Sandy Chugg – who led Rangers’ terrifying Inter City Firm in the 80s and 90s – described use of the class-A drug among trouble-seeking football fans as “rife”.

He spoke to Daily Star Online in hospital, where he was receiving treatment for addiction to the powder, weeks before England fans clashed with police in Porto last night.

Bottles were thrown and damaged was caused in behaviour the Football Association has described as “embarrassing”, with two arrests made.

Police understand Three Lions fans were targeting Portugal fans with the bottles, with one man reported to have sustained a cut to his forehead.

And Sandy – who had been using cocaine for 25 years before his treatment – believes this type of behaviour is linked to cocaine.

He told Daily Star Online: “If you go to most football hooligan firms, all over Britain, even guys in their 50s, it’s rife, it’s an epidemic.

Sandy told us: “I think it’s just to keep people sober, because obviously you drink in pubs and that.

“I know I started taking cocaine because it was to keep me sober, because I wasn’t a big drinker, that was my introduction to cocaine because it kind of kept me okay and I could drink, and I could go all day, and that’s my opinion.

“But I would say cocaine use these days is still rife.

“I think for some people, yes (increased confidence for a fight), to me my personal opinion is it keeps a lot of people kind of just ‘no fooling about’, but yes I would agree it probably would (fighting).

“I was using it daily, on and off. Over 25 years, it started off social then it was during the week, but I’d say probably the last 10 years of my life has been practically every day.

“Cocaine and a wee bit more alcohol now, maybe the past five years and that, mostly hand in hand.

“It’s more a habit. It’s not like I’m taking lots of cocaine now, but I would say a wee bit every day because it’s habitual.”

At the height of Chugg’s hooliganism, he once witnessed Rangers fans throw a Celtic fan off a motorway bridge.

He also remembers a wild 1,000 vs 1,000 Glasgow street brawl, and remembers a fan being slashed so badly he was unable to move his eyebrow.

England’s behaviour comes after a report linking disorder and football games to increased use of cocaine inside stadiums.

Deputy Chief Constable Mark Roberts, policing lead for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, told The Independent officers got a “high return” of positive tests for cocaine after swabbing toilets and described drug use at football games as “rife”.

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