APFSCIL
"The Wee Blue Devil"
The London Branch are members of APFSCIL or to give it its full title The Association of Provincial Football Supporters' Clubs in London. APFSCIL's inaugural meeting was away back on 14 February 1975. Its aim was to create an association of supporters' clubs in London but whose home matches were not in London. Initially member clubs consisted entirely of Football League Clubs (no Premier League back then!). Nowadays there is 54 member clubs which include 5 Scottish clubs (Aberdeen, Dundee United, Hearts, Hibernian and Rangers) plus London Scottish (the London Tartan Army not the rugby club of the same name!)
One of APFSCIL's great successes has been travel. It negotiated great group discount travel with what was then British Rail with its considerable bargaining power. It is to their great credit that they have always encouraged joint travel between clubs. I travelled as a guest with Manchester City in the mid 1980's to a home match against Nottingham Forest. Both APFSCIL clubs sat next to each other on the outward and return journeys enjoying each others company. In different parts of the journey they were joined by other APFSCIL clubs travelling to or from their match who joined in the football talk. This made a lasting expression on me especially as hooliganism was rife throughout the English game at that time.
ALL RANGERS SUPPORTERS KNOW THAT THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN BEING AT THE MATCH-PLEASE GO TO THE TICKETS AND TRAVEL PAGE FOR DETAILS OF HOW YOU CAN GET YOUR MATCH TICKETS. WE WILL FOLLOW RANGERS.
The London Branch were invited to apply for membership in the early 1980's which we did. We already had an excellent contract with British Rail in place but we socialised with other clubs by taking part in APFSCIL's football, darts and pool leagues. Back in the 1980's the London Branch travelled up most weekends for matches. This would normally consist of travelling overnight on Friday and travelling back overnight on Saturday. Our club was fortunate that we never needed to share travel with anyone due to our high number of active members but we were always willing to include supporters of other APFSCIL clubs on our club trips. One club who took advantage of this was Aberdeen who would sometimes travel with us to matches between the clubs at Ibrox and Pittodrie. This was not only to benefit Aberdeen however. In season 1986-87 at the beginning of the Graeme Souness era Rangers were on course to win the League for the first time since 1978. A draw against Aberdeen at Pittodrie on 2 May was the far from easy task the Gers had to do to clinch it. We had a large membership at this time and normally got plenty of tickets from the Supporters Association. It was the last season where season ticket holders would consist of a small minority of those attending home matches. Rangers for this match allocated tickets to all season ticket holders which severely restricted the tickets that were allocated to the London Branch. Interest in this match was tremendous and tickets were like gold dust. We turned to Dougie Baxter and the other guys at the Aberdeen club for help. At best we thought they might get us a couple. They did us a big favour and got us quite a few from various sources including a number from an Aberdeen player all at face value. Pure class! We made the long journey up to Aberdeen with only one member travelling without a match ticket. On arrival at Aberdeen station we "encouraged" a ticket tout to reduce his price quite considerably and one ticket was purchased. The rest as they say is history. Rangers got a 1-1 draw with Terry Butcher scoring and the league was ours.
Another memorable time was when the London Branch were due to take part in an APFSCIL London Bridges Walk for the Goaldiggers Charity. We were up at Dundee on the Saturday supporting Rangers but had expected to arrive back in London on Sunday morning several hours before the start. Enough time to get a wash and change , some breakfast and a leisurely stroll to the start. The reality was very different with our train being considerably late (some things don't change over the years!) and us having to rush to get there in time. Jimmy Hill (yeah the guy Scottish fans sing songs about) was about to start the walk when he heard us marching to the starting line singing Rangers songs. When he heard the reason for the delay he was amazed that we were willing to take part at all! We are Rangers supporters so we all completed it.
Nowadays there are no overnight trains on a Saturday and no trains that allow us to get up and back on the same day for Rangers matches in Scotland. If this situation changed I feel certain the London Branch would be interested. Our football team continues to play in the APFSCIL Football League and have been League Champions on a number of occasions. Please see the Football Team page on this website. We currently do not play in the darts and pool leagues but if anyone would like to start a team in either please contact social secretary Duncan Ferguson. Matches are played during the week at mainly central London pubs. Perhaps the odd friendly match could be arranged to see what interest there is.
APFSCIL meetings are usually held on the first Monday of each month at the Exmouth Arms , 1 Starcross Street, London NW1 2HR and start at 7.30pm. (Nearest tube Euston)The next APFSCIL Meeting is on Monday 4 January 2010. John Jobber is our APFSCIL delegate but he is often accompanied by other members of our club. Any member attending will be made very welcome. If you have any questions please contact John on john.jobber@openreach.co.uk or refer to the APFSCIL website http://www.apfscil.org.uk/ . Minutes of recent meetings are available on the APFSCIL website.
Robbie Jenkins