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HOOLIGANISM IS BACK, AND IT’S BETTER THAN EVER | BY FOREST GATE PHIL ILLUSTRATION BY PADDY JONES

Published March 2004

From Glasgow to Derby to Leeds to Wales and back up again, every week of my life I’ve travelled the country on trains and coaches looking for other gangs of like-minded young men to punch, kick, and stab. I’m violent. I know it’s wrong, and on the one hand, I want people to know the truth about how bad things are getting with hooliganism. But when I get my fist into some poor bastard’s face, I think, “Aw fuck it, this is war!”

Being a respected member of West Ham United’s Inter City Firm for more than 20 years has given me the opportunity to experience the amazing diversity of the British Isles in all kinds of exciting situations. Sadly, our firm is nowhere near as strong as it used to be. We had ten years in the Premiership, where clubs don’t have the same level of enthusiasm for hooliganism as the lower First Division clubs. This is mainly because there’s less bitterness and desperation among the Premiership fans and the clubs can afford to spend more money on security measures. I’m sad to say it, but the Premiership makes you soft.

Now that we’ve been relegated to the good old First Division, it’s nice to see so many old faces come out of the woodwork. We’re starting to get a new firm together, and we’re slowly but surely getting back to our best. A lot of young lads are starting to get into hooliganism again, so that’s helped us out as well. Young men are attracted to it now that rave culture has died and cocaine is back. Happy pills killed things a bit, but Charlie keeps you on your toes. Believe me, there’s a lot of coke going around on the trains and coaches when the football fans travel to games. A lot of people aren’t drinking—they’re just doing coke, so they’re all hyper and ready to murder.

The Old Bill, the government, and the FA are suppressing information about the new surge in hooliganism because if the public knew how many lads were travelling up and down every weekend to bash each other in, then they’d want something done about it. That would mean money would have to come out of the pockets of the players and the TV companies, and that’s never going to happen. In my opinion, hooliganism is just going to grow and grow all around the country until people start getting killed again. That’s the beauty of this whole resurgence, really: things have become way more violent than they ever were but nobody dares report on it. If the television crews capture a row, we smash their cameras and batter the crew into the ground. If anyone asks the teams or anyone else with a financial interest, the company line is, “Everything’s fine.” The truth is, everything is not fine. It’s covered in blood. And you don’t even know how far we’re willing to take this.

The UK is trying get the Olympics in 2012, and the bid for European championships also. News that young lads are cutting each other up every weekend and that pubs are being wrecked all the time wouldn’t go down very well with the Olympics committee. So nobody’s going to find out. Right? I said nobody’s going to find out, right?

This magazine can run whatever it wants, because it’s not like it’s going to change the state of UK football violence. The important news sources—the mainstream media and the like—are the ones that drive the revenue of the football industry, and they will tell you that hooliganism died with all-seater stadiums. I am happy to say that’s total and utter bollocks. It’s just as bad as it ever was. And judging by some of these new lads, things are much, much worse (or better—I don’t even know anymore).