Hibs Boy The Life and Violent Times of Scotland's Most Notorious Football Hooligan by Andy Blance

Author:Andy Blance [Blance, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781905769353
Published: 2012-01-30T23:00:00+00:00

13

RANGERS: IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

Ibrox. Even the word sends a shiver down your spine. We were going on our most dangerous awayday and didn’t we know it. Despite the banter and the bravado on the train there was always a large knot in our stomachs as we pulled into Queen Street station. There was excitement, anticipation, even an eagerness to get into the fray, but that was always mixed with a healthy dose of fear. The younger ones were the worst affected. They had heard all the stories from the older boys and now they were going to experience a game at Rangers for the first time. We did our best to reassure them. ‘It’ll be okay. Don’t worry. Just listen to us and you’ll be fine.’ I am sure it went in one ear and out of the other. When you are scared nothing seems to help.

It wasn’t that the Rangers mob, the Inter City Firm, was the best. It wasn’t, not by a long chalk. In fact I never felt it could match us in any department. On a level playing field we would have battered them every time.

There were, however, two factors that made a trip to Govan so testing. The first was that so many of their boys went out tooled up, not only with knives but also with coshes, CS gas, ammonia, hammers, knuckledusters; anything that would inflict maximum harm on opponents. The other thing that made it such a difficult outing was the attitude of their scarfers. Unlike ordinary fans at other clubs a high proportion of the Rangers support would fight toe to toe alongside their casuals. They would really get stuck in. I think their sectarian attitudes had a lot to do with it. A lot of Rangers fans saw Hibs as a mini Celtic. To those people we were Fenian bastards, even though no one in the CCS could give a flying fuck about religion. I am typical. I am not a Catholic, nor is anyone in my family. The only time I have ever set foot in a church is for a funeral or a wedding. I know that Hibs were Scotland’s first Catholic club – formed in 1875 by a Catholic priest, Father Edward Hannan – but those days are long gone.10 Nowadays, it is simply not an issue for the CCS or even for the vast majority of Hibs fans.

It is true that the CCS flag is a green-black-and-white version of the Union Jack but we only designed it that way to wind up the Old Firm. For very different reasons both Celtic and Rangers fans hated green being part of this symbol of Britishness. The Rangers crowd was particularly incensed by our flag. When we unfurled it at Ibrox the whole ground seemed to bellow as one: ‘What the fucking hell is that?’ and would then launch into the full repertoire of Loyalist and anti-Catholic songs and chants, from ‘The Sash’ to ‘No Surrender to the IRA’.

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