A friend from South Wales was living in Sheffield.
He went to Cardiff to watch Wales play Scotland in the 70s with some mates in the car.
At the end of the day the Police in Cardiff were sweeping people off the streets and putting on trains out of Cardiff.
They put him on a service to Sheffield and he woke up in Edinburgh.
They let him come back to Sheffield on the first train -he never bought a ticket arriving back for a lunchtime session on Sunday.
When Wrexham played a quarter final of the FA Cup in Burnley ended there was trouble on the terraces. To calm things down we Wrexham fans were kept in the ground for an hour and were all marched to the station for the Special train to Wrexham via Preston, Warrington BQ, Crewe and Chester.
I lived in Sheffield. I managed to get off at Chester were a very understanding worker validated a ticket to Manchester from where my return ticket was valid.
I've almost been on the end of something very similar. After the infamous Cardiff - Leeds FA Cup match a few years ago all us Leeds fans were being marched back to the station by the local police, very WWII prison march style, to be put on a special back to Leeds. Trouble is I lived near Birmingham at the time and had drove down! We managed to slip our guard near where we'd parked but it was worrying for a while!
I've managed a few beer induced doss overs myself, managing to fall asleep at Mirfield to be jolted awake by Micklefield Jn while wanting Dewsbury. Luckily the TPE terminated in platform 7 at York and went straight back.
I've over-dossed in the opposite direction, just long enough to see the doors close and have to get off in Ravensthorpe. Pretty unspectacular apart from that I had an early flight to Ireland in the morning and I left my train tickets on the seat!
Furthest I've done is returning home from Darlington, made the mistake of deciding to get a KX service as far as York. Fell asleep before Northallerton and was woken by the guard before Doncaster. Next stop KX! Guard was understanding though and arranged for me to come back North on the next service.
I've know there's been plenty who've got on 1E01 from Newcastle wanting York or other stations when it's fast to KX.
One unusual one was someone who'd got on a GTR service somewhere through London who wanted Gatwick and ended up heading North through Bedfordshire when they were discovered! I think there was a slim chance they could have made their flight, but given the number of bags they had......