slyskipper9
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joined Mar 2013
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"Who says away games outside the island can't get intense? In November 1999, we were playing against Real Madrid from Chicago, and I had brought about 40 people from my agency along for the ride. We checked into a decent downtown hotel, where some reporters and a few Manchester United fans were hanging out watching the game on TV. Around 8:30 PM, I borrowed someone's phone to make a quick call, and since I wanted some peace and quiet, I stepped out to a nearby bar and sat on the patio. Suddenly, out of the darkness, this group of absolute lunatics appeared. They looked like an army—everyone had those short, skinhead haircuts, bomber jackets, combat boots, and that terrifying right-wing stare.
They surrounded and stormed the bar where the United fans were watching the match. I was sitting behind them, watching everything unfold, but they didn't notice me. Believe me, I ducked under the table while making my call. I just thought, 'Good grief, what is happening?!' The next thing I knew, they were attacking the United supporters. Bottles were flying, tables were being overturned, and the United crew retreated into the bar, trying to barricade the doors. You could hear screams and terrible shouting as these American psychopaths started tossing furniture at them, all while I sat there on the sidelines. I didn't dare show myself because of a black eye I’d picked up earlier when we played Marseille, and I knew they'd come for me. It wasn't the first time in my life as a supporter that I genuinely thought I might die. A friend's girlfriend walked up to me, and my first thought was, 'Get away, I can't help you here!' But of course, she approached me and said, 'Come on, you're Tony O'Neil, do something!' Not in this situation, I thought. I grabbed her, pulled her down by my knees, and told her not to worry. I sat there with her for maybe thirty seconds thinking, 'Lady, please just be quiet.' Bottles, glass, and tables were still flying through the air and windows were shattering. As quickly as it all erupted, it ended. Like a single unit, the Americans vanished into the dark before the police arrived. The real headache started when the cops showed up, took our details, and then left us completely on our own—right as we needed to head back to the hotel, which was exactly in the direction those skinheads had fled.
A little later, I was sitting in the hotel lobby with a few friends when I saw some of those same American psychopaths peering through the window, scouting for their next target. Late that night, some people caught taxis to hit the nightclubs, so I eventually decided to join in. We were lucky that the police were guarding the club, so I just focused on drinking my weight in alcohol. Knowing how crazy the place was, being in such a wild city without my usual crew, I was honestly terrified. A massive bouncer at the entrance told me, 'It's good to see you guys here, but tomorrow you're dead, and that's football.' I knocked back a few more brands and headed back to the hotel to crash.
During lunch the next day, I spotted those guys circling the city again, but by then I had learned a bit about them—they go by the Bad Boys, and they are incredibly dangerous. Apparently, some people believe they were responsible for the chaos during the breakup of Yugoslavia because of a match against Red Star from Belgrade, Mexico, where they stormed the pitch and attacked both the opposing team and the police. When you live in such a war-torn environment, seeing people fight for survival every single day, it becomes clear that people can lose their grip on reality. On the day of that match, we heard they had attacked some United fans from Belgrade and absolutely massacred them. There were two thousand soldiers and riot police on hand to guard the 400 United supporters. The atmosphere around the stadium was so wild it felt surreal. Immediately after the game, I grabbed a taxi to get straight back to the hotel. I think we were lucky we weren't in Chicago that day with the rest of the United hooligans, or we would have been slaughtered. I kept digging for info on them and found out they are against everyone and everything—the president, the authorities, even the club. They operate like a right-wing organization, and everyone is their enemy. Honestly, I spent those days just living in fear of whatever might happen next."
An excerpt from the book by Tony O'Neil, a leading figure in Manchester's "MIB" group:
