Football Special

[Jonny]

Since Virgin Trains stopped using their locomotive-hauled services, aren't they lots of Mk2 and 3 carriages in Virgin livery knocking about? (There should be plenty knocking about).

IIRC There are (or were) some faded Mk2 coaches at Meldon, apparently - although they might be back in use now for all I know.

 

[Chew Chew]

If you want to see a proper football special then try St Pauli in Germany. Their "Fanladen" train will run to the last game of the season at Mainz. Around 1000 St Pauli fans travelling through the night. The train has bars and a Disco Coach. Most if not all of the 1000 will arrive in Mainz in various stages of drunkeness, and they will all have a wonderful time too

I've been on a Fanladen trip with St Pauli.

A few years back I was over and joined up with them when they played Arminia Bielefeld away.

Absolutely great trip, shame the football was terrible! IIRC journey time was about 3 hours. Police escort from the train station to the ground and then back again after the match as there were rumours the Bielefeld right wing casuals were going to try and attack the St Pauli fans.

Here is a video of the Cologne football special getting into Hamburg for them to play St Pauli at the Millerntor. Looks fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEHmrXFkkTA

 

[steffo]

There was a 'special' for Villa fans from Horwich to Manchester last Saturday. Oddly it went to Victoria and not Piccadilly.

 

[Yorkswatcher]

For the last two years when Warrington have been at wembley for the cup final the club ran a special train from Bank Quay to Wembley.

Appears it was something from 70's & 80's old BR stock.

 

[DarloRich]

Simple, you can't prevent people travelling on a scheduled service, it would be impossible to enforce, but then how did BTP and British Rail stop fans in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

I'm in the North East, and for example say Sunderland are playing away, you wouldn't be able to stop SAFC Fans from using GC or EC to travel to an away game in London, what you could do is encourage fans to use Special Services to take them away by coming up with some deal between the Club, BTP and Network Rail, so on a Special SAFC Fans Train or possibly two trains, you could have one Calling at Durham and Darlington down the ECML, to pick fans up, and if there was demand for two trains, have one calling at Seaham and Hartlepool down the Durham Coast, meeting the ECML at Northallerton. You would not need BTP on Board, Club Stewards could be deployed onto the trains, which I'm sure GNER/EC has done by having Middlesbrough Football Club Stewards for Boro and Leeds away games.

But yes, you couldnt stop fans from going there own way, the same can be said for organised supporters coaches, you can't really force a fan not to take National Express or Megabus if they want to do that

It may have been said already but GNER used to advertise their trains to fans of the "north east big three" - I think they even did discount fares (they didn’t advertise much to us at Darlo!)

The only time I got an "extra" for football was when Darlo were "lucky losers" in the FA Cup and got Villa away. XC put on an extra Birmingham - Newcastle train and the old bill got everyone for Darlo on that. I seem to recall it ran about 10-15 minutes behind the service train.

Never had any trouble on trains that I have been on. Following Darlo it is the same people most of the time and the same couple of BTP officers and tends to be self policing. That is not to say there isnt banter or industrial language or drinking, however we aren’t smashing the train up or peeing in the aisles. I imagine it can be a bit intimidating to "normal’s" but no more so than if you get certain elements of the enthusiast/bashing fraternity!

The league/police always try to avoid a situation whereby, say, Sunderland and Newcastle will be playing in London on the same weekend (or, I have been told) anywhere along the same line to try and avoid potential flash points

 

[GingerSte]

It's not just the football though. I remember getting the 20:30 Kings X to Leeds on a saturday after a Six Nations match a few years ago. The atmosphere was brilliant. Standard and First Class were full (people upgraded so no worries on tickets). Again the language was a bit "industrial" (I'm going to use that term from now on) but there were no incidents and everybody left happy.

I'm also looking at travelling to Aintree for the Grand National next month. I know from Last year that there's a station directly opposite the ground. I remember the quaue at the station was huge, but we got a taxi back so don't know how quickly it was dealt with. Apparently trains to Liverpool Central are 8 per hour on race days so I hope this is enough.

 

[ReverendFozz]

It may have been said already but GNER used to advertise their trains to fans of the "north east big three" - I think they even did discount fares (they didn’t advertise much to us at Darlo!)

The only time I got an "extra" for football was when Darlo were "lucky losers" in the FA Cup and got Villa away. XC put on an extra Birmingham - Newcastle train and the old bill got everyone for Darlo on that. I seem to recall it ran about 10-15 minutes behind the service train.

Never had any trouble on trains that I have been on. Following Darlo it is the same people most of the time and the same couple of BTP officers and tends to be self policing. That is not to say there isnt banter or industrial language or drinking, however we aren’t smashing the train up or peeing in the aisles. I imagine it can be a bit intimidating to "normal’s" but no more so than if you get certain elements of the enthusiast/bashing fraternity!

The league/police always try to avoid a situation whereby, say, Sunderland and Newcastle will be playing in London on the same weekend (or, I have been told) anywhere along the same line to try and avoid potential flash points

I'm not 100% on this, but I dont think the Police in the area the games would take place and certainly BTP would not allow both Sunderland and Newcastle to play away on the same day in the same area, look at the fixtures and you will find when Sunderland are at home, Newcastle are away, I have never known them to be both at home or away at the same time, but obviously a cup draw cannot be predicted, in which case, they would use staggered kick offs, e.g Sunderland in London play a FA Cup game on Friday Evening, Newcastle game to kick off Dinnertime Sunday. This would not be a North East Exclusive problem, it would be a problem all over the country, the game I always wanted to witness was an FA Cup on neutral ground involving Newcastle and Sunderland and how the policing would be tackled in that instance.

going off topic a bit, You say you are a Darlo fan, I'm something an admirer of Darlo, used to support the other Black and Whites further up the ECML, fell out of love with football, then my mate was going on about Darlington and how rubbish they really were and suggested I go along to a game, I went to a friendly against York in 2006, and although I dont get to many games, I have been to a few since then, saw both Cup games against Leeds in the JPT in recent years, last went to York, last September, working at Sunderland on Matchdays means I don't get to many, although if I pack Sunderland in, in June, I will start going more next season

 

[mindfeeder]

Another thought to consider regarding the lack of Football Specials is that a lot of New Stadia are built out of town and therefore usually miles away from the nearest train station. For example, my club Oxford play 3 miles from Oxford Station.

Although the freight only line to the Mini plant in Cowley run on the border of one of the car parks.

 

[ReverendFozz]

It's not just the football though. I remember getting the 20:30 Kings X to Leeds on a saturday after a Six Nations match a few years ago. The atmosphere was brilliant. Standard and First Class were full (people upgraded so no worries on tickets). Again the language was a bit "industrial" (I'm going to use that term from now on) but there were no incidents and everybody left happy.

I'm also looking at travelling to Aintree for the Grand National next month. I know from Last year that there's a station directly opposite the ground. I remember the quaue at the station was huge, but we got a taxi back so don't know how quickly it was dealt with. Apparently trains to Liverpool Central are 8 per hour on race days so I hope this is enough.

I have travelled back from KX once with a smoking carriage full of alcoholically(i think i invented a new word there) fuelled Scottish Rugby Fans heading upto Murrayfield for a game once, not sure if it was against England or what, but it was most entertaining train journey I have been on, the smoking carriage was also the most entertaining for a laugh, and as a smoker, you didn't your 20 fags, sit in there and your nicotine fix was sorted, this day, the language was bad at times, but I remember this lovely old lady going up to one of these guys and saying something like "watch your language, theres ladies present, you wouldn't swear like that if your mum or grandma were here, would you" and at that moment everybody in the carriage made eyes at this fella as he simply said "Sorry, love" and quietly got on with his can of Stella

 

[S19]

Another thought to consider regarding the lack of Football Specials is that a lot of New Stadia are built out of town and therefore usually miles away from the nearest train station. For example, my club Oxford play 3 miles from Oxford Station.

Although the freight only line to the Mini plant in Cowley run on the border of one of the car parks.

My Club, Morecambe, have built a new stadium next to a railway line. Sadly the line sees one service a day to Heysham Port and whatever Flask traffic there is each week.

Shame there isn't a little halt there

 

[Flamingo]

I'm also looking at travelling to Aintree for the Grand National next month. I know from Last year that there's a station directly opposite the ground. I remember the quaue at the station was huge, but we got a taxi back so don't know how quickly it was dealt with. Apparently trains to Liverpool Central are 8 per hour on race days so I hope this is enough.

I love working the racing trains. Everybody is dressed like they are going to a particularly chav wedding!

 

[shotts56]

Simple, you can't prevent people travelling on a scheduled service, it would be impossible to enforce

Not strictly true. There are lots of football specials run from Glasgow Central to Mount Florida when Scotland are playing at Hampden, and there is always a large, but pretty efficient, queuing system in operation for them.

There are also service trains to Mount Florida running as normal, but if you try and board them when you are wearing kilts/Scotland top/any sort of football attire, you do get turned away at the ticket check at the gate and told to go on the football special.

I'm pretty sure they're not allowed to do that, but it happens and life's too short to stand and argue with someone over it.

 

[DarloRich]

going off topic a bit, You say you are a Darlo fan, I'm something an admirer of Darlo, used to support the other Black and Whites further up the ECML, fell out of love with football, then my mate was going on about Darlington and how rubbish they really were and suggested I go along to a game, I went to a friendly against York in 2006, and although I dont get to many games, I have been to a few since then, saw both Cup games against Leeds in the JPT in recent years, last went to York, last September, working at Sunderland on Matchdays means I don't get to many, although if I pack Sunderland in, in June, I will start going more next season[/QUOTE]

We don’t have that many admirers so you are more than welcome! I used to have a season ticket and go to every game home and away, mostly by train, but I don’t get to many home games now that i am down south but am home this weekend for the Trophy semi first leg v Gateshead.

On the field we had a terrible time last year. You know when you go to the game and think "I could do better than them" well last year you could! The Titanic stayed afloat longer than us!

After bit of hangover we are finally going in the right direction. Unbeaten in 8th, closing on the play offs with games in hand AND an FA Trophy two legged semi v Gateshead - maybe, just maybe a trip to Wembley (which is a home game for me!)

As I said ANY extra fans we get is very welcome as we are in a bit of a mess of field again so get yourself down the Stadio Della Darlo, buy a few pints in one of our bars and have a good time, oh and bring a few mates if you can!

Now IF we get to Wembley I wonder if EC will put on extra trains for us. I forgot about both of our play off defeats and the GNER specials put on to get us to and from KX. Coming back, into Darlo at 2 am after loosing in the pouring rain to a poor Peterborough team AND being pi**ed by a police horse outside Wembley was a really GREAT day out!

Oh and I went on a Crickex if such a thing exists when Durham got to and won a one day final at Lords. Another GNER HST special non stop form Darlo to London!

 

[mindfeeder]

My Club, Morecambe, have built a new stadium next to a railway line. Sadly the line sees one service a day to Heysham Port and whatever Flask traffic there is each week.

Shame there isn't a little halt there

It's the same at Coventry's new-ish ground. It's right next to the Coventry - Nuneaton which only sees one service an hour in each direction. It's crying out for a halt!

Oh and as a side note I didn't make it up to the Globe Arena this season but I shall be there next season.

 

[Matt Taylor]

Another thought to consider regarding the lack of Football Specials is that a lot of New Stadia are built out of town and therefore usually miles away from the nearest train station. For example, my club Oxford play 3 miles from Oxford Station.

But to be fair, the Manor Ground was not exactly an easy place to get to from the station either.

 

[OuterDistant]

The Britannia Stadium should really have a halt, being right next to the Manchester branch of the WCML. They're not exactly short of space to put one there, either.

 

[spoony]

A a Sunderland fan who likes his away games, I would love to travel by football special to matches. However for this to work I think stewards/police would need to keep a low profile. If the authorities are seen to be heavy handed, fans will simply not travel on specials.

As for the routes I dont think they should run on say North East - London routes where there are already established services. For our match against Arsenal last Saturday I managed to get train tickets for £24, unless special prices were comparable people would not use them

They would be more useful running Sunderland to Blackpool for example when we played them in January. I had to change at Carlisle then Preston and the journey took 4 hours and cost £32. Im sure a load of people would have used this service had it been ran and been similarly priced.

Off topic but as its already been mentioned on this thread, I shall be travelling down to Darlo for the Darlo v Heed match this Saturday and am really looking forward to s bit of non league cup action

 

[londonbridge]

Another Sunderland fan here but this time London based. I'm in the London branch of the supporters association,our travel officer has an arrangement with Grand Central for travel from Kings Cross-Sunderland for home games,she notifies them of the home match days and takes bookings,then several days before the match tells them how many tickets we want. We have a minimum requirement of ten and can have up to forty members travelling in the group. We pay the travel officer and turn up at Kings X for the 0757 and get the 17.30 back on home match Saturdays. We get a group rate of £34 return. Before Grand Central we had a similar arrangement with GNER when we had to go via Newcastle. In the past the travel officer was able to arrange group trips to away games using other TOCs,but in the last few seasons these have declined-obviously there are no trips for away matches in London,and the main TOC we would use for most of the other away games is Virgin,who will not take group bookings from football supporters.

 

[ReverendFozz]

A a Sunderland fan who likes his away games, I would love to travel by football special to matches. However for this to work I think stewards/police would need to keep a low profile. If the authorities are seen to be heavy handed, fans will simply not travel on specials.

As for the routes I dont think they should run on say North East - London routes where there are already established services. For our match against Arsenal last Saturday I managed to get train tickets for £24, unless special prices were comparable people would not use them

They would be more useful running Sunderland to Blackpool for example when we played them in January. I had to change at Carlisle then Preston and the journey took 4 hours and cost £32. Im sure a load of people would have used this service had it been ran and been similarly priced.

Off topic but as its already been mentioned on this thread, I shall be travelling down to Darlo for the Darlo v Heed match this Saturday and am really looking forward to s bit of non league cup action

Wasn't heavy handed policing the reason Sunderland Fans were unhappy with a Special after a Pre Season Game in Edinburgh, nothing to my knowledge happened on the train, but the Old Bill, so I can see where things can go belly up, and greetings like the one at Central Station may discourage fans from travelling on a designated Special, I'd been to the match that day, but luckily didn't travel back, deciding to turn out in Edinburgh instead.

The idea of designated a designated for trips like Blackpool would be a good idea in my eyes, as it is an awkward one to get to, could you not have used TPE York, Leeds or Manchester, last time I went to Blackpool in 2005, I went Durham-Manchester, Manchester-Bolton then replacement bus to Blackpool, coming back, I went Preston-Manchester-Newcastle-Sunderland.

A designated Special may be good for, say, night games in a hard to get to place, e.g a Monday Night kickoff at Pompey, which is ok to get to, but a sod to get back without having to stay overnight, if your on the train, or Designated Cup Specials for the Big FA Cup Games

 

[spoony]

Wasn't heavy handed policing the reason Sunderland Fans were unhappy with a Special after a Pre Season Game in Edinburgh, nothing to my knowledge happened on the train, but the Old Bill, so I can see where things can go belly up, and greetings like the one at Central Station may discourage fans from travelling on a designated Special, I'd been to the match that day, but luckily didn't travel back, deciding to turn out in Edinburgh instead.

The idea of designated a designated for trips like Blackpool would be a good idea in my eyes, as it is an awkward one to get to, could you not have used TPE York, Leeds or Manchester, last time I went to Blackpool in 2005, I went Durham-Manchester, Manchester-Bolton then replacement bus to Blackpool, coming back, I went Preston-Manchester-Newcastle-Sunderland.

A designated Special may be good for, say, night games in a hard to get to place, e.g a Monday Night kickoff at Pompey, which is ok to get to, but a sod to get back without having to stay overnight, if your on the train, or Designated Cup Specials for the Big FA Cup Games

The timetable for getting back to Sunderland was too tight. We would have been sweating on a four minute connection time onto Grand Central at York and there was nothing further later going to Newcastle either.

 

[GingerSte]

I love working the racing trains. Everybody is dressed like they are going to a particularly chav wedding!

But I don't have any Burberry! :roll:

(Does this mean that I have to get one ear pierced?)

 

[Flamingo]

But I don't have any Burberry! :roll:

(Does this mean that I have to get one ear pierced?)

No, but you have to wear a tie with a badly tied knot, open about four inches from the neck, with the top button undone, and a suit of a check that Jeeves would not approve of!

Females have to be wearing something that exposes too much flesh for their age and/or weight.

 

[GingerSte]

No, but you have to wear a tie with a badly tied knot, open about four inches from the neck, with the top button undone, and a suit of a check that Jeeves would not approve of!

Females have to be wearing something that exposes too much flesh for their age and/or weight.

Does the knot have to be as wide as my head?

 

[Flamingo]

It depends - about the size of a baby's head is the fashion. What age are you?

 

[DarloRich]

Off topic but as its already been mentioned on this thread, I shall be travelling down to Darlo for the Darlo v Heed match this Saturday and am really looking forward to s bit of non league cup action

You will be more than welcome! Threw away another 2 points the other night in the league v Heed by giving another late goal away.

I am on my way up from MK for this one - we dont get may cup semis down at Darlo!

 

[londonbridge]

Wasn't heavy handed policing the reason Sunderland Fans were unhappy with a Special after a Pre Season Game in Edinburgh, nothing to my knowledge happened on the train, but the Old Bill, so I can see where things can go belly up, and greetings like the one at Central Station may discourage fans from travelling on a designated Special, I'd been to the match that day, but luckily didn't travel back, deciding to turn out in Edinburgh instead.

At the match it was clearly announced that a special train had been laid on which would go directly to Sunderland. Said train then arrived into Newcastle. When the fans were allowed off the train they were met by two sections of police,one of whom were guiding them towards the metro whilst a second line were aggressively pushing them back. Scuffles broke out and at least one supporter received serious injuries after repeatedly being struck by a police officer. The police made a big deal out of alleged injuries to several of the police dogs that were present. They claimed that they'd received word that an organised fight had been arranged between Sunderland fans and Newcastle supporters meeting them from the special-despite the fact that the Sunderland fans had boarded the special in the belief that,as they'd been told,it would go directly to Sunderland. A second train had arrived at a similar time to the special and the police later issued conflicting statements as to which train the fans had disembarked from. Within several days of the incident an internal investigation cleared the police of any wrongdoing. Some Sunderland supporters who had been caught up in the trouble had their season tickets confiscated by the club despite the fact they hadn't been convicted of anything. The Football Supporters Federation called for an independent investigation into the trouble conducted by people with no affiliation to the North East. The resulting cases have been dragging on for almost two years now.

 

[qpsnapper]

Not strictly true. There are lots of football specials run from Glasgow Central to Mount Florida when Scotland are playing at Hampden, and there is always a large, but pretty efficient, queuing system in operation for them.

There are also service trains to Mount Florida running as normal, but if you try and board them when you are wearing kilts/Scotland top/any sort of football attire, you do get turned away at the ticket check at the gate and told to go on the football special.

I'm pretty sure they're not allowed to do that, but it happens and life's too short to stand and argue with someone over it.

This doesn't happen in my experience, there are always plenty of football fans (wearing their kilts/football tops etc) on the normal service trains to Mount Florida on the night of a Scotland game.

 

[mindfeeder]

But to be fair, the Manor Ground was not exactly an easy place to get to from the station either.

Wasn't that hard! About a 15 minute bus ride.

 

[ReverendFozz]

At the match it was clearly announced that a special train had been laid on which would go directly to Sunderland. Said train then arrived into Newcastle. When the fans were allowed off the train they were met by two sections of police,one of whom were guiding them towards the metro whilst a second line were aggressively pushing them back. Scuffles broke out and at least one supporter received serious injuries after repeatedly being struck by a police officer. The police made a big deal out of alleged injuries to several of the police dogs that were present. They claimed that they'd received word that an organised fight had been arranged between Sunderland fans and Newcastle supporters meeting them from the special-despite the fact that the Sunderland fans had boarded the special in the belief that,as they'd been told,it would go directly to Sunderland. A second train had arrived at a similar time to the special and the police later issued conflicting statements as to which train the fans had disembarked from. Within several days of the incident an internal investigation cleared the police of any wrongdoing. Some Sunderland supporters who had been caught up in the trouble had their season tickets confiscated by the club despite the fact they hadn't been convicted of anything. The Football Supporters Federation called for an independent investigation into the trouble conducted by people with no affiliation to the North East. The resulting cases have been dragging on for almost two years now.

Yeah, I remember the announcement about the Special saying it was a direct link back to Sunderland, Altohugh it was hard to the PA, and the accent baflled me at first as I find it hard to understand most Scottish Accents, when I got home the next day, it was the talk of anybody and everybody who was there and was thinking "why in gods name did they show up in Newcastle", IIRC correctly wasn't the bulk of Newcastles down in Birmingham play West Brom that day...

AFAIK there has been some successful prosecutions over this, I read something in the Sunderland Echo and some pleaded guilty, I always understood it was the Police who pretty much caused it, as by the accounts I have heard about this and by what you said, it sounded the Police were boxing them in, with nowhere to run or hide, it was a kill zone, the injured guy you refer too was that the guy who took a truncheon to his napper and was unconscious in a pool of blood?

I always thought Niall Quinn reacted way too quick by confiscating season tickets, what happened to innocent till proven guilty, but my opinion on that is, The Old Bill leaned on Quinny to get the bans slapped on, I can see the club p.o.v on this, they don't trouble hanging round like a bad smell, but it was too quick, especially before the true facts were established

 

[londonbridge]

the injured guy you refer too was that the guy who took a truncheon to his napper and was unconscious in a pool of blood?

That's the one.