drawn 1–1 with Osasuna in the first leg at Ibrox. About thirty ICF decided to make the trip to Spain, not really looking for FV, but first and foremost as fans. Like all bluenoses we were desperate for Rangers to reach the quarter finals of a European competition.