West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, having moved from their former home, the Boleyn Ground, in 2016.
Millwall Football Club is a professional football club in Bermondsey, South East London, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. Founded as Millwall Rovers in 1885, the club has retained its name despite having last played in the Millwall area of the Isle of Dogs in 1910. From then until 1993, the club played at what is now called The Old Den in New Cross, before moving to its current home stadium nearby, called The Den. The traditional club crest is a lion rampant, referred to in the team's nickname 'The Lions'. Millwall's traditional kit consists of dark blue shirts, white shorts, and blue socks.
Football hooliganism, also known as soccer hooliganism, football rioting or soccer rioting constitutes violence and other destructive behaviours perpetrated by spectators at association football events. Football hooliganism normally involves conflict between gangs, in English known as football firms, formed to intimidate and attack supporters of other teams. Other English-language terms commonly used in connection with hooligan firms include "army", "boys", "bods", "casuals", and "crew". Certain clubs have long-standing rivalries with other clubs and hooliganism associated with matches between them is likely to be more severe.
The Chelsea Headhunters are a notorious English football hooligan firm linked to the London football club Chelsea.
The Inter City Firm (ICF) is an English football hooligan firm associated with West Ham United, which was mainly active in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. The name came from the use of InterCity trains to travel to away games. They were the subject of a 1985 Thames Television documentary, Hooligan.
The Millwall Bushwackers are the most notorious football firm associated with Millwall Football Club. The club and fans of Millwall have a historic association with football hooliganism, which came to prevalence in the 1970s and 1980s with a firm known originally as F-Troop, eventually becoming more widely known as the Millwall Bushwackers, who were one of the most notorious hooligan gangs in England. On five occasions The Den was closed by the Football Association and the club has received numerous fines for crowd disorder. Millwall's hooligans are regarded by their rivals as amongst the stiffest competition, with Manchester United hooligan Colin Blaney describing them as being within the 'top four' firms in his autobiography 'Undesirables' and West Ham hooligan Cass Pennant featuring them on his Top Boys TV YouTube channel, on which this fearsome reputation for violence was described.
The Red Army is a hooligan firm who follow English football club Manchester United. Although today the term Red Army is used mostly to refer to fans of the club in general, the hooligan firm has been one of the largest firms in British football. Firm members – and the firm itself – are sometimes known as the Men in Black, due to the members dressing in all black clothing. In his book Hotshot, Red Army hooligan Harry Gibson states that there are also sub-divisions of the firm known as the Young Munichs, the Inter City Jibbers (ICJ), the M58 Firm and the Moston Rats. In his book Undesirables, Colin Blaney has also stated that the ICJ is dedicated to carrying out acquisitive forms of crime in addition to football hooliganism. He claims that members of the group have been involved in smuggling drugs to Europe and Asia from Latin America and the Caribbean, organizing jail breaks, carrying out armed robberies, travelling overseas to Asia and mainland Europe in order to steal jewellery and committing street robberies. It is the criminal wing of the Red Army.
The Real Football Factories is a documentary series shown on the Bravo television channel in the United Kingdom and created by Zig Zag Productions. The show looks at the in-depth life of football hooligans and hooligan firms. Interviews are conducted with past and present hooligans.
'Hoxton' Tom McCourt is the former bassist and bandleader of punk rock/Oi! band, The 4-Skins. He was one of the most influential members of the skinhead revival of 1977 to 1978, the mod revival of 1978 to 1979 and the Oi! movement from 1979 to 1984.
The 6.57 Crew is an English football hooligan firm linked to Portsmouth F.C. The name, 6.57 Crew is taken from the time that the Portsmouth to London Waterloo train left Portsmouth and Southsea station. The firm were one of the most active firms in the 1980s and caused chaos wherever they went.
The rivalry between Millwall and West Ham United is one of the longest-standing and most bitter in English football. The two teams, then known as Millwall Athletic and Thames Ironworks, both originated in the East End of London, and were located less than three miles apart. They first played each other in the 1899–1900 FA Cup. The match was historically known as the Dockers derby, as both sets of supporters were predominantly dockers at shipyards on either side of the River Thames. Consequently, each set of fans worked for rival firms who were competing for the same business; this intensified the tension between the teams. In 1904, West Ham moved to the Boleyn Ground which was then part of Essex until a London boundary change in 1965. In 1910, Millwall moved across the River Thames to New Cross in South East London and the teams were no longer East London neighbours. Both sides have relocated since, but remain just under four miles apart. Millwall moved to The Den in Bermondsey in 1993 and West Ham to the London Stadium in Stratford in 2016.
Carol "Cass" Pennant, is an English writer and former football hooligan.
Nick Nevern is a British actor, screenwriter and director. He is best known for his roles in Eastenders first as Rennie, then as Don, Shameless as Rogowski,and The Hooligan Factory as Dex.
Cass is a 2008 British crime drama film. It stars Nonso Anozie as Cass Pennant and is directed by Jon S. Baird.
The Capital City Service (CCS) is a Scottish football hooligan firm associated with Hibernian F.C. and active from 1984 when the casual hooligan subculture took off in Scotland. Their roots were in the previous incarnations of hooligan groups attached to the club and also the wider Edinburgh and surrounding area's gang culture. They are more commonly known in the media and amongst the public as the Hibs Casuals, although within the hooligan network they may also be referred to as Hibs Boys.
West Ham United F.C. supporters are the followers of the London-based West Ham United Football Club, who were founded as Thames Ironworks in 1895. There are 700,000 fans on the club's database and over 2,300,000 likes on Facebook. The club's website is in the top ten most visited websites for English football clubs by people in the USA. Their fans are also associated with a once-notorious hooligan element and have long-standing rivalries with several other clubs, most notably Millwall.
Beginning in at least the 1960s, the United Kingdom gained a reputation worldwide for football hooliganism; the phenomenon was often dubbed the British or English Disease. However, since the 1980s and well into the 1990s the UK government has led a widescale crackdown on football related violence. While football hooliganism has been a growing concern in some continental European countries in recent years, British football fans now tend to have a better reputation abroad. Although reports of British football hooliganism still surface, the instances now tend to occur at pre-arranged locations rather than at the matches themselves.
The Hooligan Factory is a 2014 football hooliganism spoof film directed, co-written and starring Nick Nevern. The film heavily parodies titles from the British hooligan genre films and focuses mainly on The Firm, along with The Football Factory, Rise of the Footsoldier, I.D., Green Street and Cass.
