Popsider - as soon as I saw your name, I thought that you might have a handle
on this one!
For what its worth, here's my brief potted history of the casual movement
(errors and omissions excepted!).
Different parts of England lay claim to being the originators of this
movement (arguably the most underground movement of them all, although the
current UK Northern/Modern soul scene may be a contender).
London, Manchester and Liverpool can all make this claim, though for my money
Liverpool probably stakes the strongest.
Before continuing I must stress that to my mind, the "casual" movement and
football hooliganism are inextricably linked and I don't believe that one can
ever be exclusive to the other.
A bit of background; in the late 70s, a huge proportion football-going lads
of a certain age - say 15-25 - were what were known as hooligans. In contrast
to today's hooligan numbers, there were an enormous amount of young men who
were "at it".
These men wore the fashions of the day which were largely skinhead-led, Green
MA1s, denim jackets, jeans, DM boots, loafers etc. and also often wore club
colours.
During this period, while the country was in economic recession, Liverpool
Football Club were sweeping aside all around them on the pitch and playing,
and winning, regularly in Europe. Many of Liverpool's young hooligan
following would travel extensively around Europe watching their team and
would shoplift vast quantities of unheard of clothing labels (the more exotic
and exclusive, the better) as well as seeking out new and unknown brands of
training shoes.
Back in England, these new items of clothing were real trophy pieces to the
Scousers (aka people from Liverpool, Merseyside), who mocked the fans of
teams from all over England who would arrive in Liverpool in their tired old
Skinhead clobber.
These other fans were not slow to pick up the scent of what was going on and
soon the epicentre of this burgeoning new cult moved to London.
The term "casual" was widely adopted across England and Scotland, although
there is some evidence that the Liverpool fans were defined as "Scallies" and
those in Manchester as "Perries".
London, being the capital city, and the economic and fashion centre, offered
the greatest choices of labels and rare clothing and having the highest
concentration of football clubs, and therefore football "hooligans", rapidly
eclipsed Liverpool as the centre of this underground movement. (Liverpool
meanwhile, unable now to compete, turned to a stylish "scruff" look).
Put simply, although the media were well aware of the football hooligan
"problem", they failed to notice its metamorphosis into a fully- blown cult.
The clothing labels which came to prominence at this time (1981ish) were
Pringle and Lyle & Scott golfing jumpers, Adidas rain jackets, Lois jeans
(sometimes with the side seams split by an inch and a half!), Fila, Tachinni
and Ellesse tracksuit tops and jumpers (hard to believe now, at this time
these labels were extremely hard to get hold of in the UK and expensive too)
and the trainers - Adidas Forest Hills, Diadora Borg Elite, Nike Ace, Adidas
Stan Smiths etc etc) and the look had to be right. This scene was incredibly
fast-moving - every match day demanded a new item of clothing, and as time
went on the look became even more "out there" with deerstalker hats, golfing
umbrellas and patchwork leather jackets being the order of the day.
This continued until at least 85, where the Heysel disaster caused a lot of
casuals to re-evaluate their activities as English clubs were banned from
Europe.
The next decade saw a real slow-down in "casual activity" as a lot of lads on
the scene discovered dance music, clubbing and ecstasy.
Although there were still "football casuals" the numbers had dropped quite
dramatically - much of this was due to a lot of lads getting married and
settling down and there were few young hooligans coming through to take their
place.
With a few exceptions - Holland v England in Rotterdam 1993 and any England
trip to Poland - football-related violence was on the wane. The introduction
of Sky TV money to the game, all-seater stadia and the "family atmosphere"
promoted by the powers-that-be all contributed; not to mention the
introduction of special police units to tackle this situation.
Fast-forward to 95ish and suddenly there is a resurgence - of sorts. Labels
favoured from then to now include the ubiquitous Stone Island, CP Company,
Hugo Boss, Prada Sport, Dries Van Noten, Patrick Cox, Paul Smith, Paul &
Shark and still in favour some 20 years on Lacoste, Burberry and Aquascutum.
Today, the scene, has an undercurrent of violence, although in truth there
are very few incidents of note.
Further reading: The Naughty Nineties - Martin King and Martin Knight
Hoolifan - Martin King and Martin Knight
Guvnors - Mickey Francis
Barmy Army - Dougie Brimson
Knowing the Score - Gary Armstong
Bloody Casuals - Jay Allan
St George in My Heart - Colin Johnson
We Fear no Foe - Colin Johnson
Bring out your riot gear - CS Lewis
John King - The Football Factory
John King - England Away
Websites www.in-theknow.co.uk
www.commonpeoplebooks.co.uk (great message board, plough back through the
archives)
www.terracebanter.com
www.terraceretro.co.uk
In a message dated Tue, 14 Nov 2000 00:23:46 Greenwich Mean Time, Tom
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
<<
> Some of the Madchester bands (Stone Roses, Happy Mondays) and their fans
>
> - sort of football fans with designer clothes - is sometimes refered to
> as casuals by some in the UK.
>
> Richard
> www.uppers.net
In England, casuals were an early to mid 1980s thing. Basically the
term used to describe football hooligans that liked designer gear,
originally often sports wear but it pretty soon moved on from that.
Some football hooligans in England tend to be quite organised and some
have their own name for their little group - for example in Derby they
were (are) called the DLF or Derby Lunatic Fringe, in Leicester the Baby
Squad etc.
I wouldn't have said they have anything to do with Madchester. The
exact fashions they were into would depend on where they were from (what
team they followed) and the year you are talking about. The term isn't
used so much now but the organised football hooligans - or at least an
element of them - still follow a similar line in clothes.
Whether that has anything to do with what these people in the boiler
(whatever that is) were talking about I don't know.
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