Football Fight Club

Football Fight Club was the latest BBC documentary to tackle the age old issue of violence at football matches. This subject is an easy way to get views, the majority of the country likes football, and they live in fear of violence. Put the two together and you'll spark most people's interest. For me, the whole culture around football is something I'm very interested in, and I did in fact do my dissertation in uni on the portrayal of football violence in the media. However, this programme was a piss take, so don't be expecting a dissertation. If you've read my previous blogs (and if you haven't, why not?) expect it to be more like that.

BBC have added their own twist to this latest hooligan hurrah, they will apparently be focusing on a new breed of football hooligan. These twats:

For lads who are involved in something illegal they don't half spend a lot of time taking photos of themselves in this programme. Like with most mainstream coverage of football hooliganism, this documentary uses footage of random riots that can be found on the internet to intersect clips they've filmed of the main subjects of the documentary, to create the illusion that this violence is happening with these people on a much more widespread basis than it actually is. 

If you were watching this and didn't know anything about football or the culture surrounding it, you would have a completely false view of what actually happens. According to this, Manchester City's "reputation has been maimed by their youth hooligan firm." That's bollocks like. I'm not sure if the "firm" who are the main subjects of this documentary are actually real. Their "youth" firm is ran by Carl, 24, who by the looks of things had a tough fucking paper round:

And you know how I was saying that they don't seem real, well this photo here is not a picture of a real group of people going the match: 

Now don't get me wrong, I love all the original casuals clobber, it looks great in the film The Firm, but people don't go the match dressed like this any more. People definitely don't turn up to scraps dressed like this. I mean, look at the fella on the right, he's wearing blue 1980s shorts. He's not involved in any scraps him.

That's not the worst of it though. We haven't found out what the name of the firm is yet. What name could they possibly give to this firm of hooligans that are maiming Manchester City's good name with all their acts of violence?.. The Blazing Squad. The fucking Blazing Squad. Do they not know that The Blazing Squad were a group of wannabe English rappers who had a few hits a decade ago, and who's most famous member was called Kenzie and he was on Big Brother? 

Blazin's Squad fo lyf

On second thought, when you compare the two pictures maybe they were aware of the Blazing Squad and named themselves after them. Next we'll be hearing about their biggest rival firm, the Bolton Boyzone.

We get to meet the boys from the Blazing Squad trying to look all mean and that:

They all joined up when they were 16, so maybe they are unaware of the original Blazing Squad that they're embarrassingly named after. I think the fella at the bottom is unaware of the Fonejacker as well, because his outfit is a ringer for him:

"Hello, is that West Ham?"

If you don't get the "Hello, is that West Ham?" reference it will all become clear later in the blog. Back to that earlier photo though, get on the fella holding the nightstick he bought off ebay. I reckon that nightstick has been used for more photos than it has for fights. They all go on about how they hide on the estate then attack the away fans, which just doesn't happen these days. For this entire documentary, the lads in it just repeat stuff they've read in old hooligan books. They're living a fantasy, with old hooligan autobiographies as their bible.

In Bury... the girls dress like this:

"In Bury..." is genuinely what the narrator is saying when this shot is on the screen, and is possibly the only part of the show that has comedic intentions. Anyway, what's actually happening in Bury is that the Bury boys are preparing to face their biggest rivals, York City. I don't think they'll have much to worry about though, because judging by this photo York's main firm are the Yorkshire Building Society:

I genuinely reckon them lads meant to buy an England flag but got that one by mistake. Either the England flag's were sold out or they saw that one and thought it actually was an England flag with a sick red hand symbol on it.

The inevitable happens next. They move on to talk about fashion. I think there's like a template for any documentary, or film for that matter, about football hooliganism. You focus on the individual young lads who've been drawn in by the firm, you create the big rivalry, you talk about the fashion, the big rivalry fight happens. The boys in the Football Fight Club are all into their Adidas Gazelle's:

Football and fashion have been very importantly linked over the years, but in this show they've got the reasons why all mixed up. Don't get me wrong, I like Gazelle's but the only reason these lads are wearing them is because they've read some old hooligans book and he's said he only ever wore Gazelle's. The thing is though, he was wearing them in 1980 when he probably only had a choice between them, Stan Smith's and Samba Super's. The whole link between football and fashion has been about innovation. It was about lads turning up at places across the country wearing trainers, jeans and wedge haircuts, being confronted by fellas in boots with a skinhead, who'd laugh at them, then a year later be wearing the same thing they were the year before. It's not about flicking through a sale rack looking for something made by Stone Island for no other reason than the fact it's made by Stone Island.

Wearing stuff you've read about in an old book or, as with the picture earlier, trying to look like you're in the film The Firm, isn't what football fashion is all about. I don't know, maybe innovating terrace wear is just a Liverpool thing.

Anyway, that rant over... now we meet Dante from Tottenham's firm. As Carl so eloquently puts it "he's the Yid's main kid." Tottenham's youth firm are called The Yid Army (we can't call them it, but they can call themselves it) which is definitely an improvement on The Blazing Squad. Carl is friends with Dante on Facebook. Here's a tip for the police, if you want to catch Britain's top football hooligans, just have a look on Carl's Facebook, he's probably friends with them. We should all have a look at Carl's Facebook actually:

Works at Blazing Squad Manchester. Works. At. Blazing. Squad. Manchester. And they thought you couldn't get any worse than "Works at full time mummy". I seriously hope that because of that job description Carl is always getting messages off places like Popworld thinking he's a member of the actual Blazing Squad asking him to do personal appearances. 

Next we meet one of the younger lads, Aaron, who comes out with the immortal line "It's like going to a theme park but it's free... and it's ten times better." Best description of fighting I ever heard. However, even though were halfway through a show about lads who love to fight we're actually yet to see a fight. Even when the boys have arranged to go on their own away day for the sole purpose of meeting up to have a fight, they decide they don't want the BBC cameras to go with them. So essentially the lads were just going to fight, it has nothing to do with football. And the BBC didn't film it anyway, some documentary on football hooligan's this.

Have you ever been to Alton Towers though Aaron?

When we go back to Dante we find out that he's stopped going to football. Some documentary on football hooligans this is turning out to be. So far we've got a group of lads who travel to different parts of the country when there isn't a match on, and have fights with people that are totally unrelated to football that the BBC aren't allowed to film anyway, and a firm leader who doesn't actually go the game or get involved with violence any more. It appears all Dante does now is take part in workouts that resemble a Rocky montage:

I'll be disappointed if he wasn't listening to Hearts On Fire on his ipod there.

They start to build towards the climax of the show now. It seems that they're going to finish with a big fight between the City boys and West Ham. After talking about how many lads are going to be there for it, and showing the West Ham fans arriving at the stadium, we get the major anti-climax of Aaron on the phone miles from the ground arranging a four on four fight:

And now the reference I made earlier should become clear. It may not have been the climax we were hoping for, but this really did provide the highlight of the show. I could use some of the jokes that were going round on twitter as my own here, but it would be better if I just showed them in their original form. 

I think it's quite important to show that the main thing to come out of this documentary was a joke about a lad phoning West Ham, because that's all the show was, a joke. As you can imagine, like with every bit of promised violence in this show the fight with West Ham doesn't occur, the lads just spend the next few minutes driving round a rain soaked Manchester in a little Peugeot doing nothing. They question why the West Ham lads don't show up for the fight, but I imagine it probably has something to do with the fact they've been told that the Blazing Squad are bringing a BBC camera crew to an illegal arranged brawl.

Apart from a pretty gay scene where Carl and Dante walk together along a canal, the documentary is pretty much over. We find out what the boys are up to now. Aaron has joined the army, probably because he's realised he's going to appear on national television organising football hooliganism so it was either that or prison. And the ultimate cliche... Carl is bringing out a book... about The Blazing Squad...

Ironic, the man who's life is based on football hooligan autobiography is writing his own football hooligan autobiography. So, if all the football hooligan books that are already out there aren't good enough for you - you know, the ones set in a time when football hooliganism was actually happening, involving full blown street riots and people getting stabbed - you can buy Carl's book, about trying and failing to arrange four vs four fights with West Ham and roaming the streets of Manchester in the rain and never actually getting involved in any football hooliganism.

@adamheath