There’s Third World chaos. Nothing beats Third World chaos if chaos is what you want. The analogy might be going crazy in a crazy house. When the law, as it was, never existed except as some sort of weird schema of wild jungle hate, then moving beyond it seems to be so easy. Will we ever get out of the Middle Eastern morass? Will Africa ever be a continent not beset with woe? Will crypto-narco death squads never cease fighting over Central American cocaine profits?
Who cares?
If you live in a place where you can sleep at night with a reasonable expectation of waking up without a yawning head wound, then it’s probably okay to tender a guess that you don’t. If, in fact, you do care, your armchair politicking is probably just a salve designed to soothe your sense of sorrow over greasing your larders with layer upon layer of filthy lucre. Because, you see, it seems that here in the First World our concerns are much more provincial and we get our chaos in small slices: movies, Eminem CDs, and role-playing games that occasionally break through the skin of gross irreality in a place like Columbine or Virginia Tech and shock everybody for a few minutes before we all go back to meditating on beauty queens strangled in sex shockers and variously instructive dating do’s and don’ts from Hollywood’s drama club.
But when you’re comparing apples and apples, things start to make much more sense. First World chaos is its own piquant blend of ghetto fights, drive-by shootings, and trailer-park-backyard-meth-fueled wrestling matches. And while the deceptively placid suburban idyll of South Central Los Angeles or the despairing post-industrialism of a Detroit seem to all point down the same road, why is it that nowhere outside of Russia, with its barely First World wiles, do I feel more in real physical peril than I do when I’m in the UK?
Well, let’s go to the UK to find out.
Pete the Boxer promised an underground fight match à la Guy Ritchie’s walk on the wild side in his pre-Mr. Madonna flick Snatch. In four days I might be able to make £4,000, which, given how execrably the US dollar is doing these days, is real goddamned cash. The way it works is this: it’s tournament style and the touts, the degenerate gamblers, pays their money and they takes their chances. The more you fight and win, the more you make. Rules seem pretty nonexistent but while takedowns are fine, I am told if I start doing any “chokey ground shit you might find your hands full.” As we sit sipping at the Buffalo Bar in Islington, Pete has led me to believe, through a casual semaphore of nods, smiles, and raised eyebrows, this would mean fighting much more than other fighters. One on one. So I nod assent and he moves to make a call.
But first a drink. And another. And another. And pretty soon he starts thinking he’ll come out of retirement, especially since the East End cats who set him up still owe him. And while I try to send him off to his call like Chamberlain, he gets there as Churchill and queers the whole deal, especially since the deal never included him threatening to cut ANYONE’S balls off. Maybe it’s the veneer of politesse that seems to mask a virulent and big-balled unhealthiness that always fools me, but the Brits are clearly, by my Western standards, insane. I’ve been here one day and the whole of late summertime London feels like one group of people running from one fight to the next. Maybe it’s the national dipsomania, who knows? But I’ve gone 6,000 miles and have nothing to show for it. No fight, no fight that’ll pay £4,000, no interview with Lee Murray, no nothing outside of a bit of nightclub conviviality.
Until I meet Jack Sargeant, and, like some sort of Grimm’s fairy-tale character, he says, “How now, brown cow? Why so glum?” And I explain my plight, and he offers like some sort of magical-bean-toting fairy, a solution: Would a soccer hooligan do you for?
What? You mean he likes soccer? And drinking? And running from the cops? Sounds like Tuesday in Naples.
And he proceeds to explain to me that his friend recently had his door kicked in by the police or Interpol or Scotland Yard or some such fucking thing and they seized his computers, which were chockfull of fight plans, train and game schedules, pics of fights, and his manuscript on precisely this: soccer violence. All gone now, in the hands of the authorities, who had identified him as someone involved in “a conspiracy to commit violent disorder.”
And so he asks again: You wanna talk to him?
Oh yeah. Ladies and gentlemen: Lorne Brown, soccer hooligan.
Actually the correct term would be football hooligan—not soccer—or football casual.
Okay. I stand corrected. So what’s your team? Which is really for me like asking what’s your favorite cricket team? I have no fucking idea really. But there are some that might, so go ahead and tell me.
Brighton and Hove Albion, who are based in Brighton, south coast of England. Then Millwall for three seasons when I was banned by the courts and club. I actually don’t go at the moment as I’m banned again. But I followed them from 1987 onward all over the country. You know, originally I started going FOR the football but soon got swept up in the whole atmosphere and started going more for the action than the game. But I was still passionate about supporting the club.
This seems like a roughly agreed upon deal, yeah? Are there markers like there used to be in skinhead culture that follows the football hooligan? Braces up? Braces down? That kind of thing?
The “casuals,” as football hooligans became known in the 1980s, wore certain clothes to blend in with the crowds, away from the old skinhead image. We wore labels such as Armani, Lacoste, Italian sportswear like Fila, Kappa, and wore Adidas trainers and Timberland boots. It became just as important to look good.
Now, is it a fight-on-sight deal? Or are you more likely to fight with fans from some teams more than with others?
It wouldn’t be random violence. You would know who the opposition was by the way they were dressed. The Firms, as they were known as, would try and meet anywhere in the town where the game was being played, away from the police, if possible. And there are old rivalries too, such as Millwall and West Ham, Manchester United and Leeds United, and these would attract thousands of hooligans. With Brighton it was mainly geographical, and so our rivals are Crystal Palace. Portsmouth. Oxford United and Leyton Orient. These games could be very violent: the last time we played Crystal Palace we took four hundred lads to their ground and it took 250 police to prevent a riot.
Have the precautions they’ve taken to keep you all from traveling worked?
The police tactics have worked very well at home and abroad. The use of CCTV [closed-circuit television] cameras on helmets, helicopters, riot police, dogs, mounted police, and heavy jail sentences have deterred a lot of people, but for big games everyone still turns out for the day.
What was the deal with the police seizing all of your stuff?
Well, I’d been arrested several times for fighting. And had been to court a few times over the years so the police knew who I was, along with many of the others in the Firm. They have what they call an intelligence officer assigned to each club to identify hooligans. So one Saturday we played Leeds United and there was trouble involving forty fans fighting in a pub and in the street in one of Brighton’s main roads. Later fifty of us clashed in another pub in the historical part of town about ten o’clock in the evening. Ten thousand pounds’ worth of damage was done and several people injured and a police dog was killed in the fighting when the police tried to break it up. Unfortunately for me and twenty others it was caught on CCTV. This led to our houses being targeted, riot police kicking our doors down and arresting most of us. I was lucky they just seized all my equipment and later dropped the charges of conspiracy to commit violent disorder. Ten others were not so lucky and were sent to jail. Hence, I’ve kept my head down as I have a three-year-old son now. Which means I choose my games very wisely now.
Is there any sort of history to this violence? I mean, were they doing this shit back in the 1920s?
It’s been going on in one way or another for a hundred years, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that it became organized and almost fashionable for a while. In the 1940s a hand grenade was thrown onto the pitch at a Millwall game. And the two main Scottish clubs, Glasgow Rangers and Celtic, have been fighting over football and religion since the game began. It has died down a bit now due to police efforts and heavy punishments in the courts. But in the ’70s, thousands would try and take each other’s stands in pitched battles, and they would fight it out on the pitch with the game still going ahead.
Do chicks fight as well?
Never seen it myself but have heard of it on rare occasions.
Are the clubs multicultural? You know, bringing together different races and colors and creeds in a veritable festival of fighting brotherhood?
It’s mainly white and working-class. Between the ages of fifteen and fifty. However, some clubs such as Birmingham are known as the Zulus due to the large number of black lads in their Firm. In fact, the Zulus usually feature in the top five worst hooligan gangs in the country and have been responsible for some of the worst violence seen at matches over the years. Most Firms do have some lads from other ethnic backgrounds, though.
How come there was no trouble when the World Cup was played in the UK the last time?
That one’s simple: England didn’t qualify for the World Cup then. In 1994 we were knocked out by Holland in Rotterdam in the group stages in 1993. I was there and it was insane before the game and after, with over fifteen hundred arrests as England fans rioted.
Is there anything that comes close to the thrill of a good fight? And are there techniques for doing better in these fights that maybe a trained fighter would not have even thought of?
Nothing else gives you that surge of adrenaline that you get just before a fight. It can’t be explained. Addictive? Yes. And the camaraderie, being in a tight spot and having to fight your way out? You can’t replace it with anything else. And I don’t think a jiu-jitsu fighter would stand any better chance in these fights than anyone else as they are mainly gang related, and although he could take most of them down one on one, he would be swamped after a while. We had kickboxers and boxers in our Firm, and as tough as these guys were there wasn’t much call for technique in these situations.
So what is going on, technique-wise?
It’s pretty much anything goes: punching, kicking, head butts, the lot. However, kicking people on the ground is usually frowned upon, although it does go on as some people take things a bit far, and there have been several deaths over the years. But I’ve been in fights where we have been attacked with flare guns, CS [2-Chlorobenzalmalononitrile], or teargas and knives. Although never guns. Not from football fans, that is. Knives were used a lot more in the 1980s, especially Stanley knives. I’ve never carried a weapon myself. Just not my thing. However, I have used umbrellas, bottles, planks of wood, and used a cop’s stick on him once.
www.acasuallook.co.uk
BEST NORTH AMERICAN SPORTS BRAWLS AND OUR UNFLINCHINGLY UNREPENTANT TAKE ON WHY THEY WERE GREAT
Houston Rockets vs. Los Angeles Lakers, December 9, 1977—Kermit Washington, sucker punch. Rudy Tomjanovich, hospitalization, attempted murder, career-ending injuries. ’Nuff said.
Tom Gamboa Gets Jumped, September 19, 2002—The 54-year-old Kansas City Royals coach Tom Gamboa gets attacked by a meth-fueled father and teenage son double team. Who said good parenting is dead? Outside of everyone who reads this story?
Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Francisco Giants, August 22, 1965—Two intentional beanings, a Juan Marichal-launched bat to the head of Johnny Roseboro, and a perfectly wrist-slappish eight-game suspension. When they talked about the good ol’ days … this is probably what they mean.
Montreal Canadiens vs. Boston Bruins, March 13, 1955—The best part of having control is losing it, and Canadiens legend Maurice Richard was never known for having much to begin with, so when he took a stick to Hal Laycoe—and almost everyone else who tried to stop him from taking a stick to Laycoe—he had clearly LOST it. For his troubles he was suspended by league president Clarence Campbell, who, at his next public appearance, was attacked in a riot that resulted in over half a million dollars of damage and the arrest of almost every single Richard fan in attendance.
Malice at the Palace: Indiana Pacers vs. Detroit Pistons, November 19, 2004—Everybody beating their chests over how “horrible,” how “dreadful” a state of affairs basketball had degenerated to: whatever. If this wasn’t the greatest game of basket-brawl you had ever seen, well, we’ll jump out of the stands and start wildly punching almost everyone in sight. Sure, Artest was suspended for an entire season, and Stephen Jackson (30 games), and Jermaine O’Neal (25 games), but who cares? We value honesty over prime-time propriety. On display here was exactly what should happen when millionaires are toyed with by the great unwashed: ass-kicking.
Milbury vs. The Shoe, December 23, 1979—Boston Bruin Mike Milbury beat a cursing, kicking, stick-wielding fan with the fan’s own shoe? Perfect.
Frank Francisco vs. A Woman’s Nose, September 13, 2004—For the record? Her husband was a heckler, she aided and abetted the public decline of manners, Texas Rangers pitcher Francisco was just doing what anyone who reads Miss Manners would have known was exactly the right thing: he bust her in the nose with a folding chair. Life lesson learned? You will get suspended for fifteen games, get arrested, and plead no contest to misdemeanor assault charges. Oh, and you’ll get sued and settle. Veeerrrrryyyy disappointing.
San Diego Padres vs. Atlanta Braves, August 12, 1984—Nineteen ejected players, five spectators arrested, Braves manager Joe Torre pegging San Diego manager Dick Williams as Hitler in a baseball cap. America’s pastime? You know it, baby.
Brooklyn Dodgers fan vs. George Magerkurth, September 19, 1940—Enraged parole violater Frank Germano leaps out of the stands to whale on the former heavyweight-boxer-turned-umpire Magerkurth whose call cost Brooklyn first place, handing it to the Cincinnati Reds. Gave new life to the phrase “Kill the umpire!”
Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield, June 28, 1997—C’mon? Ear avulsion? An ensuing riot? Tooth-based mayhem? The last great thing that Tyson ever did, which just about says it all.
The Punch-up in Piestany: Canada vs. Soviet Union, World Junior Hockey Championships, January 5, 1987—Bench-clearing brawls that saw EVERYONE in the arena fighting. Panicked officials turned off the lights in a sad attempt to restore order: EVERYONE kept fighting in the dark. Game canceled, both teams banned from the tournament. An amazing think-tank level of commitment to the fistic arts. Kudos, gentlemen.
Riddick Bowe vs. Andrew Golota, July 11, 1996—Low blows and a head butt disqualified the “Polish Prince.” When a member of the Brooklyn-born Bowe’s entourage attacked Golota, smashing him in the head with a walkie-talkie, the ensuing rumble in the ring led to fans brawling in the stands at Madison Square Garden, ending, not so predictably, in a riot. Now THAT’S entertainment.
THE BRAWLING HALL OF FAME FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON
BILLY MARTIN: For being drunk. And fighting. And fighting drunk.
THE CITY of BOSTON: For the same reasons.
TY COBB: For beating up a one-armed man with his one fake arm.
JAKE LA MOTTA: For having great peripheral vision, which was the key to his un-knock-outability.
KYLE FARNSWORTH and BILL ROMANOWSKI: Are they not one and the same person?
MIKE TYSON: WAR at the STORE. Case closed.
And last but not least …
JIM BROWN: Do NOT, we repeat NOT, play golf with this man. Or let’s put it another way: Is an eagle worth your life?