Football Specials

Football Specials are trains in Great Britain chartered for football fans to travel to away games.

They were most commonly trains operated by British Rail during the 1970s and 1980s. Some services do still operate on the privatised network, but they are rarer.

During the peak of football hooliganism in the 1970s and 1980s, Football Specials were chartered to ferry fans to away games. However these were only popular during weekends. Many mid-week trains would have been canceled. One famous example of this was in 1975 when Liverpool arranged for five 'specials' to be put on by railway services for a game against West Ham United; however only one left the station.

The Inter City Firm that follows West Ham United, was named after the InterCity trains they travelled on. The firm following Leeds United, the Leeds Service Crew, named themselves after the regular services they travelled on due to them being less heavily policed than football specials.

At a transport security conference in London on 14 February 2007, the deputy head of British Transport Police, Deputy Chief Constable, Andy Trotter, called for re-introduction of the Football Specials, warning that fans were disrupting trains. Trotter said his resources were "being stretched by the pressure of herding growing numbers of fans around the country on match days. Even when services to match day hotspots such as London, Manchester and Liverpool pass off without arrests, non-football going passengers can be frightened or irritated by fans' behaviour". Adding that, "There is an argument for the football specials, the trains that take fans backwards and forwards, but that's a matter for the train operators." He said he would like to see fans taken off trains, "I would much prefer if there is something done not to have them coming on the system at all."

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