Motorcycle gang violence at an event to raise money to buy wheelchairs for crippled children. And by the way, it all took place at a Polish women’s hall.

This isn’t the latest storyline from FX’s motorcycle drama, Sons of Anarchy, but a two-wheeled headline from years gone by.

Generally speaking, bikers love nostalgia. Whether its admiring a vintage motorcycle or simply talking about the many miles they’ve laid down over their riding life, looking back plays as much of a biker role as the open road ahead.

Maybe this is why we at Clutch and Chrome are fascinated by past motorcycle news stories. But the latest ride into past motorcycle headlines had all of us downright intrigued.

Taking place decades before FX would push to find the motorcycle limits of dramatic television, an event took place in Cleveland Ohio that would leave many to think it had been written by Kurt Sutter himself.

It was reported on Monday March 8^th 1971, nestled among the stories of the Vietnam War and the general volatility of the seventies.

Police had arrested seventy-three people after a fight broke out at a fundraising event that left five dead and twenty-two injured. The event was the fourth annual Motorcycle Custom and Trade Show being held in a Polish women’s hall (pictured above) intended to raise money to buy wheelchairs for crippled children.

Reportedly, 150 members of the Breed, an Akron based motorcycle gang and 80 members of the Violators, a New York Chapter of the Hells Angels began to fight using chains, knives, clubs and even guns. Police reports contributed the deaths and injuries to knife wounds.

The reason for the fight was unknown when the story was first reported, but police suspected it could have been in retaliation for the Violators beating up a member of the Breed previously.

Although Police were checking for weapons at the event, the officers were reportedly overwhelmed ‘100 cyclists rushed past the policemen, overpowering them’.

The Milwaukee Journal reported Breed members gathered near three motorcycles being shown by Hells Angels when somebody touched a bike and shouted, “Now!”

The fight allegedly started just a few minutes past 10 p.m..

“We didn’t know where to turn,” said Patrolman Thomas Burton, who was in the hall when the fight began.  “We just started clobbering everybody.”

More than 200 police converged on the incident from all over the city ‘as the battle spilled to the streets of Cleveland’s East Side. They used tear gas to contain the brawl.’

This unclear picture is of Cleveland homicide detectives photographed with the weapons confiscated from the deadly motorcycle gang brawl.