Naughty

Mark Chester

Description

In 1985, forty hooligan followers of Stoke City FC experienced a riotous trip to Portsmouth - and the Naughty Forty was born. It became one of the most notorious soccer gangs in Britain.Mark Chester was a founder member of the N40. Already a hardened fighter, he had been expelled from school after an unsettled childhood and joined the Staffordshire Regiment, only to be discharged for misconduct. Stoke City's emerging 'casual' mob became his family. 'Right or wrong, I was ready to be a committed football hooligan,' he says.He recounts tales of raucous coach trips from the Glebe pub and the pivotal clashes with the likes of Everton, Manchester United and West Ham that defined the new firm. Formidable characters came to the forefront, men like the giant Mark Bentley, Philler the Beast and the legendary Miffer, while hair-raising clashes with the likes of Millwall, Spurs, Aston Villa and Manchester City saw the gang's reputation spread.The N40 code was simple: whatever the odds, they would always make a stand. Many times they fought when heavily outnumbered yet often came out on top. They developed a closeness and cohesion rare among the football gangs. Loyalty was their watchword.Soon they were joined by the Under-Fives, a younger element determined to win acceptance from the terrace legends they admired and who carved out their own niche as well as fighting side by side with the old-school heads.Police operations, bans from the ground and the introduction of ID schemes have prevented many from attending games, but the author, long 'retired' from the scene, argues that in the new millennium the gangs are back - and as ferocious as ever. NAUGHTY is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the illicit but seductive lure of terrace combat, the emotional ties of a gang and the addictive buzz of Saturday afternoons.

Sujets

• True crime

Informations

• Publié par: Category C Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780956836892
• Langue: English

Extrait

Naughty The Story of a football Hooligan Gang
In 1985, forty hooligan followers of Stoke City FC experienced a riotous trip to Portsmouth - and the Naughty Forty was born. It became one of the most notorious soccer gangs in Britain.
Mark Chester was a founder member of the N40. Already a hardened fighter, he had been expelled from school after an unsettled childhood and joined the Staffordshire Regiment, only to be discharged for misconduct. Stoke City's emerging 'casual' mob became his family. 'Right or wrong, I was ready to be a committed football hooligan,' he says.
He recounts tales of raucous coach trips from the Glebe pub and the pivotal clashes with the likes of Everton, Manchester United and West Ham that defined the new firm. Formidable characters came to the forefront, men like the giant Mark Bentley, Philler the Beast and the legendary Miffer, while hair-raising clashes with the likes of Millwall, Spurs, Aston Villa and Manchester City saw the gang's reputation spread.
The N40 code was simple: whatever the odds, they would always make a stand. Many times they fought when heavily outnumbered yet often came out on top. They developed a closeness and cohesion rare among the football gangs. Loyalty was their watchword.
Soon they were joined by the Under-Fives, a younger element determined to win acceptance from the terrace legends they admired and who carved out their own niche as well as fighting side by side with the old-school heads.
Police operations, bans from the ground and the introduction of ID schemes have prevented many from attending games, but the author, long 'retired' from the scene, argues that in the new millennium the gangs are back - and as ferocious as ever. NAUGHTY is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the illicit but seductive lure of terrace combat, the emotional ties of a gang and the addictive buzz of Saturday afternoons.
About the Author
Mark Chester has followed Stoke City since boyhood and first became involved in the terrace culture standing on the old Boothen End at the Victoria Ground. He served with the 1st Staffordshire Regiment but was discharged for fighting and became a founder member of the football gang later known as the Naughty Forty. He has eight convictions for football-related offences.
Vis Unita Fortior ( United Strength is Stronger )
Motto on the City of Stoke-on-Trent coat of arms
Opening Words
THIS WAS NO ordinary fixture. Millwall on a Sunday lunchtime. The coaches were arranged for a six o’clock departure from our main boozer, Charley Browns: four vehicles with over 200 boys. Most had spoken of little else for weeks. The excitement was so contagious that some lads decided to join up while enjoying a lock-in with a couple of our lot on a weekend-long session. Charley’s was rammed.
A few bevvies then we were away. No-one needed psyching up for this one. We all knew we were heading for hostile territory and the natives definitely weren’t friendly. We met up with a couple of vanloads at Euston, then moved on to Bermondsey, and were on their manor while they were still thinking about putting the kettle on for their first cuppa. We plotted up in a boozer called The Fort. The delightful old couple that ran the place were superb. They opened up early for us and the lads appreciated the gesture; everyone watched their language and anyone who wanted a spliff went out into the beer garden. They were so busy they asked some of our lads to help out behind the bar. Trust and hospitality - what more could we ask for? When we left, they stood by the door and said we would be welcome again.
For the next five minutes all that could be heard was the breathing of men on a mission and the sound of 280 lads marching on trainer-clad feet. We were tight and committed; the only slightly unnerving thing was the Bermondsey housewives looking at us with silent malice. If this was what the lads we were looking to fight had to face after a night on the lash, then we were going have our hands full. We turned the corner and there it was nestling in the shadow of a railway bridge: The Tropics.
We fanned out in the street silently. A bottle whooshed through the air, but this wasn’t your average empty street weapon. As it hit the wall of the boozer, it exploded - a Molotov cocktail, not normally on the bar list. As flames coated the wall, one of their lads stuck his head out of the door.
‘Fucking hell, they’re here.’
A second petrol bomb hit the arch above the door and ignited the doorframe, like the gateway to hell. Lads stood on the windowsill putting the glass through with their fists as Millwall tried to barricade the window with a pool table. Even their hardened veterans must have been shocked by the barbarians calling it on outside, and possibly wishing for their own Hadrian’s Wall. Sirens screeched up all around us as the old bill arrived.
He was right. Stoke were here. We were visiting for Sunday lunch and we’d brought the roast.
Let’s get this straight from the off. This is a book of short stories and factual accounts concerning men and events that have happened in our town over the past forty years. There are many stories like the above, a true account of a visit to Millwall. If all you want to read about is conflict and violence, I suggest you flick to the page of your choice, and then place this book on the shelf with the rest of your collection. Football violence does feature heavily in this story but there is also a life and a culture that surrounds it. To those of us involved, it was something special and that is what we most want to convey.
You might think that because I am writing this book, I’m some kind of top boy or general, a ringleader. Nowhere near. In our society, in Britain, we all have the opportunity, some more than others, to choose what we want to be.
There was a young lad, ten years of age. Back in the Seventies, 1974 to be precise. The time of The Grimleys, flared trousers, Wrangler jackets with big eagle patches sewn on the back with Stoke City on them. Scarves tied round both wrists, as many metal lapel badges as you could fit on your person. Doctor Marten boots as high up your shin as the doctor allowed. The really trendy Stokie of the day would own a £1.50 white silk Stoke scarf, which would adorn his neck like a proper dresster’s tie, with a tight, smart knot. This young lad went to his first professional football match at the Victoria Ground and stood on a huge open terrace called the Stoke End because he thought that was where all the Stoke fans went. He was wrong. He was mixed in with a load of Leeds fans, and he saw some fighting. He saw a lot of things that day, and it opened his mind, and from then on he was obsessed with watching Stoke City. They won that match 3-0, the opening game of the season. The next home game, he stood on the Boot hen End. It was twenty pence. This time, instead of watching it swaying and listening aghast from the opposite end of the ground, he was part of it. That was it. A habit was formed for the rest of his life. The Boothen End.
That was my choice, no-one else’s. I had seen enough, and with my two schoolmates, Eddy and Gibbo, walked shyly at first into this world of passion and thrills, sadness, disappointment and despair. Emotions that we all share and crave. Emotions that, when put together, give you that one big adrenalin buzz. And as we know, adrenalin is addictive.
Some folk, for example the Cambridge University Extreme Sports Club, travel extensively and spend fortunes seeking that buzz, that pushing yourself to your limit, that challenge. Well it’s no different dropping off the side of a mountain or riding that perfect wave, than travelling to another ground and entering the home enclosure, knowing it will be full of like-minded people whose turn it was that week to defend instead of conquer. This is as good as any night-drive or rally car race, believe me.
I wanted to be like them, the older lads, the ones I would scan the crowd for instead of watching the match, waiting for that big gap to open up and the windmilling to start. I wanted to be like those lads. So there’s your answer, just a young lad who wanted something badly enough. No top boy. Everybody’s equal round our way.
I’m going to give my best shot at explaining why I chose to become a football hooligan and live the life I’ve lived. After much discussion between us all, some of the lads have chosen to remain anonymous, and others have shared with me their own upbringings and insecurities and their own particular reasons for being part of our family. Others have chosen to have no part in it at all and everyone respects their decision. To write about such a phenomenon and chart over forty years’ history in a little over 140,000 words, I have barely scratched the surface. Even so, our journey takes us through the fifties and up to the present day. I’m not ashamed to have been what I was, and if I could go back, I would do it all again. I’m sure we all would; the highs have always outweighed the lows.
At first I puzzled how to begin to write such a book, and how to do it in such a way as not to let down any of my friends; after all, it has been a joint effort and all of us have suffered one way or another over the years. The only way, I feel to approach this, is by giving it 100 percent and baring my soul, sharing everything and exorcising some ghosts in the meantime. On that basis, although my life has not been spectacular, I have chosen to use my story as the spine of the book, introducing characters from all eras as they have appeared throughout my life.
As for the ridicule and the backlash I might face from the world I come from: simple - when you’ve all got the bollocks to stand up and say it as it is, then I’ll listen to what you have got to say. I’ve got a story to tell, and I’m going to write it as I’d speak it. And the first thing I would like to say is: we’re Stoke City, we’re Naughty Forty, and we’re ga