Football hooligan 'generals' jailed ====================== Audrey Gillan Saturday December 9, 2000 Two football hooligans exposed by an undercover television programme were jailed for seven and six years yesterday for planning violence at a game and trying to disrupt a march through London to commemorate Bloody Sunday. Described as "generals" among the Chelsea Headhunters football hooligans, Andrew Frain, 36, of Reading, and Jason Marriner, 33, of Feltham, Greater London, were also banned from attending football games for 10 years. Passing sentence at Blackfriars crown court in London, Judge Charles Byers branded both as "dangerous men" who "relish violence". Frain, known to his followers as "Nightmare", has links to the racist group Combat 18 and was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, holding the title of grand knight hawk. He has 33 previous convictions, which include burglary, possession of an offensive weapon, importing drugs, assaulting a police officer and possession of racist material. Together with Marriner, he was exposed by the BBC programme MacIntyre Undercover as co-ordinating attacks on rival fans. Hidden camera footage of a Chelsea match in Copenhagen showed Marriner shouting: "We've come here to have a war." Donal MacIntyre filmed the two men planning a fight against rival fans while travelling in the back of a car to Leicester. At one point Frain was heard relishing the fear opponents would feel when they learnt he "was on the loose in Leicester". At another point on the footage, Marriner was heard boasting: "We have got about three coaches going and a minibus. It's sorted. It's naughty. Leicester will be naughty." It was the Chelsea Headhunters who organised an ambush of Scottish supporters in Trafalgar Square during the Euro 96 championship. Forty people were injured and an ambulance was damaged in clashes. The court heard that the men regarded such violence as "fun" and the best way to get their "kicks". Judge Byers said that while there was no evidence that either men had indulged in any fighting "the fact remains that football violence is one of the most horrifying and frightening spectacles of recent times. It affects not only innocent people who get caught up in it, but it discourages people who genuinely watch football from attending matches. "It terrifies young people and it terrifies the elderly, who would like still to attend football matches. It brings disgrace upon the clubs and it brings disgrace upon this country." The programme exposed their links to rightwing groups and their blatant racism. In one piece of footage, Marriner explained how he and Frain had visited Auschwitz and mocked visitors with Nazi salutes: "I quickly took the photo [of Frain giving a Nazi salute], and a Polish geezer starts crying. I think I put the final nail in the coffin when I tried to get into the oven." The jury was told that Frain and Marriner took part in an attempt to disrupt a "perfectly lawful" march through London to commemorate the Bloody Sunday shootings in Northern Ireland. Both were secretly filmed by journalists gathering at Waterloo station before heading for a pub along the route. The idea was that somebody from Combat 18 would be watching for the head of the march, and at the right moment he would give the order for attack. But police penned them in before serious violence could erupt. The jury of nine men and three women found the two men guilty by majority verdicts of conspiracy to commit violent disorder and affray. ======================================= (c) Copyright Guardian (UK)
