Bloody Casuals: Diary of a Football Hooligan by Jay Allan

Author:Jay Allan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jay Allan
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

Memorable Moments

AS A Casual I’ve experienced so many memorable moments and so many fights that this chapter is written to describe a small pick of the best ones which would not have made a whole chapter, described separately.

In the season 1984/85 we travelled in good numbers to one of our more promising encounters, Hibs and Easter Road. For years there has been good solid fighting before and after Hibs games in Edinburgh. Usually we get an early train, drink in Rose Street bars and then make our way to Easter Road just after 2pm via the St James’ Shopping Centre. We usually meet some opposition in the centre and I clearly remember a running battle in the tunnel two years previous when a skinhead started swinging around a chain with a small spiked metal ball on the end. Uchter (one of the top boys at the time) got a nasty gash in the back of his head.

On this Saturday there were 350-400 of us and it was a miserable, rainy day. We had a couple of beers and then set off for the match. We hadn’t managed to get a fight yet - probably the rain had put a damper on people’s aggression. We were nearly in London Road when people in cars started shouting out of their windows that the game was off, and after the fourth or fifth confirmation we turned round and headed into town in disgust. Thank God I had brought a brolly - it was really raining now.

We went back to Waverley Station and were seriously considering what to do. It was suggested that we go to a Motherwell game, or that we go to Dundee for a match. Nobody wanted to go home, everyone wanted their Saturday ration of violence and excitement. To everyone’s sheer delight, Hibs made an appearance. They ran in the side entrance, which is a bridge over the southbound track. All they did was shout a few mouthfuls of abuse and then ran away as the police, who were in the station in large numbers at the time, all ran to the bottom of the stairs to the bridge. We turned from the bridge and charged out of the main entrance, and when we got out of the station, Hibs’ boys were just up the road on Princes Street. There were only about 50 of them, but we knew they would grow in numbers. They had got quite a distance in front of us but we kept on running; we ran across Princes Street and down a side street. Soon we realised that our mob had dropped to about 40 boys. Most of the rest had stopped, either because they were knackered or because they were forced to by police on Princes Street and sent back to the station.

Just as it seemed we would lose them we turned a corner to a hail of stones. The Hibs’ boys had come over a handy area of road works where they picked up plenty of ammunition, bits of tar and stones.

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