Free Rangers and the Famous ICF: My Life With Scotland's Most-Feared Football Hooligan Gang by Sandy Chugg Page A

streets leading to Celtic Park was great for us we didn’t quite have what the military call ‘supremacy’. Generally speaking when Celtic came to Ibrox they had to scurry up back streets as we had total dominance on the roads from the city centre to Ibrox. Whether we were at home or away we ruled supreme on the streets of Glasgow . . . with one exception.
    That fly in the ointment was known as the Gallowgate!
    The Gallowgate is to Celtic what Bridgeton has always been, and Duke Street became, to Rangers. It was their base, their spiritual home. They were safe there. They couldn’t be touched there. Their firm were surrounded there by many active IRA men who in turn were surrounded by hundreds – which became thousands on match days – of IRA sympathisers who drank in the Gallowgate’s many Republican pubs. Take the murderers, terrorists, hard men, Celtic’s firm and throw in the odd nutter – it’s fair to say the Gallowgate was a pretty ferocious place for anyone of a bluenose persuasion.
    To the east-end lads in the Rangers firm the Gallowgate was a bit of a bogeyman. Although there had been whispers about ‘taking it’, and even some half-hearted plans about how we would achieve that feat, it remained the untouchable green fortress on the hill.
    The first Old Firm game of the season always brings a unique sense of anticipation. When early August comes around you are straining at the leash to get going. I made an early start that day, meeting Jinks and a few other lads on Duke Street. Although lads from Duke Street and elsewhere in the east end often made their own way directly to Celtic Park, having their own battles, we decided to head into town to have a drink in Minstrels, our pub of choice at the time. We got to Minstrels at half twelve and there was a decent seventy or eighty lads already in there. By two o’clock our numbers had grown to one hundred and fifty or so. ‘We better make a move,’ somebody said, to be met by the usual moans and groans: ‘Fuck off you, I’ve just got a pint in,’ and ‘I canny be arsed walking, you won’t find Celtic until after the game, I’m jumping in a taxi.’
    About forty of us left, walked up onto Argyle Street and began the couple of miles walk to the Piggery. We came across small pockets of Celtic’s firm, who had been dispatched to keep a close eye on us. Then, somewhere on Argyle Street, it was said.
    ‘Mon go up that fuckin Gallowgate and do these cunts there.’ ‘Aye mon,’ another voice said ‘they are fucking shit.’
    Those fateful words had been uttered. It had been said. Now it had been said many times before but this time it was seconded. Before long it was ‘thirded’ and we were off.
    I looked around at the boys with us and realised it was far from our top firm. We had maybe seven or eight top-table lads and a collection of dependable, but by no means main lads, in which category, incidentally, I included myself at that time. As we approached Glasgow Cross it was time . . . time to decide. I was thinking ‘It’s one thing chasing off fifteen of them bastards here, and twentythere, but this is the Gallowgate for fuck’s sake, they will have their main firm, backed up by a good few hundred others, who’d be delighted to murder us.’
    Being 100 per cent honest I was half hoping we would choose the right-hand side of the Glasgow Cross fork and head for the safety of Bridgeton via London Road. That wasn’t because I was a shitbag – quite the contrary, I was beginning to make a decent name for myself in our firm – but because I wasn’t into suicide missions (this would change!) and this was a suicide mission and a half. As we approached the fork I knew we were heading left because after it had been said and backed up there was no fucking way we could do anything else.
    ‘Oh fuck,’ I thought. Again, being 100 per cent honest, it briefly crossed my mind to accidentally lose our lads in the crowd. ‘Fuck that, get a grip ya cunt,’ I