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On Saturday, October 9 1976, Villa Park and Birmingham city centre suffered some of the worst scenes of football hooliganism ever witnessed on this patch.

It occurred during a so called ‘friendly’ match between Aston Villa and Rangers which had to be abandoned on 53 minutes when crowd trouble erupted.

Using the Sports Argus and Sunday Mercury reports from that weekend, Mat Kendrick looks back at what was dubbed “Sick Saturday”.

Eye witness account

“I watched as a young fan was knocked to the ground and kicked unconscious by up to ten assailants on the Villa Park pitch.

It was the most sickening episode I saw in the midst of disgraceful scenes which caused the abandonment of the match between Aston Villa and Glasgow Rangers after 53 minutes.”

Reporter Geoff Beane sums up the events of October 9 1976 in the following day’s Sunday Mercury

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How the trouble was said to have started

Scores of Rangers fans arrived on the night’s sleeper train from Glasgow which itself was delayed because of trouble en route. Some fans were thrown off at Wigan.

Coaches began arriving at Villa Park as early as 3am. Some offered £1.50 fare Daybreak Special offers for the 700-mile round journey.

Police complained to road traffic commissioners over coach company deadline-breaking.

Coaches had been ordered not to arrive at Villa Park until 60 minutes before kick off. Most of the 50 coaches that made the trip were in Birmingham up to nine hours before that deadline.

According to reports in the Sports Argus and the Sunday Mercury, as soon as the off licences opened the fans bought whisky, champagne, wine and beer and began a debauch that terrorised hundreds and halted public transport for thousands.

Some fans were so drunk they could hardly stand. One 15-year-old boy who had been drinking bottles of red wine collapsed unconscious.

Four hours before the kick off two teenage Rangers fans had already appeared in Birmingham Magistrates Court and been fined £135 for using threatening words and behaviour.

Chief superintendent Colin Sutton, head of Aston Division: “Drink was the major factor. They had been drinking most of the day - wine, spirits, beer and even champagne.”

Inside the ground

There were some incidents during the first half as Villa led 1-0 through a Dennis Mortimer goal, but it was at half-time when trouble flared with hundreds of Rangers fans on the Holte End.

At the interval, supporters at the back of the Holte End surged towards the front forcing frightened supporters to spill onto the pitch.

By that stage some injured fans were being carried clear on stretchers and the second half had kicked off by the time the field was cleared and all fans returned to the terraces.

On the Holte End bricks, stones and bottles were thrown by yobs completely ignoring the game.

When Frank Carrodus put Villa 2-0 up at that end of the ground on 52 minutes, the violence erupted.

The goal sparked another surge as missiles were launched.

It is estimated that more than 200 Rangers fans invaded the pitch and running battles broke out on the field with some Villa fans joining the fighting.

Two supporters were stabbed during the mayhem.

In order to escape the pitch invasion Villa boss Ron Saunders and Rangers counterpart Jock Wallace waved their players back to the dressing rooms and both teams ran towards the tunnel.

Great Barr referee Derek Civil abandoned the game in the interests of safety.

Police were given emergency powers to open the gates and turnstiles to allow frightened fans to flee the ground and a loud speaker announcement was made to clear Villa Park and the vicinity of the stadium.

Edna Thorpe, of Station Road, Aston, near the ground: “I have lived here all my life but never have I seen anything like this. They were behaving like wild animals, fighting and running riot all over the place. I was petrified and just didn’t know what to do.”

Injuries

Over 70 people were injured at the match, 18 seriously.

Several fans including girls were treated for severe cuts and head injuries from missiles.

Two had stab wounds and more had suspected broken bones.

Thirty police were injured. Several fell and four were taken to hospital - one with a suspected fractured skull

Thirty St John Ambulance men treated the injured. First aid rooms overflowed. Eighteen people were ferried by ambulance to Birmingham General and Dudley Road hospitals.

The streets around the ground looked like the aftermath of a pitched battle with bodies lying in the road, on the pavements and littered about nearby car parks.

Alfred Eggington, division superintendent in charge of the St John Ambulance first aid unit: “I have never seen anything like it in over 30 years of nursing. I was on duty for the Bay City Rollers concert and it was nothing compared to this.”

Police presence and action

At the height of the battle, 130 police were deployed at Villa Park. Ninety extra officers had been drafted into the city to cope with the trouble.

At the ground police confiscated cans and bottles. Police made 50 arrests during the day

When the violence broke out inside the ground, police with crash helmets were involved in up to five minutes of fighting to clear the ground.

Dog handlers emerged from the Witton End to force fans back and when some semblance of order had been restored at Villa Park police lined the track.

Away from the ground mounted police chased troublemakers through the streets.

Around the city

The hooliganism was not just contained to Villa Park and the surrounding areas. It also spread to Birmingham city centre.

Some well-behaved fans went ahead of the mob and pleaded with city centre shopkeepers “please close your shops, they are behaving like animals”

A spokesman for Peter Dominic shop in Priory Ringway said: “These lads came in to buy drinks and we sold it to them. They caused no trouble (in the shop). Our business was quite a lot higher than most Saturdays.”

But an angry Birmingham shopkeeper fumed: “Trade is bad enough without the busiest day of the week being plagued by hooliganism. Why Aston Villa felt it necessary to fix up this match, which meant importing Scottish rowdies, is beyond us.”

Eight buses were vandalised with windows smashed and in once case a roof damaged.

West Midlands Passenger Transport stopped buses running on nine routes which ran towards the ground leaving lots of Saturday shoppers stranded in the city centre.

A mob of fans pelted shoppers with bread after snatching a basket of rolls in a subway.

One woman and her 17-year-old daughter had their hair pulled and milk showered over them by a mob in the Bull Ring.

Most of the public houses and bars in the city centre closed their doors.

Teddy’s, the city centre pub, was cleared by police after 150 fans started hurling glasses in a bar brawl.

The front door of the Red Lion pub in Lichfield Road, Aston, was ripped off its hinges, while other pubs were also vandalised.

Michael Evans, landlord of the Golden Cross at Aston Cross, Aston, said: “I have never been more terrified in my life. They went berserk. The language they used was vile, they grabbed bottles from the shelves, wouldn’t pay for drinks and ripped down the curtains.”

What the respective clubs and the sporting authorities had to say

Alan Bennett, Aston Villa club secretary: “It is our job to arrange attractive football matches for the public and I think we have done that today. Aston Villa and Rangers are two of the oldest football clubs in Britain and this is the first time they have played each other for 90 years.”

Aston Villa chairman Sir William Dugdale: “I don’t regret it (staging the match) at all. What I do regret is all the trouble.”

Rangers vice chairman Willie Waddell: “I am disgusted. When that happens your guts fall down to your knees and your tongue just closes up. It is the louts that are killing us. It is a bloody tragedy.”

Sports minister Dennis Howell, a spectactor at the game, having telephoned the home secretary who immediately ordered an inquiry into the violent scenes, said: “I found it absolutely appalling. It is impossible to be too strong about the disgraceful behaviour which I was unfortunate enough to witness.”

As for the football...

Here under the headline ‘...Villa so superior’ is the part of the Sunday Mercury report which focused on the football, rather than the violence

Aston Villa 2 Rangers 0 (Match abandoned after 53 minutes)

Ron Saunders must have been a lot happier before te 53rd minute abandonment as Villa - even without Andy Gray and Chris Nicholl - turned in a sharp, tactically superior game. It was Dennis Mortimer who got Villa’s first on 29 minutes when he finished off a sweet, swift and incisive move.

Alex Cropley began it when he chipped the ball out to Leighton Phillips who had pushed forward on the left. Phillips saw the gap in the Rangers’ defence, knocked the ball through to where Mortimer raced in and swept the ball past Kennedy.

In the 52nd minute a Ray Graydon corner was nodded back by John Deehan to Carrodus who turned and banged a left volley volley into the corner of the net.

Headlines

Here are some of the headlines and other phrases used to describe the violence in the Sports Argus on Saturday October 9 and Sunday Mercury on Sunday, October 10, 1976

ABANDONED Fan riots rock Brum

Villa, Rangers players run for their lives

Attraction that became warfare

THE RAVAGERS

Drunken soccer mobs riot, terrorise a city

Birmingham a city under siege

The gruesome Battle of Villa Park

Mob frenzy at Villa Park

All day in Birmingham it was sick Saturday

It reached a sickening crescendo of violence

Birmingham’s day of Tartan terror

Holte End was a seething mass of violence.