[9][10][11][12][13] The CCS went on to be regarded by some rivals and observers as the dominant hooligan gang in the Scottish scene from the latter part of the 1980s until the mid-1990s[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][excessive citations] and also from outside Scotland as one of the best from north of the border.

[43] Coupled with the ongoing poor economic climate throughout the country, for young men who wished to maintain pride in themselves as well as a sense of belonging to something the new casual hooligan culture was an alternative route to embark upon.

[48] This back-street public house, and the convenience of a café and betting office below it, kept the Hibs boys out of the eyes of police in the days before adequate CCTV coverage of the city centre.

[2] Often though the CCS would head to the Ladbrokes bookmakers that was situated on Easter Road at the junction with Bothwell Street to hang around the premises and wait for their moment of opportunity to take on other firms.

Word of mouth was the usual method of relaying to gang members of the where and when to meet though in the 1984/85 season the section in the local evening paper put aside for football fans travelling into and out of Edinburgh was also used on occasion.

[2][53] Similarly, as with games at Easter Road the CCS would gain entry to the opposition's end whenever possible, although this time it meant entering the part of the ground designated for the home supporters, such as against Celtic[41] and St.

[45] When the casual presence at Scottish football was eventually acknowledged by the authorities the hooligans travelling in this manner became easier targets for the police to intercept and contain.

At a match at Parkhead the following season the Hibs boys were planning to attack the Celtic casuals inside the stadium so needed to be up to speed as to where the CSC assembled at that time.

A friendly fixture against the south London side Millwall in 1990 threw up a completely new challenge of getting to know the lay-out of the area where the game was to be played, transport links and crucially, where the opposition mob's favoured pubs would be.

[41] From the mid 1990s onwards police intelligence efforts and the effective use of closed-circuit television cameras impinged upon these methods of initiating gang fights so meetings via mobile phones became the preferred means to make arrangements with rival mobs.

For example, during the 1994/95 season, for a visit of Dundee hooligans, it was a public house in a quiet white collar part of the New Town area[53] and against the Rangers mob it was at a suburban railway station in Slateford, which was regarded as deep within Hearts fans territory.

For the 1996 Euro Championship game between England and Scotland a pub with a suitably sized car park for a mob fight was opted for in the London area of High Barnet, ten miles away from the usual battleground of Trafalgar Square.

[60] Another approach employed to evade police observation involved meeting representatives of an opposing gang the day before a match and showing them a route and pub to congregate in that could avoid CCTV detection.

[71][72][73][74][full citation needed] In the brief appearances the club has made in European competitions since the inception of the gang there has also been incidents of note against FC Liege, Anderlecht, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and Maribor.

The police have been quoted in the Scottish press as stating the gang (or its members) have carried out or are responsible for organising armed robberies, shoplifting sprees, street muggings, housebreakings, protection rackets, extortion, drug dealing and murders as well as continuous public order offences around night life in pubs and clubs.

[81][82][83] After mismanagement during the late 1980s, Hibernian were on the brink of financial ruin in 1990 and in June of that year, Wallace Mercer, the chairman of Edinburgh derby rivals Hearts, proposed a merger of the two clubs.

The CCS launched a graffiti campaign aimed directly at the Hearts chairman as well as issuing threats via the media and in letters and telephone calls to Tynecastle.

[85][86] The 'Mercer' derby The first match to be played between the clubs after the failed takeover bid was at Easter Road the following September and in anticipation of trouble the police cancelled weekend leave and drafted in extra officers from outside Edinburgh.

On the section of the east terracing next to the Dunbar end there were outbreaks of disorder throughout the first half, including incursions onto the playing field that caused the game to be halted and players' leaving the pitch until order was restored.

[87][88] The police entered the Hearts dressing room during half-time and made a plea with them not to score any more goals as there was a real threat of a full pitch invasion by Hibs fans.

[46][98][99][100][101][102][43] By 2005 the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden Park had in its popular culture section a display case that contained a pair of Adidas training shoes and a sweater worn by a Hibs casual in the 1980s.

[103] The author Irvine Welsh has included many references to the gang in his works with the most noted being the eponymous story in The Acid House collection and the novel Marabou Stork Nightmares.

In The Acid House Coco Bryce is a Hibs boy who while tripping on LSD is struck by lightning which also strikes an ambulance containing a woman in the process of giving birth.

[113] In June 1989 the Radio Forth documentary magazine Forth File aired its interviews with six members of the CCS, Jim Gray Managing Director of Hibernian F.C., Alistair Darling MP, Superintendent Tom Wood of Lothian & Borders police and Bert Moorhouse a senior lecturer at Glasgow University.

[114][115] The Trouble on the Terraces documentary released in 1994 on VHS format looked at football hooliganism in the UK and on the European continent prior to the Euro 96 tournament.

[116] Sky Sports Soccer AM team unwittingly accepted a request from one of the CCS for a chance to represent Hibernian in the shows Fans of the week feature and seven of them were invited to appear on the 2 September 2000 broadcast.

The Hibs boys travelled to London on the Friday and their evening was spent drinking, while some were smoking cannabis as well, as they recounted hooligan tales from the past which ran into the wee small hours.

While in the dressing room as one of the production assistants was handing out the white Hibernian away jerseys provided by the club they noticed that the Hibs casuals were wearing t-shirts with hooligan slogans on them and instructed them that during the show not to make any noise until prompted and on no account should they reveal their CCS shirts while on air.

Also, both of the shows presenters at the time, Tim Lovejoy and Helen Chamberlain, went into the room and reiterated the instructions regarding behaviour with the latter revealing the Torquay United tattoo on her posterior upon request from the still inebriated Scotsmen.

Included in the show was coverage of how the police dealt with a Category A match involving Hibernian away to Hearts in October of that year and the casual gangs associated with both clubs.