Читать книгу Terrace Legends - The Most Terrifying And Frightening Book Ever Written About Soccer Violence - Cass Pennant - Страница 6

Youths, and sometimes grown men, misbehaving at a football match is nothing new; it’s been around and reported in the media for nearly a hundred years. West Ham fans were fighting with Millwall supporters well before the Second World War. Author Irvine Welsh wrote about a battle between Greenock Morton and Port Glasgow Athletic that happened well over a century ago. So what’s new? Well, nothing actually. Violence and hooliganism have been part and parcel of football since the advent of the game, but it wasn’t sensationalised until the press decided to jump on the bandwagon and report trouble at matches.

Back to the early ’60s. The Second World War was over, the Suez crisis was yesterday’s story and Teddy boys razoring cinema seats, and one another, was old hat. Enter the mods and rockers. Fighting at Margate and Brighton on a Bank Holiday was headline news for a while, but how many punch-ups and pictures of greasers being pulled by the hair by arresting police officers would keep the general public’s attention?

Enter the skinheads. With their shaven heads, trousers held up by a pair of braces that could have been worn by their dads or grandads, and a big pair of working, sometimes steel-toe-capped, boots, they cut an imposing figure. They became the new phenomenon on the front pages of the press. And what added fuel to the fire of bullshit reporting was the fact that this ‘mindless minority’ loved nothing better than dividing themselves into rival gangs and slogging it out on the terraces of football grounds. Shock, horror. ‘Mindless minority’? My arse! During the ’60s and ’70s if there was a 40,000 gate, well over half would be up for a fight – the rest were there to watch. Even the players were known to take their eyes off the ball and cast an interested eye at the terrace rumblings.

The culture grew and grew, and many a young man became involved. It was easy to join in and even easier to step down. Certain clubs and certain faces within the scene became legendary in what had become a national pastime. ‘THUGS ON RAMPAGE’, ‘TERRACE TERROR’, ‘HOOLIGANS’ screamed the headlines. Even ‘hooligan’, the name given to people getting into rucks at football matches, was a joke. Supposedly it is derived from the surname of a south-east London family named the ‘Houlihans’. They were a troublesome Irish clan that loved to fight, and caused untold grief to anyone within a left hook of them. To me, a hooligan is someone that smashes up a train or a phone box, sprays graffiti on a wall or kicks the mirrors off a parked car – not someone that fights at a football match.

Let’s not forget there isn’t trouble at every match that’s played. But there are certain fixtures where there’s a history between two clubs – be it a defeat in a semi-final, a cup final or a just a local derby – and you’re never going to stop it. It’s in the blood – in the genes.

Like the mods and rudeboys before them, the first skinheads were bonded by their working-class roots, their passion for music and their love of dress code. Black and white skinheads alike weren’t interested in politics or racism, only in camaraderie, beer-drinking, music gigs and raising a ruckus on football terraces.

Into the ’70s the skinhead look began to change slightly. The close-cropped hair was still in, except it was topped off with a razored parting, and Harrington jackets became the all the rage. Made famous by Rodney Harrington, a character from the TV series Peyton Place, the Harrington was a sort of casual, golf-type jacket that had a tartan lining and was available in a multitude of colours. It had slanted, side-buttoned pockets, a turned-up collar, an elasticated waist and a zigzag line across the lower shoulders. Ben Sherman, Brutus, Jaytex and Fred Perry were the chosen shirts, usually worn with Levi’s Sta-Prest trousers, which came in all colours. The most popular ones were mint green, sky blue and white, with navy blue or black being worn as school trousers by the younger skin. Mohair and two-tone tonic suits, in red and blue or green and gold, were the in thing, as were Crombie overcoats and blue-beat pork-pie hats balanced on one side of the head. The hats were favoured by the West Indian skins, of which there were many. After all, skinheads in the late ’60s and early ’70s were far from right wing – the whole movement was based on the reggae, ska and blue-beat sounds of the Caribbean.

Commando steel-toe-capped boots were replaced by Doctor Martens or monkey boots. The Dr Marten had the revolutionary AirWair sole, in oxblood or brown, which was connected to the upper part with yellow stitching. The monkey boot was its cheaper relative and for a while was favoured by skin girls. For nights out at the local youth club disco or Meccano club, boots were replaced with wet-look Gibson shoes, brogues or ‘smooths’ (brogues without the pattern), but the most popular were the tasselled loafers with or without a fringe and buckle.

Football, fashion, fanny and music went hand in hand, and nights chasing birds were spent dancing around a record player listening to the sounds of the Tighten Up albums on the Trojan label.

After the skinhead craze the casual look was born: Mexican cardigans, as favoured by TV cops Starsky and Hutch, high-waistband trousers, platform soles, patchwork jean jackets with brushed denim jeans, South Sea bubble jumpers and cheesecloth shirts. Tamla Motown and soul replaced the reggae sounds, while chart acts like T-Rex, David Bowie, Roxy Music and Slade were also popular. Punk and Johnny Rotten came and went, and the casual look went upmarket. Designer labels such as Burberry, Aquascutum, Hugo Boss and Armani could be found on the terraces as well as on the dance floors as jazz funk made an appearance in discos and clubs up and down the country.

The ’40s and ’50s look, connected with the big-band sounds of Glen Miller and the like, could also be found on the terraces and in nightclubs such as The Goldmine, Canvey Island, in Essex, and Scamps in Sutton. Army shirts with badges on the sleeves, peg-leg trousers and brown-and-white spats shoes were in vogue. But it didn’t last, as football fans in the early ’80s turned to the sporty tennis style of Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. Ellesse, Tacchini, Fila and Lacoste were trendy labels and, like other fashions before them, found their way on to the terraces.

The early ’80s was also the beginning of the ‘dawn raids’ period, where police carried out their well-publicised and silly code-named sport of kicking in the front doors of known and unknown faces. ‘Operation Own Goal’ and other undercover police operations were always carried out with a film crew in tow – how convenient for them to be there just as the person’s door is kicked off its hinges. Most hardware stores enjoyed increased sales for front doors and Yale locks during this period.

The usual array of weapons were rolled out and displayed for hungry news hounds, eager to show the gullible general public that this scourge sweeping the country was now under control by our honest, hard-working policemen, which in fact turned out to be utter bollocks. Many of these showcase trials collapsed. The Chelsea Headhunters trial at the Old Bailey ended with convictions and ten-year sentences handed out. The Old Bill were, to say the least, over the moon and after the trial they stood outside grinning for the gathered press, happy in the knowledge that these hard-nosed hooligans and criminals were, at long last, behind bars.

Maggie Thatcher’s promised drive on hooligans was paying dividends – or a least that’s what the public were being led to believe. Two and a half years after they were sentenced, all the Chelsea boys’ convictions were quashed. Later, a huge sum of money was paid out in compensation and we were back to square one – the hooligans were still in our midst.

Next they called in the ‘experts’. Boffins from universities around the country were all too quick to jump on the hooligan bandwagon and, with their years of experience, give their professional thoughts and analysis on why the problem exists and how it could be eradicated. Don’t make us laugh; they didn’t have a clue and still don’t. The only thing they achieved was to publish nonsensical myths about football behaviour. It is a never-ending cycle of bullshit. After all those years of in-depth studies they’re no nearer to ending soccer violence than I am, or Cass is. What a waste of taxpayers’ money. ‘Money for old rope’ springs to mind. But just where does the funding come from? The national lottery? The Football Association? The taxpayer? Or is it supplied by the government because if it is there’s some serious money being shelled out here.

Also the press were still up to their old tricks. They ran a story in a Sunday paper about a railway clerk who they claimed was a racist thug. He was a fanatical fan of the club he loved dearly – he was just a cheerleader. But that didn’t stop him getting the sack and having his life ruined. He died recently and the effect of this episode on his life was there to see by all who knew him And the club he supported through thick and thin later named a bar inside their ground in his memory. Some hooligan.

The ’90s saw the start of the rave scene and acid house, peace and love, and all that old bollocks. Some people even went so far as to say that the rave scene killed the hooligan scene. Again, what shit. Known faces and foot soldiers alike within the hooligan gangs saw a chance to earn a pound and make a killing. Given the chance to earn a few quid or have a ruck at a football match, the choice was easy. There were vast hordes of brain-dead, E-fuelled youths driving around the M25 in cloak-and-dagger, cat-and-mouse games with the Old Bill, searching out the next rave. The money was piss easy and security was a cinch. Just employ a few of the football boys for a bit of muscle and you killed two birds with one stone.

But when the rave scene came to an end, the football violence would still be there. It was never going away. And now it had a hard-core element. The mobs were smaller but they were even more determined to have a row. The firms were now a minority. Gone were the days of thousand-strong mobs – Hillsborough and Heysel had seen to that. And, with the introduction of all-seater stadiums, the chances of away firms congregating in the same part of the ground and having a ruck were long gone. All-ticket games made that impossible, and nowadays most games are sold out to season ticket holders only, so the hard-core troublemakers have had to take the action well away from the stadiums and out on to the streets, sometimes miles away from where the game’s being played. Mobile phones were good for arranging offs.

Then came the ‘keyboard warriors’ living at home with their mum and operating from their bedrooms. They surfaced and spread the word, albeit mostly bullshit. ‘We run you’, ‘Where were you?’, ‘Meet you here’, ‘Meet you there’. These people posting messages on websites were, and are, pretty sad and some of the names they give themselves are laughable.

Even worse are certain non-scene people who have never been involved and yet set themselves up as so-called experts, claiming to offer a grim, blow-by-blow insight into the world of the football thug. ‘We can stop the disgusting violence,’ they say and in the next breath they’re asking for your stories about when so and so played, and had it with so and so. Total bollocks. How can you call yourself an expert when you’ve never been involved? I’ve been going to football for over forty years and around the boys for nearly thirty of them – but me an expert? No, never. I wouldn’t have a clue how to stop the violence and I don’t profess to know how to stop it, nor would I be vain enough to even think I had the grey matter or the answers to do such a thing. I don’t go to the media making such claims, but certain people do. They seem to like the sound of their own voices. I’ve got no time for the pricks. What’s the old saying? ‘You want to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds.’ The name ‘leeches’ springs to mind. I jokingly once said that the only way to stop football violence was to ban all males aged 15 to 75. ‘Ban alcohol and you’ll stop a lot of the problems,’ so-called experts have said. So why is there trouble at twelve o’clock kick-offs when the pubs aren’t even open? We’ll throw that theory out the window, eh? Football is a highly charged spectator sport, where feelings run high and for some people it’s more important than life and death.

The ’90s saw a return of football hooliganism. An avalanche of ‘hoolie’ books appeared on the shelves of bookstores – some good, some bad and some total bollocks – and next came the films. The Football Factory, based on John King’s top book, has just been made and Tony Rivers and Dave Jones’s Soul Crew looks like being next. Also to follow shortly will be the film of Cass’s Congratulations, You Have Just Met the I.C.F. Anyway, good luck to these films.

The ugly scenes that marred England’s Euro 2004 qualifier win over Turkey again brought hooliganism back into the public eye, but, to us in the know, it had never gone away. The firms and mobs are growing rapidly with a youth element interested in the culture, joining up with the existing dinosaurs that never died. In this book we let the real people, not just from Britain but from around Europe, describe their own lives and their own experiences. They tell stories never heard by anyone outside their circles. Some people might say we are glorifying soccer violence by writing a book like this; read it and draw your own conclusions.

As I said earlier, some of the mob members had hero status across the nation, with their names heard not only across the terraces but also in nearly every pub, club, youth club and school playground the length and breadth of the UK. Some of these people were legendary; they were, and still are, terrace legends. Some were famed for their fighting skills, some for the way they organised others (both in combat and travel), and others for the ability to make people laugh and were fun to have around. A couple were famed for taking their fanatical support of their chosen club to another level, and on their own admission never getting involved or being interested in the violent side of things. They are not hooligans, nor do they profess to be.

In their day the people in this book were bigger than some TV personalities, pop stars and film stars, and even the players themselves, and were the born leaders of a majority of fans at that time. After meeting, talking and interviewing all of them one thing comes across. They are true football fans, despite how the media likes to portray them. To me the only mindless minority were the so-called journalists that over the last forty years are no nearer the truth. Read and learn. Enjoy the book.

Cheers,

Martin King