Strolling through the genteel spa town of Cheltenham, watching giletclad ladies called Jackie and Jill run their Saturday errands while young couples tuck into the lunchtime deals at Franco Manca, you wouldn’t imagine that a pyrotechnic-charged display of local football aggro was about to go down. But that’s exactly what happened on April 22,2023 - and it’s happening more and more, at some of the game’s most unlikely flashpoints.
As we arrived that morning, positions were already being taken up. After making our way through the pristine regency-era town centre towards the Completeiy-Suzuki Stadium, we turn a corner and come across a scene that sits somewhere between a fashion editorial and a grainy Panorama documentary. Outside a pub named The Feathered Fish stirred a few hundred young lads decked out in CP Goggle jackets, tapered trackies and ‘Meet Me at McDonald’s’ haircuts, all clutching plastic pint glasses and gathering with intent. Some had drawn their hoods tight to their faces, others had wrapped Burberry scarves up to their eyes. Anti-surveillance fashion in the heart of middle England.
“,” they scream in the crisp spring air. A split second after the lens cap is removed, one of them tells us to fuck off. The mood is on a low, rolling boil. Real violence seems unlikely, but smalltown bravado is an unknowable force. At that moment, a police snatch squad arrives, some of whom seem to know the boys personally: “Calm down, Aaron, the game’s not even
