Chelsea Headhunters

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2007)

The Chelsea Headhunters are an English hooligan firm linked to the London football team Chelsea F.C.[1]

Contents

[edit] Background

The biggest rivalries are with their counterparts who follow other London teams, in particular Arsenal, Millwall, Queens Park Rangers, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham[citation needed].

There was widespread racism amongst the gang and links to various white supremacist organisations, such as Combat 18, the National Front and Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary organisations, such as the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Volunteer Force.[1]

They were infiltrated by investigative reporter Donal MacIntyre for a documentary screened on the BBC on November 9, 1999, in which MacIntyre posed as a wannabe-member of the Chelsea Headhunters. He had a Chelsea tattoo applied to himself for authenticity, although the hardcore were surprised he chose the hated "Millwall lion" badge rather than the classic 1960s upright lion one. He confirmed the racist elements in the Headhunters and their links to Combat 18, including one top-ranking member who had been imprisoned on one occasion for possession of material related to the Ku Klux Klan.[2] The programme led to arrests and several convictions. One member of the Headhunters, Jason Marriner, who was convicted and sent to prison as a result of the show, has since written a book claiming to have been set up by MacIntyre and the BBC. He claims that footage was edited and manipulated, and "incidents" were manufactured and they were convicted despite having no footage of them committing crimes.[3]

Nick Love's film, The Football Factory, presented the Headhunters in a fictionalized account[citation needed]. The film focuses mainly on the firm's violent rivalry with the Millwall Bushwackers.

A former member of the firm is Kevin Whitton who was sentenced to life imprisonment on 8 November 1985 for violent assult after being found guilty of involvement in an attack on a pub on Kings Road which was described as being some of the worst incidents of football hooliganism ever witnessed in England. After Chelsea lost a football match, Whitton and other hooligans stormed into the pub chanting "War, war war". When they left a few minutes later the American bar manager lay close to death, with one of them shouting, "You bloody Americans. Coming here taking our jobs."[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Making a new start", BBC News, 2002-05-02. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. 
  2. ^ Lowles, Nick. Headhunters unmasked. Searchlight. Retrieved on 2007-09-25.
  3. ^ Marriner, Jason (April, 2006). It's Only a Game. Mainland GB Publishing. ISBN 0955268206. 
  4. ^ Lasky, Melvyn (2006-06-20). On the Barricades, and Off. United States: Transaction Publishers, 156. ISBN 978-0887387265. 

[edit] Further reading

  • Buglioni, Gaetano; King, Martin (2006). Bully C.F.C.: The Life and Crimes of a Chelsea Head-hunter , Head Hunter, ISBN 184018325X
  • Ward, Colin; Hickmott, Steve (2000). Armed for the Match: The Troubles and Trials of the Chelsea Headhunters, Headline Book Publishing, ISBN 0747262926
  • Ward, Colin; Henderson, Clive (2000). Who Wants It?, Mainstream Publishing, ISBN 184018325X
Languages