Chugg - Rangers and the famous ICF : my life with Scotlands most-feared football-hooligan gang

Rangers and the Famous ICF:

My Life with Scotlands Most-Feared
Football-Hooligan Gang

My Life with Scotlands 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)

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 wouldnt 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 its my name on the cover. Its 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.

Barry Johnstone, Walesey, Pandy, Joe Bradley, Glen Goodwin, John McNair, Jeanie OBrien, 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

I cant 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 RangersCeltic 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 Strathclydes 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 doesnt 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 didnt 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 wasnt 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 minutes 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 sympathetic 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 oclock, 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 dogs abuse from Celtic fans outside the Netherfield bar, or the Nerry as it is known locally.