Famous Scottish Street Gangs from Edinburgh.

I remember the Edinburgh gangs of the 1970's, living in Leith at that time. I recall going to St Mary disco in 1972 and dancing to Rod Stewart's Maggie May and Skinhead Moonstomp by Symarip - good time. Scary as well and I remember being beaten up by J*** Jenn**** after being confronted by the usual challenge of "I heard you said that you could take me". Given that he was later to be imprisoned for stabbing someone, I had a lucky escape.
Gangs in the early seventies were influenced by Clockwork Orange (Clockwork Leith Team etc) and by tartan (of all things) and for a while there was the Tartan gangs such as Tartan Leith Team and Tartan Drylaw, each having its own colour of tartan identification.
There was a time when if you were in Drylaw and pulled up a young kid to torment, he would inevitably say "you can't touch me I'm Squarey's wee brother". Only later did you realise that all the young kids were saying that in order to avoid trouble.
The Leader off the YLT and his cohorts would hang around the bottom of Leith Walk in the doorway of Woolworths and would greet you with "Hello lads YLT rules all". Strange days indeed.
Other gangs at that time were Young Hutchie which to my recall seemed to consist of only two members, one called Roddie who was quite scary.
I have a lot of memories from that time and this discussion thread has brought them back - some good some bad. I do remember life then for a teenager like me as fraught with threat and danger and I am glad that my own children have not experienced this.
I was always on the fringes of the YLT and pretending to be part of it helped me to escape some difficult situations.

Welcome to a2k, maggiemei. I enjoyed your post.

I'm from Los Angeles, quite a different place than Edinburgh, but we too had gangs, and I've done some reading about Edinburgh in the past.

Young Mental Oxgangs?? Are you sure??? Anyone who was around from the late 60s to 80s know that the gang from Oxgangs was called Bar-Ox.

The O’Brien’s? They’re junkies now. They bullied the wrong guy and one got his leg chopped off in the street from a gang in Muirhouse. The same gang caught one of the other brothers while he was in bed sleeping and nearly killed him. The brother joe grassed everyone. Then if brother John was charged with rape. The O’Brien’s were horrible but heroin caught up with them. Karma.

Some corrections. It was Young Leith Team...'Lieth' Lol.
Young Lochend SHAMROCK.
Young Stockie (full stop).
Young Niddrie TERROR.
BAR OX (YMO Lol)

Whot? no YMD ?? Young Mental Drylaw (all Jambos btw)
Morningside Ravers ? You're kidding?!!
When did Embra streeet gangs first appear? The ones who used spray paint started in the 1960s, following the 'example' of the Glasgow conterparts eg Calton Tongs, Drumchapel Bucks, the Toi etc.

I miss being in ygt with all my cousins Hendry all the way. I wish I was a kid to do it all again tomorrow

My cousin denholm hendry was one of.