BR Adexes and Merrymakers

[EbbwJunction1]

I remember joining a Mystex at Cardiff and we sat in a compartment with 3 others who had joined the train at Swansea. When we started talking about where the mystery destination might be, they looked puzzled. The train had been advertised as an Adex to Paignton at Swansea!

I think I've mentioned before being told on a tour of the Panel Box at Newport that the station announcer (based in the Panel Box) had once said that "the next train on Platform three is the Mystery Excursion to (xxx - I can't remember where)"! The result was that the announcer was not in future told where the train was going.

 

[Ostrich]

On the LM Euston Division in the 1980s the split was...

Football charter trains were organised by the football clubs themselves (or the accredited supporters club) and tickets would only be sold to season ticket holders/registered supporters. The organisers would steward the train.
Footexes were relief trains on which all other supporters travelled, at the normal fares, to keep them away from the general public. These would usually have a contingent of BTP officers in an attempt to keep order.

Football Charter: In the late 1960's Birmingham City FC inaugurated the "Beau Brummie Travellers Club" for which you registered, got a membership card and a pin badge. They ran a members-only football charter from New Street to Rotherham on 18th February 1967 (I've just looked it up) for an FA Cup 4th Round tie which I signed up for; it was a single Class 25 from memory. The coaching stock must have been fitted with some sort of rudimentary broadcast system, because the game finished 0-0 and I recall the Blues' captain, Malcolm Beard, having to apologise to the train on the return leg for missing a penalty!

Footexes: Three other Birmingham City away games I attended in the same era were not so pleasant. Leeds United was the worst, the Birmingham fans were corralled by the local police outside Leeds station and escorted frog-marched to Elland Road, surrounded by police horses. Leeds fans ambushed the return train not far out of the station, throwing missiles from an overbridge; a corridor window in the compartment coach I was in was shattered.

The game at Ipswich passed off without any problems, but there was trouble at Norwich station on the return journey from the fixture there - I recall Birmingham fans throwing missiles (bottles?) out of the windows at the train in the adjacent platform as we departed. It was also memorable for an incident on the outward journey. I remember what the haulage was quite distinctly, because when we were bowling at speed somewhere across the Fenlands, I decided to find the loo or the buffet or something, went to the end of the corridor, pulled open the gangway door, and found myself staring at the back cab of a Class 47 ........ Guard duly alerted!

 

[Pigeon]

I remember in the late 70s seeing what was probably a Footex relief at Birmingham New Street. It was after a game at Aston Villa and the away supporters were leaving on it. I think they had lost. I happened to be on an adjacent island platform (4&5 maybe). There was a lot of shouting, banging and the sound of smashing glass just before departure. Once it left I could see that the platform (3 maybe) was covered in glass. The railways probably save a lot of money by not carrying football supporters.

So many tales like this - footexes having half the windows smashed and the seat cushions chucked out onto the lineside - make me wonder why they didn't just follow the suggestion of your last sentence. Maybe there were enough surplus Mk1s dodging the scrapyard that they could assemble footex rakes entirely out of "next stop the chop" vehicles, and when they stopped running them it was because the supply had finally run out? Still leaves the question of how they found guards willing to work them, though, and for that matter what the PW staff thought about the risk of being decapitated by a flying seat cushion as one went past.

 

[Gloster]

So many tales like this - footexes having half the windows smashed and the seat cushions chucked out onto the lineside - make me wonder why they didn't just follow the suggestion of your last sentence. Maybe there were enough surplus Mk1s dodging the scrapyard that they could assemble footex rakes entirely out of "next stop the chop" vehicles, and when they stopped running them it was because the supply had finally run out? Still leaves the question of how they found guards willing to work them, though, and for that matter what the PW staff thought about the risk of being decapitated by a flying seat cushion as one went past.

I presume that they reckoned that if they didn’t run Footex, the football supporters would travel on regular trains. It also meant that you moved them at predictable times for the police from one place to another without the risk of bands roving intermediate stations if they had to change. It was a case of heads you lose, tails you lose. I would think that guards probably just locked themselves in their compartments.