CASS PENNANT
Close your eyes and imagine it’s the late Eighties; you’re in the King’s Road near Stamford Bridge; there’s a football match between Chelsea and West Ham. It’s a London Derby – East v West. Trouble is expected from the notorious Inter-City Firm (ICF), Britain’s most feared gang of soccer hooligans. The threat of violence fills the air. National Front skinheads roam the streets wearing boots, braces, Fred Perrys and denims. All with close-cropped hair, all pug-uglies, chanting and clapping, ‘East London, East London…’
Cass Pennant’s name had been mentioned to me a few times during my research for Hard Bastards. First from the Bowers, then from Stilks. I’d heard a lot about him and his awesome reputation and I just had to meet him. Stilks telephoned me and gave me his number and we arranged to meet at The Bull Inn, South London.
It was early evening on a rainy night in mid-January. I arrived at the pub. I thought the rain would have stopped by now, but it hadn’t. I locked my car door, ducked my head against the chill wind and dashed into the pub. As I did, I noticed a gold Mercedes parked up on the pavement with a private plate.
I thought, Well, at least he’s on time. I hadn’t a clue what Cass looked like and, to be honest, I never gave it a thought until I was actually walking through the door.
I glanced round the bar. There was a fat man perched precariously on a stool – nah, that wasn’t him. A scruffy man in dirty working boots sipped a pint of Guinness – nah, that wasn’t him either.
Standing at the bar, ordering half a lager, was a 7ft smartly-dressed black man. He wore a full-length Burberry macintosh and was carrying an attaché case; an important-looking folder bulging with official papers was safely tucked under his arm. Nah, it couldn’t be him … could it? With much trepidation, I approached the man. I felt awkward. What was I going to say?
‘Are you the hard bastard?’
Sensing my hesitation, Cass put his hand out. ‘You must be Kate?’
I laughed. ‘Well, knock me down with a fucking feather. You ain’t what I expected, ain’t what I expected at all.’
That’s just it, Cass Pennant is a Pandora’s box full of surprises. In the past, he was Harold Wilson’s minder, of all things. He also saved a ‘brother’ from a beating on an afternoon train; the ‘brother’ was Frank Bruno.
I’ve got to say that Cass is the most unlikely-looking football ‘yobbo’ I’ve ever seen. But, in actual fact, he was the most feared hooligan of the Eighties. What’s even more amazing is that over 2,000 West Ham supporters petitioned Downing Street for Cass’s release from prison, after he was remanded for a crime he never committed.
When big Cass Pennant is on a mission, there is no stopping him. No wonder he commands such respect and has such a reputation and, boy, oh boy, can he have a ‘row’!
BACKGROUND
I was a Dr Barnado’s kid and was brought up in a home in Barking. Eventually, I was fostered. I was lucky, I wasn’t passed from family to family like an old parcel. The first family I was placed with I stayed with. They were a white couple who were very old and had old-fashioned values, principles and morals. They didn’t have a lot of money but what they did have was love, and plenty of it. I was brought up in a town in Kent called Erith, which was an all-white area. I was the only black kid on the block; in fact, I was the only black kid in the town, so I was always picked on – a target.
It soon became apparent that the only way to escape my abusers was to stand up and fight. I fought tooth and nail, no matter what the size of the persecutor. By the time I was 11 years old, I already had a reputation for fighting and soon found that instead of wanting to bash me, my tormentors wanted to be my friend. I was accepted; one of the lads.
At times, it seemed I fought every day. If it wasn’t in the street, then it was at football matches and, in particular, at West Ham.
LIFE OF CRIME
My first arrest was when I was 17 for possessing offensive weapons. I’ve been arrested for similar serious offences six times, all for violence at football matches. I’ve served four years in prison.
WEAPONRY
I like to use my fists.
TOUGHEST MOMENTS
I’ve had all sorts of experiences with a number of unsavoury characters. I’ve been run through with a sword and I’ve been shot at point-blank range. But the most frightening experience of my life was in a train after a football match.
It was a Saturday afternoon in 1981. West Ham had just played Sheffield Wednesday and won. Spirits were high and we were in a fighting mood. We walked through the streets chanting and singing, ‘West Ham … West Ham …’
Word on the street was that there had been a fight in another part of town and a kid had been stabbed. For once, it was nothing to do with us.
We made our way to the station and boarded the fast train from Sheffield to London. Half-way back to London, the train was stopped and police swarmed on to the carriages. We were still singing and making a bit of a nuisance of ourselves. The police took statements from other passengers along the lines of, ‘It’s the black bloke. He’s the ringleader.’
It was only then it became apparent that it was to do with the stabbing. The police were looking for the perpetrator – a white man with blond hair carrying a knife. They interviewed everybody on the train but for some strange reason I was singled out and arrested. I couldn’t have looked any less like the person they were looking for if I tried. I was a 6ft black man with afro hair and I certainly wasn’t carrying a knife. Under protest, I was taken to a police station and put in a cell.
Later, a few Old Bill came in. What I wasn’t expecting was for them to say that I had to tell them who’d stabbed the kid. They also said that the kid was in a bad way and was unlikely to make it through the night.
Then I was charged with murder and was looking at life imprisonment. I felt powerless. That was the toughest moment in my life. I can fight a man holding a gun or a knife when I can see what I’m up against, but I can’t fight the powers that be. I ain’t no grass, never have been and never will be.
At that moment, I was prepared to do life if I had to. The police tried their hardest to convict me, but truth prevailed and I walked free from Snaresbrook Court, thank God.
IS THERE ANYONE YOU ADMIRE?
Frank Bruno. He was a man who came from nothing but he had a goal and he achieved it. He had people who knocked him all the way. He’s been laughed at and told he can’t box his way out of a paper bag. He came through all that with flying colours and, most of all, the British public love him, so he’s the winner. Frank Bruno brings hope to every under-privileged street kid. It was his success that drove me on.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN HANGING?
No, I don’t believe in hanging. We live in a civilised society where there are other forms of punishment for criminals but, for proven nonce cases where they cannot live in society, there is only one cure – death, by whatever form society deems suitable.
IS PRISON A DETERRENT?
No. In my experience it’s a criminal college. A man will go in a burglar and come out a fraudster. A drug dealer goes in selling cannabis and soft drugs and comes out selling heroin.
WHAT WOULD HAVE DETERRED YOU FROM A LIFE OF CRIME?
Crime is nothing to do with parenting. It’s down to the company you keep and the area in which you live. If someone lives on a run-down council estate in Glasgow where there are no jobs, no hope and no way out, then crime is the only alternative.
WHAT MAKES A TOUGH GUY?
When I saw my wife giving birth, it suddenly made me think and put it all into perspective. That here was someone tougher than anyone I’d ever met – my wife. That was on a personal level. In the big bad world of reality a real tough guy never considers himself to be tough. He’s just himself.
CASS’S FINAL THOUGHT
I’ve been a bad lad and I’ve done some good in my life but I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done or the choices I’ve made; like the decision to do life imprisonment rather than grass.
Most of the times I’ve been in trouble have been down to the colour of my skin, but I think racism is better today because in my day you would rarely see black girls with white blokes and vice versa.
Today, people don’t bother so much, unless, of course, you’re in prison. I suffered more from racial abuse inside than anywhere else. The white screws hated me because I was black. The blacks hated me because I spoke with a cockney accent; they thought I was trying to be a choc-ice. They didn’t know that I was brought up by white parents and why should I tell them? Why should I tell anyone anything? Fuck ’em! It ain’t nobody’s business but my own.