Although set in London, a lot of the film was filmed in South Yorkshire, in particular Rotherham and Sheffield. Millmoor stadium in Rotherham served as Shadwell Town's fictional home "The Kennel". The tagline is "When you go undercover, remember one thing... Who you are." The true events that inspired the movie are chronicled in the 2013 book Running with the Firm written by former undercover detective James Bannon. The film has a cult following.[1] In 2016, twenty one years after the original the film was released, it received a sequel named ID2: Shadwell Army.
Plot
Set in 1988, John (Reece Dinsdale), an ambitious young police officer in the Metropolitan Police, is sent undercover along with colleagues Trevor (Richard Graham), Eddie (Perry Fenwick) and Charlie (Philip Glenister) to join a violent football firm associated with Shadwell Town Football Club. Their mission is to track down the 'generals' - the shadowy figures who orchestrate the violence. Posing as painters and decorators John and Trevor begin frequenting the main Hooligan pub, "The Rock" at lunch times and later start visiting on match days. After becoming familiar with Linda (Saskia Reeves) the barmaid and some of the regulars they start attending matches with hooligans Martin (Sean Pertwee), Nik (Charles De'Ath) and Gumbo (Lee Ross), where during one pub crawl they get into a brawl with Arsenal fans.
As a bus of Midchester fans goes past the pub, John tells Trevor that he needs to find out where they are going and runs out of the pub, following the bus which is eventually held up in traffic. The bus is then ambushed and attacked by the Shadwell firm who have followed John from the pub. Firm leader Bob (Warren Clarke) who was initially suspicious of John, now lauds him as a hero for leading the charge against the away fans.
The hard-drinking and hard-fighting macho culture (where Saturday's match and Saturday's fight are all that matters) prove irresistible to John and he finds himself slowly becoming one of the thugs he has been sent to entrap. En route to the next game, Martin informs John of the location of the next fight between Shadwell and an opposing firm. Trevor calls ahead from a service station payphone to inform the police of the details. With the location given away, the police are on the scene and make arrests.
Martin, now heavily suspicious of John and Trevor, accuses them of being police officers. John's answers convinces Bob and Martin that they are who they say they are. Later, John pretends to be unable to read when playing on a pub quiz machine which appears to get rid of any certainty that he is a policeman. John's relationships with Marie (Claire Skinner) his wife, his superiors and even his team become strained. He begins to ignore his wife which causes an argument during which John attempts to violently have sex with her.
In the next round of the FA Cup, Shadwell are drawn away at local rivals, Wapping. Before the game, Bob convinces John and Trevor to come with them to where the home fans are in order to start a fight. Martin and Nik call them mad and the rest of the gang head off to the away end. Trevor sees one of the Shadwell hooligans with a machete, panics and leaves.
Eventually a fight occurs and the group are ejected. John is led away by several policeman but breaks free, running into the Shadwell end where he is greeted as a hero. Marie organises as a beach holiday but after an argument the pair break up and she returns to her parents' house. John, in a drunk stupor, turns up at Linda's house and the pair begin an affair.
Shadwell's next opponent is away at Tyneburn and during a stand off inside the stadium the home fans begin throwing objects, one of which a dart hits and injures Gumbo. Martin and Nik attempt to climb up over the fence separating the two fans but are pulled down by the police. Following the game, the firm chase off a group of Tyneburn fans but this leads them to a deserted market place where they are confronted by their firm who are armed with weapons. With Shadwell outnumbered other members of the gang run away leaving John and Martin who charge at the gang. It is later revealed that one of the Tyneburn fans was fatally stabbed and subsequent CCTV footage viewed by Trevor, Eddie and Charlie shows that John is responsible. Trevor however trashes the video tape to spare John of conviction.
Later back in "The Rock", Bob tells John that one of the "generals" Wynton wants a word with him. Wynton passes John a packet of drugs and tells him that he has been watching him and that he could use his skills in the criminal underworld. The following morning John returns to the investigation HQ to find out that the operation is being closed down and later back at New Scotland Yard he is told that the team are to be commended but would now have to serve several weeks of beat police duty at their respected divisions, to which Trevor pleads that if any of his targets see him and John in uniform then they would be killed. As the group are coming out of the meeting an officer from the licensing department thanks the team for their evidence and tells them that they've been able to use the information in their report to shut down The Rock. He returns to Linda's house but she attacks him for getting The Rock shut down and says she knew he was a Police Officer the first time she saw him.
John, who is now an alcoholic, attempts to reconcile with Marie but his attempts are rebuffed, which leads to a confrontation with her parents and they are forced to scare him off their property with their dogs. Returning to work as a beat policeman he has a mental breakdown when looking at himself in uniform in the locker room. He later returns home and trashes his entire house. As his addiction takes over, John is later seen emptying cocaine into his breakfast cereal as he sits in his trashed house.
The closing sequence shows a Neo Nazi march through the streets to which a shaven-headed John is taking part. Trevor, who is watching the march, approaches him to ask him what he is playing at, but is rebuffed. John says that he is, again, working undercover. There is a degree of ambiguity as he stands to attention performs a Nazi salute and chants Sieg hiel over and over again. This makes it clear that whatever the truth, John is unable to prevent himself from sinking into his character.
Vincent O'Connell described himself as a "method writer" and said he became so immersed in writing the script that he began acting out himself by getting into scraps with people and starting fights in the pub, and at times had to question why he was acting this way.[2] The plot of the film is loosely based on "Operation Full-Time", a Scotland Yard undercover operation which attempted to identify the leaders of West Ham United's firm, the Inter City Firm (ICF). However, none of the real life officers suffered John's (Reece Dinsdale) fate. The film features the fictitious teams of Shadwell Town and Wapping FC. The locations the teams are based on are real – they are neighbouring areas on the northern bank of the River Thames in London's traditional East End. It is believed that Millwall F.C was the inspiration for one team,[3] as the clubs' fans had a long-standing reputation for violence during the period which the film represents. Another possible parallel is that Shadwell are promoted to the First Division for the first time in their history towards the end of the film - Millwall were promoted to the top flight of English for the first time at the end of the 1987-88 season. Shadwell are also called "The Dogs" and play at "The Kennel" where as Millwall are "The Lions" who played at "The Den".[4]
The pub used as "The Rock" was the Rising Sun on Old Jamaica Road in Bermondsey, South London. The pub was demolished shortly after filming.[6] The Tower Hotel in Wapping was also used.[7]
Release
The film was released in the United Kingdom on 15 May 1995. The film was released on VHS video on 9 March 1998[8]DVD's were released in 2005, 2009 and 2012, with a Blu-ray release in May 2012.[9]
Phil Davis won the "Audience Award" at the Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films in 1996, he was also nominated for the "Golden Alexander" award at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.[12]
Writer, Vincent O'Connell claimed that he was initially very disappointed with how the film turned out and it took him several years to appreciate the film's cult status. “I could never get over how people quote whole chunks of dialogue from the first film, still now, years on. It never stops amazing me,” he began. “People send me photos of tattoos with bits of the script they’ve got on their body. I’ve been in the pub before and no-one has known me from Adam, and loads of football supporters have started singing Shadwell songs.”
O'Connell went on to say that the film failed to reach his artistic goals but had become popular entertainment and after fans had told him he needed to have more respect for the film he decided to re-address his issues with the film. This culminated in him writing the sequel in 2016.[15]
In 2016, British Retro football designer Toffs released a range of Shadwell Town football merchandise.[16]
Millwall Football Club is a professional football club in Bermondsey, South East London, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second level 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 rampant lion, referred to in the team's nickname The Lions. Millwall's traditional kit consists of dark blue shirts, white shorts, and blue socks.
The Football Factory is a 2004 British sports drama film written by AJ Lovell and directed by Nick Love and starring Danny Dyer, Tamer Hassan, Frank Harper, Roland Manookian, Neil Maskell and Dudley Sutton. The film is loosely based on the novel of the same name by John King and the first foray into filmmaking by video game producers Rockstar Games, credited as executive producers. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 14 May 2004.
The Chelsea Headhunters are a notorious English football hooligan firm linked to the London football club Chelsea.
Green Street is a 2005 crime drama film about football hooliganism in the United Kingdom. The film was directed by Lexi Alexander and stars Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam.
Reece Dinsdale is an English actor and director of stage, film and television. He is a Huddersfield Town fan. In 2017 he became a patron of the Square Chapel, an arts centre in Halifax. He is also an honorary patron of The Old Courts multi-arts centre in Wigan
The Zulu Warriors are a football hooligan firm associated with English football club, Birmingham City. The Zulu Warriors were formed in the late 1980s and the name allegedly came from a chant of "Zulu, Zulu" which Manchester City fans aimed at Birmingham in 1982, due to their multicultural following. However, both the "Zulu" chant and the term "Zulu Warriors", in the context of a fan following rather than as an organised gang, were in use from at least the mid 1970s.
The Muckers are a football hooligan firm linked to the football club Blackpool F.C. They take their name from the word mucker, a colloquialism meaning good friend.
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The Millwall Bushwackers are a football firm associated with Millwall Football Club. 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 amongst 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 their fearsome reputation for violence was described.
Nick Love is an English film director and writer. His credits include the films The Football Factory, The Business, Goodbye Charlie Bright, Outlaw, The Sweeney, and a 2009 remake of football hooliganism drama The Firm.
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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.
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 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.
The 1985 Luton riot occurred before, during and after a 1984–85 FA Cup sixth-round football match between Luton Town and Millwall on 13 March 1985 at Luton Town's Kenilworth Road ground in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. It was one of the worst incidents of football hooliganism during the 1980s, and led to a ban on away supporters by Luton Town which lasted for four seasons. This itself led to Luton's expulsion from the Football League Cup during the 1986–87 season. The club also began to enforce a membership card scheme, which Margaret Thatcher's government attempted to have adopted at grounds across England. Kenilworth Road was damaged, along with the surrounding area, and a year later was converted to an all-seater stadium.
The Firm is a 2009 British drama film based around football hooliganism written and directed by Nick Love. It is a remake of the original 1989 version.
Richard Graham is an English actor. He played George T. Rowe in the 1997 film Titanic.
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.
Green Street 3: Never Back Down is a 2013 British crime film directed by James Nunn and a sequel to the 2009 film Green Street 2: Stand Your Ground directed by Jesse V. Johnson.
Vincent O'Connell is a British filmmaker and writer of films, theatre, television and radio drama. His films as director include the 1995 film Skin, starring Ewen Bremner, written by Sarah Kane, and his 2000 film, Beyond the Boundary, which won a British Academy Children's Award. His feature films as a writer include I.D. and ID2: Shadwell Army, other full-length films as writer including Sweet Nothing and Criminal, both for the BBC. Criminal won 1993 Best Single Drama at the Royal Television Society.
ID2: Shadwell Army is a 2016 British football hooligan film made by Universal Pictures, directed by Joel Novoa, written by Vincent O'Connell and starring Simon Rivers, Linus Roache and Paul Popplewell. It is the sequel to the 1995 film I.D. and like its predecessor it is set in the Shadwell area of London and follows a Muslim police officer who is sent undercover to infiltrate the hooligan gang connected to Shadwell Town Football club.
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