Prison, Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe once reckoned, was a more suitable place to be than playing football in front of Oakland-Alameda County Stadium’s Sections 104, 105, 106 and 107, the seats behind the end zone referred to by Raiders fans as the Black Hole.

“It’s a lot safer,” Sharpe told the New York Times in 2001. “I’ve been hit in the head with nails, batteries, had beer thrown at me.”

For hometown fans, the Black Hole and its pregame tailgates have the familiarity and welcome grunge of a dive bar. For all others: “No joke, visitors should beware,” author and former Washington Post columnist William Gildea wrote in 2001.

But as the Raiders prepare to leave Oakland for Las Vegas in 2020, members of the Black Hole – not just the seating section but a fan club with more than a dozen chapters, including in Germany and Australia – are contemplating their group’s future.

The team’s final game in Oakland is almost certainly Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Black Hole’s presence in Las Vegas, where there’s no affiliated chapter, is unclear. Group leaders said they have had no communication with the team about what presence the Black Hole may have at the Raiders’ new home.

“I’m sad, disappointed and angry all in one,” Cisco Ortega, the group’s vice president, said in a phone interview.

“I just love it here,” coach Jon Gruden, now in his second stint coaching in Oakland, told the Associated Press. “I had my first son here, and I kind of have a lot of history here, and some of my friends, a lot of my friends are in the Black Hole. A lot of my only friends are here. I don’t have a lot of friends except the guys in the Black Hole. I only get to see them six or seven times. I get emotional talking about it.”

Part biker gang, part fraternity, part congregation of football evangelists, the group was born in 1995 when the Raiders moved back to Oakland after 13 years in Los Angeles. Members embodied the buccaneering spirit of franchise owner Al Davis, who jousted with the NFL over relocation issues, seeming to personify the team’s mascot: a grinning pirate wearing an eye patch in front of crossed swords, a la a skull and crossbones.

“Raiders fans look scary sometimes,” former quarterback and coach Tom Flores told The Associated Press. “It’s like Halloween every Sunday.”

Founders of the Black Hole in recent weeks have journeyed back to the Bay Area to pay their respects and say goodbye to the pregame tailgates in parking lot D, as well as the mass of black and silver in the stadium.

The group wasn’t afraid to employ tactics such as brutalizing opposing players in effigy, once tying a noose around the neck of a dummy made to look like Miami Dolphins quarterback Jay Fiedler and tossing it into the crowd for kicks and punches.

Members famously greeted opponents’ buses as they pulled onto the stadium grounds. Offensive lineman Kevin Donnalley joked to Gildea the fans were famous for “the one-finger hello.”

They made the stadium one of the NFL’s loudest and, for opponents, one of its most reviled. Along with the infield dirt on the playing surface – the Coliseum is the league’s last multisport venue – and the dingy locker rooms, there were the fans to deal with.

“Batteries, chicken bones, coins, you name it,” longtime offensive lineman Kevin Mawae listed for the Times in 2003 the items pelted at him while playing before the Black Hole. “I’ve had it all. You just hope you don’t get backed up, and when you do, you keep your helmet on.”

Members took on nicknames (Ortega goes by “Black Hole Cisco Kid”) that instilled a sense of individuality and collegiality. Gildea wrote about fans who were known at the stadium simply as Mr. Mack, Run Run Jones and the Cigar Man. The group ferociously defended its members, even as some developed a bad reputation over disputes with opposing fans that could lead to fisticuffs.

VIPs have joined the Black Hole: Gildea wrote about former Raiders defensive back Jack “The Assassin” Tatum hanging with fans, but Gruden’s mother has been known to stop by, too.

And as foreboding as the group looked to outsiders, the community is full of the “aloha spirit,” as Ortega explained.

“We reference each other as family,” Ortega said. “Any time you get to the tailgate, of course there’s handshakes, but there’s hugs first.”

As the team prepares to relocate about 400 miles away, Black Hole members are grappling with how to carry on while the NFL and franchise executives attempt to court new fans who have never had a home football team.

“You have the home fans, the Oakland-Bay Area fans, that are angry and sad and pissed off, so to speak, and through the wonders of social media, they speak their minds,” Ortega said. “. . . And people from the East Coast, all they were seeing was this brand new beautiful stadium and saying, ‘Now I can go to Vegas and party it up with a football game.’ And I thought, San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world; why not come out here and watch the game?”

The move isn’t as crushing for Ortega as it could have been; his company recently transferred him to Las Vegas from San Francisco. Black Hole members tell him that’s “the big man upstairs looking out for you.” He drives by the construction site of what will be Allegiant Stadium every day.

But he has caught himself crying this week as he prepares for the final game at the Coliseum – he was planning to fly back Saturday – and wondering what his friends will do when the nearest football will be in Santa Clara, home of the 49ers.

“It will never be duplicated, but we just have to go with what it is,” he said. “We wouldn’t be doing justice to our members and our family if we just closed up shop just because the team relocated.”

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