Turf Wars Part One: The Making of ‘Hooligan’
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to It Was What It Was, the football history podcast. In this first part of a two-part special on football hooliganism, co-hosts Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper are joined by special guest Cass Pennant - former West Ham United Inter City Firm member who later became an author and film producer. They discuss director Ian Stuttard (known as “Butch”) and his 1985 groundbreaking documentary 'Hooligan', which challenged the stereotype of hooligans. Cass explains how Stuttard earned access by spending months with the ICF without a camera, building trust, and later filming from inside the action. The episode also covers the Thatcher-era context, the film’s controversial release and its wider impact on how 'firms' were understood. We finish the episode with Cass reflecting on Stuttard’s wider documentary career, their later partnership in a production company, and Stuttard’s lasting legacy. Join us next week for the history of football hooliganism.
You can listen to this episode ad-free over on our Patreon - Follow the link here - or go to Patreon.com and search for It Was What It Was. You will also get access to our World Cup countdown, magazine retrospectives and bonus episodes as well as a monthly Q&A with Rob and Jonathan.
00:38 Introducing Cass Pennant and the Documentary
03:21 How Ian Stuttard Got Access to the ICF
11:08 Trust Test: A Year With No Camera
15:28 1985 Context: Thatcher’s Britain, Youth Culture, and Misread ‘Casuals’
24:19 Inside the Footage: Street Fighting, Early Video Cameras, and Codes of Conduct
26:23 Butch’s War-Correspondent Mindset
33:22 Back in the Studio: How ‘Hooligan’ Got Its Unfiltered Authenticity
34:02 Pre-Broadcast Panic: Calls to Ban the Film & Fears of Copycats
40:18 From Gangs to ‘Firms’
45:33 Inside Whitehall: Giving Evidence to the Popplewell Inquiry
54:59 Why It Faded: Fans Wanting Out, Politics, Policing & the Premier League Era
58:42 Stuttard's Legacy: Funeral Reflections, Final Bucket List Match & Lasting Impact
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The popular stereotype at the time I started my research was that fighting at football resulted from a bunch of many unemployed moronic youths and thugs who had nothing better to do than fight each other in a disorganised rabble. The film shattered that myth. These men were a highly organised group |
| 0:22.6 | with a very varied mixture of people from different backgrounds |
| 0:26.6 | and jobs, some quite successful. |
| 0:28.6 | I was pleased that the film helped to lay a few ghosts on that score. |
| 0:31.6 | I'd made films before and have made more since, |
| 0:34.6 | but Hooligan will always be one of the standout films for me. |
| 0:38.4 | Welcome to It Was What It Was. |
| 0:39.4 | I'm Jonathan Wilson and with Rob Draper. |
| 0:42.0 | And that quote, the Rob read out, was from Ian Suttard, the director of Hooligan, |
| 0:47.0 | a groundbreaking documentary from 1985. |
| 0:49.8 | Now, this is the first of a two-part series where we're looking at hooliganism. |
| 0:56.0 | So we're going to start today. |
| 0:58.0 | We want to talk about Ian Stuttart's groundbreaking film, Hooligan. |
| 1:02.0 | His documentary came out in 985, absolutely brilliant piece of work. |
| 1:06.0 | And who better to talk about that than Cass Pennant. |
| 1:10.0 | He was a hooligan with West Ham, with the inner city firm at the time. |
| 1:14.3 | But he also worked on that documentary. |
| 1:16.8 | And then next week, we'll come back the two of us and we'll talk about the broader themes of hooligans in the 80s. |
| 1:22.7 | So Cass Pennant, welcome to what it was what it was. |
| 1:26.4 | Thank you, Jonathan. |
| 1:27.4 | Thanks for having me on your podcast. |
| 1:29.8 | Cass, your life story is extraordinary itself. Your autobiography cast became a Sunday time |
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