verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ When I was younger I started going to matches because I was a Villa fan and loved football. However, when I started to go to away games to places like Liverpool and Middlesbrough, I was frequently chased and given a good beating. Q: 2023/24 Hopes & aspirations for this season a. As Champions of Europe there's no reason we shouldn't be pushing for a top 7 spot & a run in the Cups Many of these accounts suggest a much more mixed overall picture. Danny Brown, of Aston Villa’s C-Crew describes the beginnings of his firm: "The name C-Crew is short for ‘Corner Crew’, we took the name from the part of the Holte End where we stood and watched the matches from.

As the violence increased, so those involved in it became organised. Groups made territorial claims in and around football grounds, and a gang mentality arose. On the evening of 25 August 2009, clashes between some Millwall and West Ham fans outside Upton Park resulted in 20 people being injured, including one Millwall fan who was stabbed. The game itself saw about fifty West Ham supporters invade the pitch on three occasions, forcing the game to be temporarily suspended once. The police later said the violence, because of its large scale, was organised beforehand. [22] These photos show the battle-scarred faces of the football hard men who ruled the terraces during the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Former club chairman Reg Burr once commented: "Millwall are a convenient coat peg for football to hang its social ills on", [31] an example being the reporting of convicted murderer Gavin Grant. Although he had played for eight different clubs, playing his fewest games (four) for Millwall, and was signed to Bradford City at the time, the BBC used the headline, "Former Millwall striker Gavin Grant guilty of murder". [32] No surprise then, that people would look to take ownership of their future rather than passively sit by waiting for things – mostly bad – to happen to them. Jon Culley (26 January 2009). "Hull to bill Millwall for damage to stand". The Independent. UK. Archived from the original on 2022-05-14 . Retrieved 25 August 2009.

FA lift penalties on Luton and Millwall; Successful appeal against riot decision". The Times. UK. 19 July 1985. pr: Norma Spence (1989). No One Likes Us – We Don't Care. Working Pictures Ltd, for Channel 4 (VHS). Leeds United v Millwall: Police mount anti-hooligan operation". Yorkshire Evening Post . Retrieved 28 August 2010.Football-related violence during the 1980s and 1990s was widely viewed as a huge threat to civilised British society. Tie this newfound sense of self-determination in with the traditional protectionist concerns that cover local rivalries and pride in one’s area viewed through the prism of football, and it becomes much easier to see how the violence escalated. Most Read And this is far from unusual – the complex and nuanced nature of individual circumstance is, perhaps, the only common thread when looking at these stories. e. New season you say, woohoo time to get the new kit and wear it it to the pub for all the big games, the wags down there call me Mr West Ham Already, the binary morality that we routinely accept as the norm when talking about young men fighting seems wanting. The force of this familial bond is felt in many such accounts, and must have seemed an inviting proposition for hundreds of young men at the time.

Sometime around 1968 me and a mate decided to go over the Den one Saturday afternoon to watch them play Norwich. While these concerns may not have been at the forefront of most people’s minds, it inevitably influenced the zeitgeist. Millwall v Leeds United: Police issue behaviour warning". Yorkshire Evening Post . Retrieved 28 August 2010. There is something of the survival instinct at play, but also a sense of duty and an almost instant loyalty that came simply from being listened to and taken seriously.You had the mods and you had the end of the teddy boys and the greasers and the football was a continuation of the mods. Then the skinheads came along in 67/68 and it was all one thing.’ At half time my mate went to the bog and was confronted by these 11- 12 year olds, one of which laid the nut on him and broke his nose.

When I explained, they left me and went looking for the gang chasing me. I had turned to police and got no help, I had been split up from the only people I knew and, alone in a hostile city I did not know, I tagged along." Millwall had a fearsome mob in those days lead by a bloke who went by the name of Bomber. But there were many others. These kids were just apprentices and part of the production line.Cass Pennant: "There’s a sense of identity, respect, pride, belonging, brotherhood – family even. It’s male camaraderie, a feeling you’re alive. You matter and can have a say in your destiny." This sense of local loyalty is abundantly clear in Bob’s first taste of terrace fighting, which was at the tender age of eight: "I went to a match in Feb 1967, just before I turned nine – I used to go with my dad. Notorious drugs gangs blamed for prison riot that left 33 inmates dead - some of whom were decapitated There is, of course, a practical side to all this acceptance and camaraderie. While Cass and Riaz speak eloquently of an almost pastoral duty of care from the gangs they joined, Danny Brown is in no doubt that, while there’s no one-size-fits-all reason for such allegiances, there’s a safety in numbers game at play. This formative experience, of being protected and looked out for resonated deeply with the young lad, and it was to be reinforced several years later.