Well, since this seems to have become a Spammers thread...
Had to look this up but I think it was the 1-1 draw in April 1985. We had a good turnout as far as I remember. South Bank was full? After the match a mate of mine pointed out SH who was 'organising the troops'. We fell in with them and went back all the way to Victoria. Well, almost. Someone, not sure who, wasn't SH, said we should get off at St James's because "first one up the escalators at Victoria will get battered". So we all piled off the tube, big mob, practically filled a whole tube train, what's that 300+? I remember plod that was on the train trying to radio out to say what was happening but it wasn't working that far underground. However, exit St James's and you're right outside... New Scotland Yard! Not the best move really.
We started marching up Victoria Street, past a very tall group of black Americans (Basketball team?) who wanted to know what was up since by this time we had practically taken over the road. The OB were on to us now but in small numbers and basically following. I also thought this might be the best move since I didn't really have any particular wish to face off against the ICF so I hung back in the crowd. Having said that I hated that lot and had taken some right stick from some Spammers at a party the night of the home game earlier that season when they came in the Shed from both entrances. "Did you run at Stamford Bridge?" all bloody night long. I don't think I would have been there if it hadn't been them. Hated them and their superior attitude and wanted to see them get done.
Anyway, we spotted them standing outside Shakes and then the boys just ran at them. I mean no hesitation, no waiting, no bouncing on toes, nothing, just went for them at a full sprint. No joke, it was like the start of the Olympic 100m, I was well impressed. They instantly took off to their left, our right. To be fair to them we well outnumbered them and it's possible that they weren't really running so much as getting tooled up (more on that in a mo). Now I used this sprint to lag back even further until I was pretty much at the back of the pack. Problem for me was that when they ran we turned around and cut up a side street to our right. I now found myself at the front of the pack with a crush of people behind holding me there. We turned left and the ICF turned right until we were facing each other again down a back alley. It was now I saw that the Pikeys had raided a cafe on their way around the block. They had all manner of stuff that they launched at us, umbrellas, chairs, etc. Tbh I wasn't that impressed with them. Compared with the way we'd gone at them this was a typical football 'throw things around to no effect' kind of standoff though it was enough to halt our charge. Before either side could really get to grips the Bill came charging through, in fact one of ours got knocked off his feet by the police car that came with them.
And that was pretty much it. None of this was shown on that documentary that was following them around at the time so I don't know if that was judicous editing (not wanting to show them on the run) or whether this wasn't their main mob. But if that was the case who the hell would go all the way back to Victoria to take us on? Only other thing I remember is that we saw MS from Molesey/Hampton Court who was a friend of my mate and he was really pleased that him and his little mob had done some Hammers a few minutes earlier until we told him we'd just met their whole firm and they'd missed it.
