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

by Chugg, Sandy

  Osasuna play in Pamplona (the ancient and very beautiful capital of Navarre, which is in the north of Spain) and we flew out there, landing at an airport about sixty miles from the city. When we got to Pamplona we spent the day drinking and having a right good laugh. Some of the boys had fake 50-euro notes and were able successfully to pass them off in the local bars and shops, making the whole trip a hell of a lot cheaper. We ended up in a bar-cum-bowling-alley where one of the boys had a novel idea: he stripped naked and threw himself down one of the lanes. Of course the police were called but we were away by the time they got there. While the bulk of the Rangers support was transported to the ground in buses we walked, which gave us ample scope for more high jinks. In a cafe someone let off a fire extinguisher, covering everyone in thick white soot. Once again we left before the cops arrived.

  During the game the ICF boys were in different parts of the ground, the reason being that Osasuna, in defiance of UEFA regulations, had sold tickets to anyone and everyone. Most of them were in a corner of the ground in the upper tier of a stand and across the stadium from the main body of Rangers fans. I was in a corner among the home support with a few more of the ICF. At first the Osasuna fans were amused by the vociferous support we were giving our team but when a couple of the boys hung up a huge Union Jack, with the letters ICF on it, the mood immediately darkened. Neither the home support nor the Spanish police liked that flag and both groups became openly hostile.

  It was however the cops and not the Spanish supporters who got violent. The police waded into the ICF group at the other end of the stadium, lashing out indiscriminately with their batons as they went. Our boys were on the receiving end of sustained brutality and clearly in need of help and so at half-time our smaller group vacated its seats and went into the section where the trouble had kicked off. I was surprised that we were able to do that without being hindered by the stewards or the cops but the Spanish have their own way of doing things.

  We joined up with the other group of ICF, who by this time were positioned in front of the main body of the Rangers support. They had been battling manfully with the cops, who with the usual heavy-handedness of the Spanish police were taking no prisoners. There were now two empty rows of seats at the front of the upper tier, simply because the fans had been pushed back by the riot squad. The atmosphere was very tense. I was having verbals with a cop in full body armour when I felt a dull thud. It turned out that one of his colleagues had hit me on the head with a steel baton. He wasn’t satisfied with that because he caught me with two more sickening blows, knocking me to the floor. Luckily for me one of our boys helped me to my feet or the cop might have come back for more.

  ‘I am going to throw you into the bottom tier of the stand,’ I raged at my assailant, but I don’t think he understood English as she is spoken in Glasgow.

  There was then a ten-minute standoff after which the police charged us again. We held firm and even tried to snatch the batons out of their hands and after a few more scuffles an uneasy peace was restored.

  Rangers lost 1–0, eliminating us from Europe, and at the end of the game the stadium announcer put on ‘Simply the Best’ by Tina Turner. His choice of music surprised me. It is of course a favourite of Rangers fans everywhere not only because it sums up how we feel about the club but also because it gives us the opportunity to add some cheeky lines of our own. It later became clear to me why he had played our unofficial anthem. When the song reached the part where Rangers fans add the line ‘Fuck the Pope and the IRA’ it seemed to me that the volume from the PA system was turned down, making it easier to hear the little improvisation. That led to Rangers being fined £8,000 by UEFA for so-called discriminatory singing.

  After the game the police again used their batons in a quite indiscriminate way, on both scarfers and ICF. We learnt they had done the same before the game. The buses carrying our fans had been penned into a car park and when they tried to get off the police had set about them for no reason at all, hitting even women and children with their batons. Eventually, after taking yet more whacks from the thugs in uniform, we reached our designated coach, which was to take us to the airport for a flight home that night. The airport terminal was bristling with cops – there were literally hundreds of them – and I felt sure round two was on the cards. But it turned out they just wanted us out of the country as quickly as possible.

  The aftermath was fraught to say the least, hardly surprising given the scale of the disturbances. For once the Scottish media recognised that Rangers fans were the victims of brutality. Although they did of course take the ICF to task (of which more later) most papers were highly critical of the tactics use by the Spanish cops. The Evening Times described the police as ‘outrageous’; Jim Traynor in the Daily Record insisted that ‘the behaviour of those cops was savage and extremely dangerous’; while in The Sun Rangers captain Barry Ferguson (who was suspended for the game and watched from the stands) told the paper that ‘he feared for Rangers fans as he watched them being battered senseless by Spanish riot cops’.

  Despite the overwhelming evidence about the conduct of the Spanish police the Scottish media just couldn’t help themselves. They picked up on the ICF banner at the game and made us out to be as bad as the cops. One reporter noted there were ‘banned thugs in Gers crowd’, another churned out phrases like ‘lunatic fringe’ while a third talked about ‘a calculated bid to cause mayhem’. All shite of course. We were reacting to extreme provocation. I believe that if the ICF had not been in the thick of it defending normal Rangers fans things would have been much worse. There might even have been some people coming home to Scotland in body bags.

  If you think I am exaggerating just consider a document released by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the wake of the game. As several newspapers reported, the Foreign Office feared there would be mayhem at the game and had put in place emergency measures to deal with the injured and even the dead. The document states that ‘Injured British survivors to receive prompt, adequate medical attention. British fatalities to be identified formally and rapidly.’ The British government knew of course how shambolic the Spanish authorities were likely to be in terms of issues like ticketing and segregation and also that the police would adopt a zero-tolerance approach to Rangers fans.

  That cut no ice with the Scottish papers, which sadly is par for the course where we are concerned. The resulting media stushie resulted in three ICF, including me, getting letters from Rangers, informing us that we were banned from Ibrox for life.

  Astonishingly, it was my third lifetime ban.

  Manchester

  The headlines said it all.

  ‘Night of Carnage’ Evening Times

  ‘Shameful’ Daily Mail

  ‘It’s Like a Bloody Civil War’ The Sun

  ‘Light Blues Black Night’ Daily Star

  ‘Mob Like a Pack of Wolves’ Daily Record

  That was the reaction to what happened in Manchester after the UEFA Cup final between Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg on 14 May 2008. Rangers fans fought back in the face of brutal attacks by some police officers and a riot ensued in the city centre. It was without doubt the most sustained and vicious battle with the constabulary on British soil since the great Hampden riot of 1909.

  The irony was that the ICF missed the party. We were too busy watching the football.

  Given what happened after we lost to Zenit it is surprising that in our run to the final there was very little organised violence either at Ibrox or at our away games with the likes of Werder Bremen, Sporting Lisbon and Fiorentina. As soon as it was confirmed that we were going to the final we got straight on the blower to Man U to see if they were up for a dash. By this time however it was becoming clear that the city was going to be swamped by Rangers fans from all over the world and so the Red Army and the Men in Black politely declined our kind invitation. We weren’t that bothered. After all it would be our first final for nearly forty years and another bonus was that we had emulated Celtic’s ru
n to Seville in 2003. We were just happy to be at the centre of the football world.

  With up to two hundred thousand Rangers supporters about to descend on Manchester the biggest problem was getting hold of a ticket. They were like the proverbial gold dust. Luckily, a mate of ours, Myles Sarward, runs a travel company in London and he got his hands on forty precious briefs. At £400 a pop they weren’t cheap but it was well worth it to see our team in a prestigious European final. Because of the historic nature of the occasion I decided to give tickets to family members and close friends who I knew were regular attendees at Rangers games, then to pass on any that were left to other ICF members. The other ICF leaders did the same, which shows that, despite what people may think, we are genuine football fans. I can assure you that trouble was the last thing on our mind.

  We had booked into the Blackpool Hilton and by the time we arrived at the seaside town’s railway station it had become clear that Manchester was about to be swamped by the biggest away support in history, much bigger than the contingent of eighty thousand that Celtic took to Seville. There were many thousands of Rangers fans in Blackpool so what the fuck was Manchester going to be like?

  As getting on a train would have been impossible we got a coach to Manchester, arriving there about 12.30 p.m. I would have said there were already a hundred thousand Rangers fans in the city centre, with more pouring in by the minute. It was obvious the infrastructure that had been put in place to deal with a gathering of that size was totally inadequate.

  We found a pub in Deansgate and spent the day there drinking, where we met up with lads from mobs throughout the country, the main group being the Chelsea youth firm. There was only the occasional interruption by Glasgow and Manchester football-intelligence officers. They were keeping an eye on me and the other forty ICF in the city but they were probably reassured when they clocked the family members we had with us. They would also have been glad to learn we had match tickets and that football seemed to be our priority. Maybe they would have a quiet day after all.

  There wasn’t any trouble during our drinking session, although we did hear that thirty Zenit skinheads had kicked it off in a nearby bar. We weren’t tempted. It was all about the game and adding to our haul of trophies. We left the pub about two hours before kickoff and made our way to the City of Manchester stadium (as it then was). When we got there we discovered there was a problem. Our tickets were for the Zenit end and some of our party had already been knocked back by the stewards.

  We improvised. We bought scarves from the Zenit supporters and pretended we were Russian. In the end, everyone got in but not before I had a run-in with a jobsworth steward. As I passed him he decided to question me.

  ‘Where are you from mate?’

  I mumbled something that sounded vaguely Russian.

  ‘Look mate. I’m from Coatbridge,’ he replied.

  ‘And no doubt you’re a Celtic supporter as well,’ I thought, as he continued giving me the third degree.

  ‘It’s obvious you’re from Glasgow. I can’t let you in,’ Jobsworth concluded.

  ‘Well look mate. You’ll know the score. I’m from Shettleston in Glasgow and I paid £400 for my ticket. And if you’re not letting me in I’ll plant the nut on you and bite your ear off. Then I’d be getting the jail for something worthwhile.’

  I have never seen someone’s demeanour change so quickly. He turned as white as a ghost and waved me through.

  In the stadium, as more and more Zenit fans arrived, it became clear there might be a problem. Looks were exchanged, lines in the sand drawn. We quickly realised we would have to move if a full-scale riot was to be avoided. Normally, we would have been right in there but we didn’t want our dads and our other friends and relations involved in something like that. To my surprise, given that the game was a sell-out, we managed to squeeze into seats near to the halfway line and settled down to watch the most important game of our lives. It was a truly wonderful atmosphere, created almost entirely by the Rangers contingent, which made up around 80 per cent of the crowd. The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention as the traditional songs and chants rang round the stadium. It could have been our finest hour since 1972.

  Sadly, it wasn’t to be as the Rangers players, exhausted by their seventh game in twenty-one days, went down by two goals to nil. I still find it hard to talk about that game. Unlike Celtic fans, who, with their usual twisted logic have turned Seville into some kind of moral victory, I associate Manchester 2008 with failure. It was the most disappointed I have ever felt after a Rangers defeat.

  I left the ground utterly dejected and almost immediately I took a call from an ICF boy to say they had just chased Manchester riot cops all over the city centre. In the depths of despair I thought, ‘Thank fuck I am not involved. They will no doubt pin the blame on us [the ICF].’

  We walked back into Manchester, heading for the same pub we had been drinking in before the game, but ended up instead in the Deansgate Hilton. The city centre resembled a war zone. The streets were littered with broken glass and empty cans and there were riot vans full of police speeding this way and that. Having used our keys from the Blackpool Hilton to get in to the Deansgate equivalent we drowned our sorrows in the bar. All the while I was taking calls from ICF boys telling me what happened that afternoon with the giant screens, the toilets and the over-crowding. Another message that came across loud and clear was how heavy handed the Manchester police had been in their dealings with Rangers fans, even those who had not been involved in the disturbances. To be honest my pals and I were so crushed at losing to Zenit that we couldn’t even think about getting involved. Apart from anything else the cops had things under control by that stage. After a couple of hours we got a taxi back to Blackpool.

  My verdict on the debacle that was Manchester is quite simple. The city got what it deserved. Right from the word go the authorities made it clear that Rangers fans weren’t welcome. It was only when they realised that we would travel in unprecedented numbers that they got their act together and started to prepare. By then, however, it was a case of too little too late. I have been told that the giant screens were deliberately turned off and I believe it. Some people wanted to give the Rangers fans a good hiding and when they quite understandably expressed their disappointment about the loss of the pictures that gave the police the perfect justification for wading in. What the cops didn’t expect was that we would fight back, and fight back hard. I don’t condone everything our fans did in Manchester but if you go around whacking people with a metal baton what do you expect?

  Although we played very little part in the fighting we still got most of the blame. I know for a fact that the first mugshots the police asked for were those of the ICF. Instead of looking at the piss-poor organisation and their own brutality to explain what went wrong they wanted a convenient scapegoat. I am afraid I have nothing but contempt for the city of Manchester. It was bombed by the IRA but still welcomes Celtic fans. Yet it continues to treat us with contempt and has stopped Rangers from playing a couple of friendlies down there in recent years. I would of course not include Man City fans in this; to me they are sound, pro Loyalist and pro Rangers. It just goes to show that no place is all bad.

  18

  THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL FIRM (1): DOMESTIC DISTURBANCES

  During the early-to-mid Nineties organised football violence went into decline, ravaged by football intelligence, the rave scene, acid house and old Father Time. Boys became men, got married and took on mortgages. The ICF wasn’t immune. By the middle of the decade our numbers had fallen sharply. Sometimes we were lucky if ten boys turned up, even for big games. Other mobs too were feeling the pinch, most notably the all-conquering Capital City Service, which hadn’t been helped by the long jail sentence handed down to its most prominent member, Andy Blance, in 1991.

  Radical solutions were required if we were to keep the good ship football violence afloat. It meant thinking the unthinkable. And that’s what happened after Davie Carrick a
nd one of the best-known faces from Hibs, James ‘Fat’ McLeod, got together on a night out. Between them they concocted the idea of a Scotland-wide mob, to be called, you’ve guessed it, the Scottish National Firm. Although it would mean joining up with our most implacable opponents, guys we had been fighting with for years, there was some logic to it. The ICF had lost many good boys, including stalwarts like Barry Johnstone and Harky, while Hibs too had seen a decline and had not been helped by a vicious power struggle between factions led by Blance, now released from jail, and Fat McLeod. It was also proposed that some boys from the Hearts Capital Service Firm would be invited to join.

  I almost choked on my cornflakes when Davie told me about the proposed ‘super’ firm. I am Rangers through and through and the thought of boys from other mobs coming along with the ICF made me distinctly uneasy. Here we were, effectively disbanding the ICF and setting up a new mob with our sworn enemies. Gradually however, I came round to the idea. It wasn’t as if we had that many alternatives and in addition working with other mobs also had a certain novelty value. So, after a lot of deliberation, I threw my lot in with the fledgling SNF. Some ICF objected strongly to the new organisation but only guys who weren’t that active and so we just ignored them. With the benefit of hindsight it turned out to be a master stroke from Davie and McLeod, because it kept the flame of hooliganism burning and eventually led to the renaissance of a new and more powerful ICF.

  It was also through the auspices of the SNF that I got to know some of the most hardened thugs that Scotland has ever produced. Step forward the aforesaid ‘Fat’ McLeod. The big man was the most dedicated football hooligan I have ever met. He was a larger-than-life character, and I am not just talking about his twenty-stone bulk, a natural leader who completely dominated his faction of the Hibs mob. Starting off in Blackley’s Baby Crew, James graduated to the CCS, in which he became a leading light thanks in no small measure to his great organisational skills. It was clear from the first day I met him that football violence was the main driving force in his life. He was excitable and he came alive when he talked about hooliganism. In fact I would say he almost got a sexual thrill when he was discussing it: he would put his hands over his eyes, rub them and squeal like a pig as he discussed steaming in. I know that some of his former Hibs pals say he was never a true front liner but that is shite: I have seen him in action many times and he was game, of that there is no doubt.