Rangers and the Famous ICF: My Life With Scotland’s Most-Feared Football Hooligan Gang- Sandy Chugg,  Book review

**** out of five

I knew nothing about the Scottish firms beyond their propensity to behave appallingly at any game in England be it club or national.

I have never seen a Sottish club side play, but did see the national side in Euro96 versus Holland. Apart from  their being drunk at 8.30am as I was turning up for work, they were good as gold.

A number of factors contributed. Birmingham is a City still enraged by the IRA pub bombings, The Republican element of Scotland’s support, particularly that of Celtic, was always going to kept on a short leash by their  ( Rangers) loyalist compatriots. Villa’s mob were out the night before to “encourage” respectful behaviour, and that was honoured.  Hollands support was no pushover either, and the Scots clearly did not fancy a battle on several fronts. So the overwhelming mood was good natured. The Dutch and Brummies enjoyed the Scots’ “Jimmy Hill is a Poof”  chants and flags. There has never been any love lost between the cities of Coventry and Birmingham.

Chuggs’s authenticity and credibility is beyond question. However his claims of being  a reformed non combatant family man  are less convincing. But that has no impact on his accounts of historic activity.

I was not aware that the scots had amalgamated their club firms to create  a National one- The SNF. Whether they travelled on SNCF trains in France is unclear. I was equally unaware that the two Dundee firms mobs had teamed up to create the Dundee utility.

The violence depicted is brutal, visceral and compromising. Chugg, with the ICF is  at the centre of it. Their legendary  trouncing of Celtic : when fifty ICF took on a thousand Celtic fans before the controversial title decider of 1999 and the  Raid on the Gallowgate: when the ICF took it to the pubs of the Gallowgate, Celtic’s spiritual home, are recounted in reverential terms.

Although the firms of many rivals are namechecked, the ICFs romp through the lower leagues after Rangers’ punishment demotion is ignored, as is Ross McGill, Glasgow and Scotland organised Crime Kingpin and Union Bears leader.

Well written, humorous and self deprecating, for me Chugg tries a little too hard in the final chapters to convince us that he is a reformed and changed man. He also name checks his solicitor, who presumably ensured that there would be no legal come back on his tales and admissions of illegal behaviour.

Th book serves well as a testament to the bigotry and sectarian hatred which permeates the game in Scotland. As a first hand record of football violence it is unsurpassed. A bleak tale of what it was like to be young and poor and Glasgow