Season 87/88

Panionios - Olympiakos - 87/88

Source : Mail

Riots opposed Olympiakos fans to police forces.

Burnley FC - Wolverhampton Wanderers - 01/04/1988

Source: Lancashire Evening Telegraph

Soccer fans run amok

TWELVE people were arrested after Burnley's football hooligans ran amok following a defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers.

A policeman was injured and a Padiham teenager suffered cuts to his face after a brick was thrown through a bus window.

Burnley police chief Superintendent Clive Fothergill laid the blame squarely on the home fans.

Crystal Palace: Soccer thug alert - 27/04/1988

Source: Lancashire Evening Telegraph

CRACK police squads were placed on "thug alert" for Blackburn Rovers' promotion clash with Crystal Palace.

More than 30 Palace hooligans were arrested in dawn raids, following a three-month undercover investigation. Meanwhile, van driver Roy Waddington spoke of his shock after he found a heavyweight hunting knife just yards from Ewood Park.

Kathmandu, Nepal - 12/03/1988

Source: BBC

At least 93 people were killed and 100 more were injured when fans attempted to flee from a hailstorm inside the stadium.

But they could not escape because the stadium doors are locked, causing a fatal crush at the front.

Southampton FC - chelsea FC - 87/88

Source: mail

Chelsea escort

Udinese - Trieste - 87/88

Source: triestefototifo.com

Yugoslavia - England - 11/11/1987

Source: forum - English views

There was a couple of rows on the way to the ground with red stars mob. In the ground one end was red star the other next to us was Partizan (who loved the english & bizarrely sang we love you Chelsea, which pissed off all the non chelsea!). Right near the end Partizan invaded the Red star end & one of the best end takings I have ever witnessed occured. Appaerntly Brian Moore was commentating back home & was shitting a brick thinking it was english fans. We had a few incidents afterwards as well, the best being a two minute toe to toe in a nightclub.

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Good trip all round. Yougoslavia was really cheap.We had a couple of coaches which drew alot of interest as we got to the ground. All the slavs were milling around and we thought it was on top.We grouped up and we started a massive chant of "Rule Britannia" and just surged through them.They just scattered.Tommy Baldwin is right about the Chelsea chanting in the ground "We love shed!" they sang. lol.Great game,great win and brilliant terrace action too.Lol at West Ham fella at our hotel who give it the big un on the dance floor with what he THOUGHT no: was a bird.wrong mate.And laugh at the Bristol City fans who thought it was funny to trash their room only to then try and ponce money to pay for the damage or face a trip to the police station. Wankers.Also remember the CHELSEA - HEMEL HEMPSTEAD Union flag. The biggest proper flag i have ever seen.

Derby fan puts boot in v Notts Forest - 07/12/1987

Source: http://www.geocities.com/thefringedlf

Chelsea FC - Charlton Atheltic - ??/05/1987

Source: forum

Loads of Chelsea infiltrated the away end by the benches & kicked it off,

Millwall FC - Swindon Town - 04/10/1987

Source: national press

Millwall was charge by the FA with crowd misconduct after a fan tried to attack Solihull referee.

Stockport County - FC Burnley - 87/88

Source: http://www.thefootballnetwork.net/boards/read/s37.htm?38,9475790

The police piled into away end and smacked everyone in sight including kids!!

Leeds United - Middlesbrough - 26/12/1987

Source: http://www.thefootballnetwork.net/boards/read/s37.htm?38,9475790

Middlesbrough were packed behind in the stand still there but back then the front bit was a terrace whilst the back of the stand was seating. I think Leeds won the game and may have got a late winner, loads of Middlesborough fans tried smashing their way out of the ground(as they'd been locked in) whilst Leeds fans were waiting outside smashing the same exit in(bricks everywhere).

The exits were smashed open and all hell broke loose for ages it was the biggest riot i've ever seen on that wasteground next to the ground.

Tottenham Hotspur – Arsenal FC – 18/10/1987

Source: http://arsenal-mania.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9799 – AFC view

I was 13 at the time and me and my dad went to the shithole to see the Gunners play the scum.I dont know about you lot but didnt it seem a lot lot colder and dreary back then?.. on the way up the road we mixed in with about 50 other Arsenal fans ( we stayed close to the wall on the other side of the road where all the posters used to be pasted on i think there was a U2 one on the wall that day ..thats about 100 yards before you reach the ground) . The Horsemen had us well separated..they made us stay that side of the road while the scum army were over the other side, they threw things at us, some food, rotten tomatoes even. It was absolutely horrible..swearing and spitting everytime they shouted they looked like savages to me.. anyway we got ourselves into the ground and the spitting swearing and threats continued all game, i was so **** scared that i even wished we didnt win that day so we'd get off easy on the way back.. we seemd to have walked miles ( at least it seemed that far from the ground and my knees were aching).
Anyway game on..hard to concentrate , not really a great game but plenty of scrapping and kicking on the field , todays 'hard' tackles pale in comparison.
We came out with a 2-1 win ( i was shitting my pants before we left the ground!) Rocky scored one but i cant remember who scored the other... i didnt really want to know either.So we got ourselves out the stand early and tried to get away before the game finished.
Thats when it happened.. on the way back we were attacked by a group of spuds hooligans..one of them hit my dad in the face and bruised him up badly, he took a swing at him but missed then grabbed me and we dashed between some cars..other gooner fans were being kicked about on the ground..no help in sight and i thought theyre going to kill us all today until two old folks came along and started screaming at them, eventually they managed to drag us away and the thugs ran off as the police arrived (much too late for my liking), i'd already pissed my pants by then, dad was shaken up but ok and the two older folks that stopped to help us were spurs fans who promptly told us to get the **** out of there.Eventually we got back in among the travelling faithful and got ourselves home. Phew.. a terrible day but we beat the scum in their own backyard so the smiles returned immediately, dad was chuffed, mom wasnt after seeing his bruised face and she banned me from the spuds shithole .. i didnt go again until the 93/94 season.. and not much changed. We moved here the same year and i've been twice since then , the last time was a big improvement intimidation wise but the spuds fans are still ****...always looking for trouble and picking on families.

Bournemouth – Crystal Palace – 07/11/1987

Source: http://www.cpfc.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-109449.html

Troubles erupted inside and outside the ground.
Some people were nicked after the game.

Those Thugs Again - 27/06/1988

Source : cnn.com

To some fans, the European soccer championships were just an excuse for violence

As the English moved off to the trains that would take them to Düsseldorf for their game against the Dutch, they chanted at the Germans, "Two World Wars and one World Cup, you box-headed bastards." They were referring to English victories over Germany. But they left Stuttgart without their King Yobbo, 33-year-old Paul Scarrott, who had been picked up by German police for jumping bail in England and was deported. Scarrott has served 13 jail sentences for offenses ranging from simple assault to inciting violence. "I'm Britain's vilest football hooligan, and I'm proud of it," he crowed when he got home. He has FOREST, short for Nottingham Forest, the club he supports, tattooed inside his lower lip.

For the game between the English and the Dutch in Düsseldorf, the police put a careful plan into effect. On game day every vehicle entering West Germany from Holland would be stopped at the border, searched, and the driver given precise instructions on how to reach Düsseldorf's Rheinstadion, over what was called Route Orange (orange being the Dutch national color). The idea was to keep Dutch fans from coming into contact with the English, most of whom were arriving by train. A massive police presence of 2,800 officers would be assembled at the stadium. It was said to be the largest police operation ever mounted in Europe.

The police seemed to give less thought to violence on the eve of the game, and it was then that the worst occurred. The fighting was mostly between English and German fans, with minimal participation by the Dutch. The atmosphere near the Düsseldorf train station had grown more and more ominous as the English fans became drunker and more aggressive. Then, just before dark, several hundred celebrating Germans arrived on trains from Gelsenkirchen. By the end of the ensuing battle, the great glass doors of the station were smashed, the station itself was a shambles, shops and cars in Düsseldorf's Old Town district were wrecked, and hundreds of people had been injured or arrested.

The poet Matthew Arnold had it right. These were ignorant armies clashing by night. But let one English yobbo give his account of the fighting:

"We was just standin' around the Platz when the Germans came off the train and went for us. They 'ad CS gas and flare guns and steel rods. Then we got back an' 'ad it with "em. They was all tooled up [armed]. The Bill [police] didn't 'ave no clue. They tried to break it up, but not a chance. Then we went at the Krauts again. This was a big one. This is the biggest I was in. The Germans had all the weapons, but we did 'em, din't we? We ran them Krauts five times, right into the Old Town. 'Course, the Old Bill was waiting for us there, but, see, we wanted to be drawn into the trap. We wanted to get the Germans...."

There was no trouble at the stadium the next afternoon, although had it not been for Marco van Basten, who scored a hat trick for the Netherlands to put England away 3-1 and, more important, dampen the morale of the English hooligans, things might have been different.

The police were out in much greater numbers after the game. They corralled a few thousand yobboes in the station yard and held the Germans at bay across a road. At one point the Speziale Einsatz Kommando, a crack army unit, appeared. "If those guys put on their helmets, disappear," somebody said. It soon became apparent that the young Germans were singing songs about England that had gone out of fashion around 1945. Stretcher bearers came and went. A youth was carried off with a neck wound, and the police started to hit everybody in sight.

An English-speaking voice on the P.A. system in the station offered trains to Aachen, Ostend, anywhere, and the war ended with a last stand at Gate 5.

The next morning there was a strange admission from Düsseldorf's mayor, Klaus Bungert. "We have arrested 371 people," he said. "Only 11 are English, the rest are Germans. We are saying that the German fans were the worst yesterday and the day before. The Germans had no tickets. They were not interested in the match. They came to make trouble."

That statement will not please the English hooligans. They will take it to mean that they lost the contest, that they are no longer the vilest fans in Europe. Their team, meanwhile, lost a third time, 3-1 to the U.S.S.R., in Frankfurt on Saturday. More street fighting followed that game, though it was mild by Düsseldorf standards—just 80 arrests, a couple of bars and restaurants wrecked.

Holland - Soviet Union - European Championship final at Munich - 26/06/1988

Source : latimes.com

Police arrested 30 fans, mostly Dutch, for fighting and other offenses before and after the game.

Everton FC - Manchester City - League Cup - 20/01/1988

Source : MCFC forum

That league cup game at Anfield was out of control. MEN headlines next day was 7 stabbed at match (3 of them Scousers). DF originally wanted the City mob on coaches, but it was cancelled last minute and several hundred took the the rattler and went down Scotty Road...carnage! Leaflets were handed out at Maine Road a week or two before the match..."Travel the only way, the cool cat way...no runners no doorknockers".

Brighton & Hove Albion - Arsenal FC - FA Cup - 30/01/1988

Source: BH forum - BH view

"they were on their toes across Hove park quicker than Carl Lewis after the 88 FA Cup match!"

Northampton Town - Brighton & Hove Albion - 05/12/1987

Source: BH forum - BH view

"Kicked off massively in town before the game, despite the police herding Albion fans into busses at the railway station."

Bolton Wanderers – Burnley FC - 04/04/1988

Source : http://ewoodpark.jimdo.com

A group of approximately 20 Blackburn Youth ambushed a train full of Burnley fans returning from a Division 4 match at Bolton Wanderers, throwing bottles and bricks at it. The train momentarily stopped before continuing, at Blackburn train station the police ordered the train to continue straight through to Burnley. Rovers were playing at home that day against Shrewsbury Town and it was common knowledge in the Blackburn End that a train full of Burnley fans was to be ambushed. At the time Rovers were challenging for a place in the play-offs, drawing the game against Shrewsbury Town 2 – 2.

Source: mail

Chelsea FC – Charlton Athletic – Play off – 87/88

Source : http://www.susd.vitalfootball.co.uk CFC view

They bought loads that day as the picture shows because it was either us or them in the relegation play-offs depending on the result, we drew 1.1 to a deflected Paul Miller shot which resulted in us (Chelsea) being relegated via the play-offs, we won 3 out of 4 games & went down.
Also that piture shows some Chelsea fans being put in the empty pen between the benches & the north terrace about 100 or so went in.

Arsenal FC - FC Liverpool - ??/08/1987

Source: Youtube.com

England - Eire - 12/06/1988

Source: Press

England Loses; Fans Riot

Mounted West German riot police, backed by dogs, broke up fighting between fans today following the match between England and Ireland in the European Championships.

A spokesman for the police, Herbert Gaissmayer, said the fighting was provoked by West German fans in downtown Stuttgart and quickly spread throughout a pedestrian zone to the city's main train station.

In all, 121 were arrested. Gaissmayer said 11 people were arrested, including West German, English and Irish fans after the game. The police had arrested 65 fans, 55 of them British, before and during the match, which Ireland won, 1-0. Another 45 -44 of whom were British - were arrested early in the day after they went on a window smashing spree in downtown Stuttgart.

More than 1,500 police officers were deployed to keep order at the soccer stadium, where 8,000 British and 11,000 Irish fans were kept strictly segregated.

Britain's Sports Minister, Colin Moynihan, who arrived in Stuttgart to watch the match, expressed his anger at the street trouble involving English fans.

Chelsea FC – Middlesbrough – Play off - 28/05/1988

Source: Press

CFC VIEW:

a couple of points from that day, Boro brought one of the best mobs ever to be seen from up North that day, a big firm of Chelsea were in Rileys when they came past & it was very fucking impressive.

Back at Edgware rd afterwards, the ob did land from nowhere & give Chelsea a very hard time, quite a few Chelsea slipped the OB & did bump into some of Boros top boys (the dark fella amongst them) just after near the Kings boozer, they escaped by the skin of their teeth in a couple of black cabs.

Birmingham City - Nottingham Forest - FA Cup - 20/02/1988

Source: Press

Riot police at the ready to stamp out any trouble. Trouble flared between rivals fans on wasteland near the ground.