THE PAST WE’D RATHER FORGET - ILFORD’S HOOLIGAN HISTORY
Club Historian Michael Foley produces the first in a series of articles that chronicle Ilford's history.
Let’s be frank, our image of the old-style football fan is probably of the guy in the cloth cap, who looks like your grandpa, fancies pigeons more than his wife and cheers the opposition as well as his own team. As he plods wearily home to his mug of horlicks, there’s nothing very sinister or threatening in his demeanor -except that for Ilford FC, along with their peers, the hooligan fringe was never very far away.
Back in pre-Lynn Road days, Ilford had been preparing to enter a new competition,The Southern League, which within 12 months of its inception would become almost fully professional. The Club was to learn the hard way just how high emotions run -on the field and off it -as the stakes increase. Against Old Foresters (22/1/94), then one of the top clubs around, tempers had been frayed from the kick-off. A catalogue of poor decisions, including the disallowing of a perfectly good Ilford goal had infuriated the crowd, some of whose chanting seemed to indicate a threat of reprisal. *This is consistent with press reporting of the day, which chronicles drunken and loutish behaviour as well as threats made against referees from terraces up and down the land. Such conduct, seeming to contribute to a breakdown in order, would pose a great danger in the minds of the wealthy, self-appointed guardians of public morals who owned Ilford FC at the time.
As the final whistle was blown, the referee (Mr Bisiker) who’d been targeted for abuse throughout, was kicked, punched and gouged by a group of fans who’d encroached on to the field of play. Players and home officials managed to intervene preventing more serious injury, yet a full two hours later, a human bodyguard escorting the unfortunate Official back to Ilford Station was ambushed by a ‘howling, jeering mob’, clearly with unfinished business. Only with the greatest of difficulty did the cordon hold firm, delivering Mr Bisiker to the carriage door just about in one piece.
News reporting of the incident hardly helped matters. While expressing some sympathy for the level of violence meted out and applauding Ilford FC for a characteristic show of chivalry, there was a seething criticism of the ref’s handling of the match, giving impression that he was somehow an almost legitimate target…. How much the episode was responsible for influencing the Club’s owners in their decision not to follow rivals into the professional arena is hard to judge. Two years on however, Ilford were replaced in the Southern League by Tottenham Hotspur, a club on a mission to build success and unperturbed by the prospect of rising crowds or of the undesirable contingent this brings with it.
Marching forward in time, Ilford’s second Spanish tour in 1923 attracted a further notoriety due to events during and after our second 2-2 draw against Barcelona. However unsavoury the perception of the average English supporter, many among the 30,000 Catalans present that day seemed determined to match them…… And if you’re going to organise a riot where better than the majestic, brand new, Camp les Corts Stadium (rather than the ‘death-traps’ which some of the English grounds had become).
As Barca struggled to make their mark against determined opponents crowd frustrations grew. The mood deteriorated further as a catalogue of contested decisions seemed to go Ilford’s way. In spite of Gracia’s strike levelling the score at 1-1, antagonism directed at the referee was now reaching a fever pitch, inflaming a logic no doubt which considered that as Catalan champions, Copa del Rey winners and with some of the world’s best players in their ranks, Barca really shouldn’t be playing second fiddle to England’s Isthmian League champions!
As the whistle signalled the end to the whole bad-tempered affair, the crowd erupted in a frenzy of abuse and rancor, jeering and whistling -and in an instant a corps of gendarmes advanced on to the pitch, waving drawn swords and revolvers. Players quickest to react, along with Officials, were jostled and pushed towards the safe haven of the dressing rooms beneath the stand. Those not so alert (including a couple of IFC players) were ‘contained’ for their own safety within the centre circle while police, fearing a riot scenario undertook to disperse the crowd and regain control.
*This, Ilford’s fourth versus FC Barcelona, was to be the last. We were not invited back. The newspaper reporting of the game, in Catalan, still requires some translation today (if anybody can assist).
Michael Foley
Club Historian