Terrace Legends - The Most Terrifying And Frightening Book Ever Written About Soccer Violence. Cass Pennant
all their help in getting this book together; my wife Mandy and children Kortney and Rory -Ben for their love and support and for putting up with me disappearing for hours on end on my computer, and being uptight and permanently grumpy; also to all the fellas featured in these pages for having the bottle to appear and tell it how it really was: cheers, lads.
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