Turf Wars Part Two: The History of Football Hooliganism
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to It Was What It Was, the football history podcast. In this second part of our two-part special on football hooliganism, co-hosts Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper trace the roots of football violence from the 1890s through to its transformation into organised ‘firms’ in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. They discuss the origins of the word ‘hooligan’, early crowd disorder and FA crackdowns, and how post-war prosperity, youth subcultures, away travel and ‘taking ends’ helped create a new kind of fan conflict. The episode also covers the European and England-team flashpoints of the 1970s and 80s, the political and policing response to the Popplewell Report, with later links to post-Hillsborough reforms and why large-scale hooliganism declined.
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.
01:39 Where the Word ‘Hooligan’ Comes From (1890s London)
04:03 Football Fever: Mass Crowds and Class Anxiety
12:17 What Early ‘Hooliganism’ Looked Like: Pitch Invasions & Crowd Control
17:43 Players Under Attack
20:25 Fan-on-Fan Violence Emerges & the Rise of Away Travel
22:08 Cup Finals, ‘Football Specials’ & Patronising Press Panic
27:27 Post-War: The 60s–70s Gangs Are Coming
29:02 Teddy Boys, Rock ’n’ Roll Panics & Mods vs Rockers
31:02 Merseyside: Away Travel & the Rise of Chanting
36:53 Taking Ends: Territory, Undercover Trouble & the New ‘Game’
41:58 Europe & England Abroad: From Paris 1975 to Euro 1980
44:00 1980s Casuals, Designer Gear & Firms Arranging Fights
48:43 1985: Luton–Millwall, Heysel, Thatcher & the Popplewell Report
51:28 Aftermath: CCTV, ID Schemes & Taylor Report
53:50 Global Legacy: Ultras, Copycat Firms & Why Football Identity Endures
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was surprised by what I found. |
| 0:09.8 | Moreover, because I came away with the knowledge that I'm not possessed before, I was also |
| 0:14.2 | grateful and surprised by that as well. |
| 0:17.0 | I had not expected the violence to be so pleasurable. |
| 0:20.1 | This is, if you like, the answer to the $100 question. |
| 0:23.4 | Why do young males riot every Saturday? |
| 0:25.8 | They do it for the same reason that another generation drank too much or smoked dope |
| 0:29.6 | or took hallucinogenic drugs or behaved badly or rebelliously. |
| 0:34.9 | Violence is their antisocial kick, their mind-altering experience, |
| 0:39.5 | an adrenaline-induced euphoria that might be all the more powerful because it is generated |
| 0:43.6 | by the body itself, with, I was convinced, many of the same addictive qualities to the character |
| 0:48.7 | I synthetically produced drugs. Welcome to It Was What It Was, the Football History Podcast. I'm |
| 0:53.9 | Jonathan Wilson. I'm with Rob Draper, and the Football History Podcast. I'm Jonathan Wilson. |
| 0:54.8 | I'm with Rob Draper. |
| 0:56.1 | And that was an extract from Bill Buford's extraordinary book Among the Thugs, where |
| 1:01.4 | he infiltrates various hooligan groups in the 1980s. |
| 1:05.9 | So this is a series we're doing on hooliganism. |
| 1:09.1 | Last week we talked to Cass Penant, who was a member of |
| 1:12.2 | West Ham's inner city firm, about Ian Stuttart's brilliant 985 documentary hooligan. And there will |
| 1:19.2 | also be a special bonus episode for our patron subscribers in which we talk to Bill Bufit, the author |
| 1:25.8 | of that book we've just quoted from. And in today's |
| 1:28.0 | episode, Rob, we're talking more generally about hooliganism in the 80s, about the history of |
... |
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