Football Casuals

[*Bob*]

As you know.. football can kick itself up the arse all day long for all I care (generally speaking - World Cup excepted, of course).

But I'm interested in the Football Casuals thing.

Who 'woz there'?

Was violence an essential part of the thing, or limited to a small minority?

How important was the football?

Do we have MDMA to thank for the end of off-pitch bovver?

[Jah Lush]

Quids is your man with the answers you seek.

[Brendan]

Yes the man knows his stuff. He recently informed me that all footballers are also Tories.

[Mick Mac]

Casual turned Capitalist...

[Sandperson]

And Acid Casual. I'm sure he was there too.

[jimmy two times]

It's like Vietnam. If you were there you don't talk about it.

[RosieH]

You say that jimmy, my ex used to "run with the Spurs" (as he puts it - and long before I ever knew him) - he's writing a book on his exploits

[KidKruger]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> Do we have MDMA to thank for the end of off-pitch

> bovver?

I can't imagine those two ingredients being compatible ie/ MDMA/bovver !

[????]

Who 'woz there'?

I was

Was violence an essential part of the thing, or limited to a small minority?

The 'thing' moved from ritualised relatively harmless posturing/territorialism that was a significant part of the whole football experience for a reasonably large number of young football fans to a smaller minority when it became far more nasty and for that reason I was out

How important was the football?

Very for most

Do we have MDMA to thank for the end of off-pitch bovver?

Personally I think most people were realising how stupid it was, plus the 5 year sentences rather than ?50 fines and Aciiied just happened to coincide with that

[MrBen]

What about the post Hillsborough move from terracing to all seated grounds? In Scotland that was the start of the end - it was harder to be hard when you were sitting down on a plastic chair.

At a Celtic vs Aberdeen game in 1988 at 13 years old I recall getting lifted into a coach by a policeman and told to take cover as bricks came through the windows in the away car park and a 200 strong pitch battle kicked off with poles, bricks and anything really. That stuff happened every week in arse end of Scottish council estates close to the ground and never made the news. For some reason the Aberdeen firm always had a rep with their "top boys" weirdly wearing Miami Dolphins shirts for a few seasons. It spawned its own labels /fashion - just like any gang or tribal culture but that was a bit odd I always thought.

Even up in Scotland we heard about the urban myth (?) of the Chelsea smile and the Chelsea Headhunters....all part of the folklore...some of it pretty nasty.

[*Bob*]

There's a lot of talk (and pictures) about the clothes online, but talk of 'rucking' (plus pictures) is never far behind.

So was 'football hooliganism' (as it became know) nothing more than the definitive gang culture of the age, no more than Teddy Boys, Gangstas etc etc? Or was it something else?

[jimmy two times]

To be honest I always thought a lot of those lads weren't all that hard. The lads at the front had balls but the rest were just wannabe tough guys. You rarely saw a right good straightener. It was all wild kicks and off target punches and then running away.

[????]

Wot Jimmy said...absolutely. But there were a few genuine hard guys and nutters.

I was in the line behind the wannabess the urger oneers

[jimmy two times]

I saw a good film recently Quids about West Ham called 'The Firm'. It was out about about 6 months ago. The director was Nick Love I think. I thought it was pretty accurate and the fight scenes were quite realistic. Also the casual's fashions and music were on the money too.

[Acid Casual]

Sandperson Wrote:

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> And Acid Casual. I'm sure he was there too.

Confirmed.

Mr. Ben, I may well have been at the game you describe. Belated apologies!

[Acid Casual]

By the way, as one of my mates says, not all "casuals" were football hooligans, and not all football hooligans were "casuals" I always preferred the term dresser anyway.

[ratty]

Not heard "dresser" since about 1985.

[????]

Here you go *Bob*, a picture (plus cod sociology and some fairly inarticulate stuff from the bloke out of the Cockney Rejects) speak a 1000 words

Bad haircuts, silly clothes and ritualised 'violence' circa 1983

[*Bob*]

Looks like a cross between a lively moshpit and a junior school disco.

Quality selection of YouTube comments, as ever.

[Acid Casual]

ratty Wrote:

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> Not heard "dresser" since about 1985.

I think that tells you all you need to know about the whole cultural phenomena - as I noted on another thread, a movement of its time, and that time was about 1983ish (too early for me) to about 1992 (when I bailed out with my face and wardrobe largely intact) Anyone who tries to recreate what was a product of the times for the 21st century is a bit silly.

That said, I will always be a casual in terms of my love for performance fashion, classic British and European clothing and finding new and different clothes to stay looking fresh and impressive. One of the things that makes me cringe about these 21st century casuals is that they fall into one of two camps...

1. Daft kids who think that casual shorthand means fairly obvious Burberry, Acquascutum and moody Stone Island (all of which I have worn or still own, but when it was fresh, not worn out)

2. Old men who should know better and dress much like the above.

Me and my mates would not be seen dead looking like either of these creatures. None of us (OK, very few of us) have been anywhere near the sharp end of things for over 15 years, but we still have the casual aesthetic. The sort of brands we are likley to wear these days (because we still love performance fashion after all these years) are Woolen Mills, Engineered Garments, Barbour (still a classic), Superga (another classic) Yuketen and Quoddy handmade boots, Trickers and Grenson brogues, Sebago, Levis Vintage, CP Company (another timeless one), Albam, Clarks Originals, Filson, Fjallraven, Fox Umbrellas, Margaret Howell, Gitman Bros, Fracap, Gloverall, Nigel Cabourn, Mephisto, Norse Projects, S.N.S. Herning, Saint James, Guy Cotten, Universal Works, Ralph Lauren custom fit madras check, etc...

The sort of sportswear as sported in The Firm is pretty much rinsed out as far as we are concerned.

By the way, in response to Bob's original post as to the balance between clothes and fighting, generally depends on the person concerned I think. Contrary to popular belief casuals were actually a pretty broad church. From the above I think you can tell where my head was/is at. I couldn't wait for Acid House to give me an excuse to pack it in by the early 90s.

As I said, I will always have a casual aesthetic, and it defined me in my personal style, but Acid House made me a better person (hence the moniker) If you see someone knocking around East Dulwich or Peckham Rye wearing vintage Barbour and a natty line in handmade footwear and madras check shirting, It is very likely me, and I think you'd mostly find me very agreeable.

That's my point of view on it all.

[????]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> There's a lot of talk (and pictures) about the

> clothes online, but talk of 'rucking' (plus

> pictures) is never far behind.

>

> So was 'football hooliganism' (as it became know)

> nothing more than the definitive gang culture of

> the age, no more than Teddy Boys, Gangstas etc

> etc? Or was it something else?

And youthculture

I was actually a soulboy rather than a casual, post punk about 1979 I decided to be a soulboy (a southern largely funk/jazz funk orientated scene rather than the more retro and more famous Northern soul scene concentrating on older obscure soul music) as a fair few of my mates were doing that and I liked the music and wanted to be in on a youth culture as punks moment had gone and the retro mod revival that was ongoing was just pathetic I thought and New Romantics were just London artschool types. Our 'look' then was largely very straight or 'pegged' jeans, legwarmers (yup!) flat shoes (not trainers) or plastic sandals/espadrilles in summer, white socks, various tops - Fred Perrys/baseball tops/Hawaiian shirts/tank tops and even cardigans! (it changed frequently) - but not especially sports casual?as the labels etc weren?t really available or relevant in the UK then. The main thing that identified a soulboy then was the wedge haircut, based on Bowie and Ferry 1976ish, I proudly got my first one in 1979.

Being a soulboy wasn't especially linked to Football, it was strongly linked to going clubbing (Goldmine Canvey Island, Flicks Dartford, Royalty Southgate being examples) and of course to the soul weekenders at Caister and the music. However, most soulboys were white southern suburban working class lads so many went to football. I remember that West Ham well into 1981/2 was still very much a post punk/oi/nu-skinhead look with Harringtons and loafers/DMs still much in evidence. The Southbank at Upton Park was still then pretty much green or black zipper Harrington?s and short hair. Suddenly in 82ish that look went and most youths started adopting a vague soulboy look and then added the sports casual Scouser thing too. I think the look just became more universal and the hooligans - and remember hooliganism had been around since the 1960s - adopted it. What then happened was that then it suddenly mattered that your lot looked better than the other lot and that accelerated the label/casual thing ? I just wasn?t into that then as fundamentally I was thinking we soulboys have had those flicky haircuts and cared about our clothes for years and you lot suddenly think you?re cool but I?m sure that just reflects my age. I was never a casual, my brother whose 7 years younger than me was.

So, casuals just became the universal look (and for a smaller elite a culture) for much workingclass youth and as Acid Casual said some of these went to football and some were hooligans too but the connection was as tenuous as that?Casual weren?t causal (see what I did there) in football violence.

[Acid Casual]

My favourite song of the era...

"We do not carry hatchets, and we do not carry blades, we only carry bendy straws to suck our lemonade"

(Edit - Actually the above was not strictly true across the board)

[Sandperson]

Can't beat a pair of Trimm Trabs.