Booted and Suited. Chris Brown
and I took the better part of valour and took off running. We climbed a fence at the back of the church and took off across a field and hid in the back gardens of some of the homes behind the church. Must have hid there for what seemed like hours before coming out and heading home. I was later told that George wanted to have my head on a pike for breaking his nose.’
As an afterthought, Phil mentioned another scooter gang that was not connected with the Never but who were known to enjoy a ruck as much as the boys from Fairfax Street. ‘They were out of Bedminster and led by a kid named Bridges I think. They were always up for a scrap and were involved in some big fights in Queen Square and on the Centre. They ran by themselves but would help out the Never boys.’
Phil then confirmed what both Eugene and Lloyd had mentioned regarding football allegiances on the streets of Bristol back then. ‘I was never a soccer fan, although I’d root for the Rovers as my Dad was a City fan, just to piss him off.’
Perhaps as a way of curbing his aggression, Phil took up rugby and, for many years, played for Bristol Harlequins before emigrating to the States in 1975 where he worked at one stage for the US Coast Guard. He’s revisited Bristol a few times over the years and isn’t sure he likes what he sees. ‘Bristol has changed so much… not always for the better I’m sure.’ I could add that it’s a lot quieter since the Sea Mills warrior left.
Phil’s recollection of aggro at youth clubs was not in isolation – I had heard and read of other incidents at clubs in and around Bristol. One club on Briscoes Avenue in Hartcliffe was frequented by, among others, a fearsome duo of greaser brothers. The story goes that the Never boys made a trip to the youth club with the sole intention of attacking the greasers and cutting off the prized frills from the sleeves of their leather jackets. The urban myth circulated for years that, indeed, they had been successful in capturing the trophies of war. However, on further investigation, I found out that, although the lads did attack the club, they were repelled by a volley of chairs from inside it, which dented the pride of the Never boys as much as it did their car panels.
There were other such rumours, including attempts by some of the lads to tie wires across roads in order to decapitate passing greasers but, not surprisingly, this story was not corroborated by any of the interviewees.
One brawl at another youth club, though, definitely took place on a Saturday evening in April 1970. A dance at the Catholic Church Hall in Keynsham was the scene of a pitched battle between two separate gangs; up to a hundred skinheads fought in the street outside the hall throwing punches, kicking each other and using weapons that ranged from sticks studded with nails to the all-too-common knives and sharpened combs. More worryingly, according to the Evening Post, ‘a rifle had been spotted’. The local Canon (Reidy) went on to say that ‘There will not be a recurrence next weekend. We will have a Saturday-night whist drive – it will be a very sedate affair.’
The Never café itself, not surprisingly, was not immune from the violence. On Friday, 13 March 1970, a greaser from Marshfield was stabbed and kicked as he left the café with his mates, and you’ve got to question what they were doing in there in the first place. He stated in the subsequent court case that he left the café ‘after receiving hostile looks’. Up to 30 youths then rushed out and attacked the greaser gang. One of the Never lads was sent to Borstal while others were fined up to £100.
Another stabbing occurred in nearby Dursley in June of the same year when a skinhead gang from Southmead, not associated with the Never café, invaded the small Gloucestershire town with the sole intention of attacking greasers. A 21-year-old skinhead was jailed for four years for the attack on a ‘local, long-haired passer-by’. In court, the assailant made the following astonishing, frank admission: ‘I stuck the knife in, it went into his ribs somewhere… I twisted it while it was in him… and the blade snapped off.’
Later on that summer, some of the Never boys made another one of their excursions out of town, this time to Bournemouth on the south coast, which over the years has often witnessed outbreaks of trouble between Bristol, Birmingham and London lads, not to mention the local residents. Lloyd Sutherland had recalled that often the locals would weigh up the situation to see whose mob was the most impressive – and then join forces with them against the others. It’s not clear where the greasers who the Bristol boys battled with that day were from, but what is clear is that it was a pretty vicious altercation.
A group of 50 skinheads, all from the Bristol area, attacked a smaller number of greasers. ‘Fists and boots were used as well as missiles such as bricks and bottles, and at least one knife was used to inflict a very serious wound.’ So intense was the attack that one scared greaser escaped by jumping off the pier into the sea and, when the greasers tried to make their exit in a van, the skinheads attacked and tried to overturn it.
In the ensuing court case, three Bristolians were imprisoned, one for three years, while another four were sent to Borstal. The judge, Mr Justice Wills, commented, ‘I don’t pretend to know what skinheads are or why you become skinheads, but I have been told by the police what people like you do.’
‘Tony’, one of the Never lads who was imprisoned for this incident, recalled that when he was banged up word got around that Jimi Hendrix, who had been performing at the nearby Isle of Wight rock festival, sent out a message from the stage to the jailed skinheads and greasers asking for peace between the two warring groups. It appears that, yet again, the calls for calm, whether from outraged provincial newspapers or bona fide guitar legends, were falling on deaf ears.
The events of the previous few months once again made the front page of the Evening Post: IT’S ALL-OUT WAR ON THE HOOLIGANS, the paper declared, but you get the impression the authorities and the police in particular were fighting a losing battle. A joint statement by councillors and police pledged an ‘all-out fight against hooligans and violence in Bristol caused by a rash of disturbances’, but it was all hyperbolic rhetoric, and, just when they thought it couldn’t get any worse, the new football season kicked off.
On 1 August, 250 youths of ‘the skinhead type’ from the Midlands descended upon Eastville for a pre-season ‘friendly’ between Rovers and Birmingham City. It was a ferocious battle, one which I could only watch with both fear and wonderment from the sidelines. The Brummies comprehensively took the Rovers’ Tote End and it wasn’t until half-time when reinforcements arrived from around the city that Rovers’ fans managed to claim some of their terraces back. The main recipients of the Midlanders’ violence was the small gathering of Rovers’ greasers. One in particular got a severe beating at the back of the Tote End. I can recall seeing him prostrate on the ground, barely moving; it was a sickening and disturbing sight, but, like a rubber-necker at the scene of a car crash, I found it difficult to look away.
One of the Brummies appeared in court on the Monday and was giving a derisory fine after stating, ‘Two Rovers kids who were Hells Angels started following us. We got in first, I kicked this kid once, it was either him or us, we thought they were going to work us over. I was wearing working boots… I tripped over him, someone put the boot in but it wasn’t me.’ Putting the boot in was becoming a way of life for many… and it was a way of life I was soon to take up myself.
If that Saturday’s events weren’t bad enough for Rovers fans, the following Monday’s friendly game at Newport County proved just as eventful. In a crowd of under 2,000, over 200 youths from both sides battled it out on the terraces. One Rovers fan ended up in hospital with serious head injuries after a group of Newport youths charged through the crowd waving metal chains.
Two weeks later, the new season kicked off with, once again, the Evening Post reporting that authorities were determined to stamp out the trouble. ‘SOCCER BOVVER SQUAD IN ACTION’, they declared, more in hope than anything else, but the opening weeks of the new season brought more violence than ever before with serious crowd disturbances across the country. From Plymouth to Aberdeen, the boot boys were stamping their authority and throwing down the gauntlet to the police and the use of weapons in particular was causing alarm. This was no more true than at Highbury where, among the many who were arrested for fighting, was a youth from Swindon who was fined for being in possession of a tin opener at the Arsenal v Manchester United game – I can only assume it