It All Kicked Off In Bristol

By Paul Lumber

The City Service Firm lived and breathed football violence, founded during a meeting in Ashton Park, R quickly became one of the most feared mobs in the country. In this compelling new book, the first ever on the CSF, there are accounts of their bloody encounters with other notorious firms, including Chelsea's Headhunters, Millwall's Bushwhackers, Cardiff's Soul Crew and Birmingham's Zulu Warriors. While an off with like-minded individuals from around the country was strictly business, a fight with the Gas heads of Bristol Rovers was deeply personal. The hatred between red and blue has deep roots and seems to intensify with every year that passes. At one time, the two mobs were on a par, but the author describes how the CSF quickly became top dogs in the deeply divided city, taking it to the gas not only in football but also on the streets of Bristol, : The front-runners of the CSF were formidable, genuine rogues' gallery, and they became true legends in the hooliganism world. We meet unforgettable characters like The Knife, Mr Dangerous, Acid, Lee, CJ, and Gard's.

This is a dark and sometimes brutal book, it is a book that anyone with an interest in football and the casual culture will want to read. Above all, it is am honest piece of work, stripped of artifice and exaggeration.

it is the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Lumber
• Release date: Apr 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201255343

Book preview

It All Kicked Off in Bristol

Paul Lumber

Independently Published

Copyright © 2022 Paul Lumber

All rights reserved

Paul Lumber has asserted his rights under the copyright designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are real people. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author

––––––––

Imprint: Independently published

To all the men and women of Bristol who served in the British armed forces and gave their lives in conflict.

Lest we forget

Contents

Prologue: Merry Christmas Gasheads

A JEKYLL AND HYDE CHARACTER

IT WASN’T ETON

REDCLIFFE DAYS REDCLIFFE NIGHTS

A KID ON THE EAST END

TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION

WAR WITH THE GASHEADS: PART 1

MEET THE CSF

SMASH AND GRAB

WAR WITH THE GAS: PART 2

LONDON CALLING

‘WEM-BU-LEE, WEM-BU-LEE . . .’

IN THE TRENCHES WITH ENGLAND

MY BELOVED BRISTOL CITY

BANGED-UP ABROAD

BLOOD ON THE STREETS

‘FUCK YOU, I’M MILLWALL!’

A VERY SERIOUS OFFENCE

MY GAS MATE

THE WILD WEST

STANLEY AND THE SOUL CREW

COMING THROUGH YOUR DOOR

ZULU DAWN

IT’S GRIM UP NORTH

THE DUTCH CONNECTION

DOING MY BIRD

IT’S BEEN A PLEASURE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Prologue: Merry Christmas Gasheads

It was 15 December 1996. The excitement had been building for weeks. And the reason was quite fucking simple. Our beloved City versus Rovers. The Bristol derby. What’s more it was being broadcast live on Sky. This would be our chance to show the whole country what we were made of, not on the field (although we desperately wanted to beat them) but off it. There had been trouble the year before when we played them and the bad feelings had lingered, adding even more fuel to the fire.

Live TV, the need for revenge, a derby . . . we knew something big was about to go off.

And how right we were.

Among the cities of England, Bristol is the great football underachiever. Neither us nor the Gas has ever won a major trophy, not even the League Cup. We finished second in the old first division in 1905 and got to the FA Cup final on 24 April 1909, at the Crystal Palace, where Man United beat us 1–0. Close calls for sure, but that’s about it. (As for Rovers, don’t make me fucking laugh: they’ve never even been in the top tier of English football.)

But there is one arena in which we have done ourselves proud: FV, football violence. Over the years, the City Service Firm has had it with the best: Chelsea Headhunters, Millwall Bushwhackers, Man United’s Men in Black, Cardiff City’s Soul Crew, Birmingham City’s Zulus. I am not saying for one minute that we ran them all but they knew they were in a fight. Don’t take my word for it. In his book Kicking the Habit, Jason Marriner – one of England’s top lads and a geezer with more form than Red Rum – notes that it always kicked off big time when Chelsea faced us at the Gate. (By the way there is no mention of the Gas in Jason’s book and probably not in anyone else’s book either. Fucking no-marks yet again!)

We prepared for the derby as best we could. It was tricky because we knew the Old Bill and their football-intelligence officers would be doing everything they could to find out what our plans were. Where we intended to meet. The numbers we expected to turn out. Where, and when, we planned to attack the Gas. Whether or not we would be tooled up. We had to stay one step ahead or the cops would ruin our party before it even got started. So, all contact was by word of mouth. Phones were out, meetings in private were in. We kept it tight, worked as a unit and kept the idiots and blabbermouths at arm’s length.

I arrived at the ground early, making my way to the Wedlock’s pub, which was situated opposite the entrance to the grandstand and named after one of Bristol City’s greatest-ever players, Bill ‘Fatty’ Wedlock, who won twenty-six caps for England in the years before the First World War.

Wedlock’s, as expected, was packed solid with CSF main faces, among them some of the most formidable football hooligans in Britain. I had known these men for years and I knew that when it kicked off, as it surely would, they would have my back. There were plenty of younger lads there too, every man jack of them eager to get into the fray, to make their own piece of history.

As soon as I walked through the door, I was greeted by five faces I recognise immediately, all members of the City Nursery Firm, which at one time was our Youth. The Farmer, who I love to try and wind up, but, unfortunately, he never bites, and I never get to reel him in. He’s a top lad in my eyes. Neil Blackmore is another lad I have known for years, a game geezer, someone I have the utmost respect for, along with the man stood next to him, Gary G-Plan.

You’d think Farmer and Gary G-Plan were joined at the hip because you will very rarely see one without the other. Another two lads who have been faces down the Gate, Paki Mark and Lee Trott. Both lads now live up in Hartcliffe, and they’re another couple of lads I rate very highly. ‘All right lads,’ I say.

As the morning went on more and more faces, all of them tried and tested, put in an appearance. The City Service Firm have become a large family and to see so many of them out on a day like this is a great morale boost. Mobbed up we would be a match for any firm in the land, never mind the Gasheads.

The reason we were in Wedlock’s was quite simple. If the Gas came through Ashton park we would see them coming and we could get stuck in right away. But I wasn’t holding my breath; the Gas always have a lot to say, but actions speak louder than words, and actions on their part are a fucking rarity.

With twenty-five minutes to kick-off the atmosphere inside Wedlock’s was electric. I was experiencing the same feelings I had at Swindon when we rioted big time. Something big was going to go off today, either with the Gas or the Old Bill, or, with any luck, both.

As we waited patiently for them to appear, it became clear that if it was going to happen it wouldn’t be before the game. We looked at our watches. It was now quarter to three. All hopes of smashing the Gasheads in the park had evaporated. There was nothing else for it, so we left the boozer and made for the stadium. As we walked I could see other groups of faces on the march. I would say there were about three hundred of us out that day, from all the different factions: the usual Shirehampton lot, the Taunton lads, the Boogie Squad, along with the older lot, and, of course, mainstream CSF.

Some lads had tickets for the Dolman stand while others, like me, were in the grandstand. With all hope now gone for a pre-match row, we split up and headed for the Gate. As I made my way there, I saw four familiar faces in the crowd. I acknowledged all four with a nod of the head and we stopped for a brief moment to have a chat.

‘See anything about?’ I asked, referring to those Gas cunts.

‘Fuck all Lums,’ Steve Gardiner replied.

‘See you later then,’ I told them, and continued on my way.

As I walked through the crowds, I was still sure that something big is going to happen despite their mob being nowhere to be seen. I went past the television crews doing their last-minute checks, whose presence would ensure, if it did go off, that the whole country would see it. We would put Bristol on the map.

In the ground the atmosphere was electric, with a fierce hatred of the opposition evident from both sets of supporters. Ashton Gate is a hostile environment, more so on derby days like this. The away end was packed solid with blue and white. How the fuck do they do it? You don’t see hide-nor-hair of them before the game, then once you get inside there’s five thousand of them, waving their scarves and scattering confetti.

A deafening chant goes up, as three sides of Ashton Gate turns towards the blue part of the ground:

Stand up if you hate the Gas.

Followed by:

Who’s that team they call the Rovers.

Who’s that team who never score.

They play in blue and white and they are a load of shite.

And Ian Holloway’s mother is a whore.

Ian Holloway being the Rovers manager, the most hated man on the red side of Bristol.

As the teams took to the pitch, the roar from the crowd nearly burst my eardrums.

The announcements started with the customary team selections, which are jeered in turn from the home and away ends. I looked toward the dugouts, where it looked to me as if Holloway was goading the home supporters. Our fans in that section must have taken the same view of his actions because they were gobbing on the cunt.

The teams kicked off and in the early exchanges it was obvious City were the classier team. We dominated possession, taking the game to them, putting them under pressure all over the field.

They couldn’t handle it and it was no surprise to anyone when Paul Agostino scored in the sixteenth minute. From then on it was one-way traffic, with their goal under constant siege. This was going to be a cakewalk.

And that’s how it turned out. We toyed with them, knocking the ball around the midfield, hardly giving them a touch. Our manager Joe Jordan must have been purring in the dugout and it was only a matter of time before our domination turned into goals.

I was on top of the world because there is no better feeling than humiliating your local rivals. I sat back and waited for the avalanche, a self-satisfied smile on my face.

I should have known better.

Football has a way of kicking you in the teeth, usually when you are least expecting it. And that is exactly what happened.

Rob Edwards got sent off in the sixty-second minute for a second bookable offence and we were down to ten men. At the time, I wasn’t that worried. We were so much better than them that I didn’t think it would affect the outcome.

Wrong again.

Deep into injury time they equalised through Peter Beadle. I couldn’t believe it. I sat there, stunned, unable to speak. In despair. Their fans were delirious. They couldn’t keep their emotions in check. Hundreds of them jumped over the wall and streamed onto to celebrate.

Within seconds my despair had turned to anger. So many things flashed through my mind. My contempt for their club and their mob. Their reluctance to face us. Sneaking a goal in injury time when we had gone down to ten men.

Running onto our pitch as if they owned the place. And then taunting us about the equaliser.

It quickly became obvious that my CSF mates felt the same way.

The Deadly Dolman lived up to its nickname. It was from there that the first wave would come. City lads now spilled on to the park, with only one aim in mind. To attack the Gas. The Grandstand formed the second wave, with their very own charge of the light brigade. And not to be outdone the Atyeo stand took up the onslaught.

Violence was the only thing on our minds.

The Gas were now being attacked from three fronts, caught in a pincer movement. I was on the pitch, heavily involved in hand-to-hand combat, lashing out for all I was worth. I knocked several Gas to the floor, kicking fuck out of the cunts when they were on the floor. There were fights all over the place, with lads going down like ninepins.

Then came the most surreal moment I can ever remember. In the midst of the mayhem, a mobile phone rang.

Bobby B. grabbed the phone from his pocket.

‘It must be the missus. What the fuck does she want now?’ he shouted.

‘Get off the fucking pitch. You’re live on Sky,’ she screamed.

Talk about being watched by Big Brother. He had nothing on Bobby’s old lady.

Within five minutes we had forced most of the Gas back into their end. But that was never going to enough, not with the mood we were in. Dozens of us jumped into their stand, where the fighting continued. They were taking a beating and it was only the Old Bill baton-charging us that saved them from heavy punishment. I also noticed that mounted police had made an appearance, trying to separate the factions that were still fighting on the pitch.

With the old bill slowly gaining control we realised we needed a Plan B. I signalled to the lads that they should follow me and we went around to the back of the away end, where we kicked the gates in. There were no Old Bill to be seen, so we took our chance and steamed in.

What followed was probably the most vicious fighting I have ever witnessed, certainly at the Gate. We were in a frenzy, punching and kicking anything that moved and throwing volley after volley of bottles and stones.

Rovers were trapped and they were going down like ninepins, with some of them taking heavy punishment. I saw one of them on the ground, cut and bleeding, with one of our lads stamping on his head. I was heavily involved in the violence and landed many good shots on my Gas opponents. I know some mobs will say that they never attack scarfers and, in general, we didn’t either. But we did that day. We didn’t care if they were the Rovers mob or ordinary fans, they all got it. With all that had happened, we had lost the plot; we were out of control.

The ferocity of the violence was confirmed to the local papers by Gasheads who were at the game. One said: ‘About a hundred City came through the back entrance behind us as we waited to leave.

Stones and rocks and bottles were being thrown at us. People were getting hit.’ Another Rovers fan said: ‘There were no security guards and the City fans came back in and were throwing rocks and everything. Everyone was just surging forward, trying to get away. I saw one woman get smacked on the head.’

It took the Old Bill about twenty minutes to realise what was going on. They pushed us back, which allowed them to get the Gas out and then to escort them away from the stadium. But if they thought that was the end of it they would be disappointed.

We were still determined to get at the Gas but the police escort was so big that we couldn’t get near them. They were in a protective blue bubble. But if we couldn’t get at our rivals we could still have it with the biggest mob of them all, the Old Bill. That night, in the dark side streets around Ashton Gate, we attacked them, with bottles, bricks and stones.

Mounted officers were dragged from their horses, dog handlers were assaulted and their dogs were kicked. This, I would say, went on for an hour. There was major violence that day and it was only by chance that no one was seriously injured . . .or worse.

There was one incident that gave us a right laugh though. An Old Bill dog handler and his Alsatian got cut off from his colleagues. Surrounded by twenty hardened thugs, and about to get a good hiding, he was in deep shit and he knew it. He tried to bluff his way out.

‘Fucking move or I will set the dog on you,’ he bravely shouted.

We didn’t move an inch.

‘Go on boy. Go get ‘em,’ he instructed the snarling cur, while slackening off the leash.

The dog seemed confused and instead of coming towards the baying mob he ran round and round his master. The cozzer quickly became tangled up in the leash and fell awkwardly on his arse. Cue one red-faced cop and twenty hooligans pissing themselves laughing.

Being away from the field of play, I didn’t realise it at the time but there was another pitch invasion. At the final whistle, the silly bollocks Rovers players went over to their fans to celebrate with them. That was too much for some of the lads who were still in the stands. In the second major invasion of the afternoon, a hundred of them came onto the pitch. They made straight for the Rovers players. Lee Martin, formerly of Man United, was one of them. He later spoke of the ‘anger on the supporters’ faces’ and explained what happened next.

At that stage, I didn’t think anything was going to happen to us. But as I jogged towards the tunnel, I could see a hundred or so supporters coming towards the pitch in a row. That’s when I started to move on my feet a bit quicker. It looked like something was going to happen. I was getting a bit worried at that stage. I tried to get to the tunnel as quick as I could to get to some safety. One of the supporters running towards the side of me just put his fist up and hit me. As I turned my head away it hit the back of my head. I just carried on running.

In an article published the next day, David Foot, sports columnist for the Western Daily Press, confirmed the attacks on the Gas team:

‘Several hundred City supporters tried to cut off eight Rovers players who at the final whistle went to acknowledge the cheers of their fans.’ He went on to describe the ‘fear in the eyes of the Rovers players, including Ian Holloway, as they raced back to the safety of the tunnel. They only just made it.’ Foot concluded that, ‘It was human behaviour at its lowest and most odious.’

For us it was all in a day’s work. The Gas smashed, the Old Bill attacked, the Gas players assaulted, Ian Holloway spat on . . . and with the world and his wife watching it live on the telly.

Although we celebrated that night, we knew they would come after us. By ‘they’ I mean the Old Bill, the media, the football authorities, the clubs, even the government. To their way of thinking we had shamed the good name of Bristol City and to make matters worse the whole nation had been tuning in on Sky Television.

The Western Daily Press led the way, describing what had happened as ‘Soccer’s day of shame.’ Its front page on 16 December had a banner headline.

Shamed

Soccer thugs bring disgrace on the West as local derby ends in violence and fear.

The paper also used its main editorial page to condemn the violence, stating that, ‘Sunday, 15 December will go down in the city’s history as a day of disgrace – the day a hard core of soccer thugs turned a soccer match into an excuse for a mass brawl.’

Club chairman Scott Davidson was devastated by what had happened and he vowed to set up an internal investigation. In some ways, I felt sorry for him. He had made a big effort to turn the club around and here he was, on his big day, live on Sky, being forced to witness the worst football violence in the history of the south-west. As he said after the match: ‘We have dug the club out of a hole and now this. I feel like walking out the door and slamming it.’

We knew what was coming. There would be a massive, coordinated effort to arrest as many lads as possible, bring us before the courts, send us down, give us football banning orders and bar us from Ashton Gate.

And that is exactly what happened.

The Old Bill pulled out all the stops. Bristol and Avon constabulary set up a dedicated unit, with seven officers assigned to it under the command of detective-sergeant Andy Williams. Their sole job was to pore over photographs and closed-circuit television images of the game in the hope that perpetrators could be identified and caught. They were helped by the club and the media, with stories appearing on what seemed like a daily basis.

Then, in February 1997, about six weeks after the game, came the biggest body-blow of them all. The Evening Post carried a front page that spelled big trouble for our lads. The Post’s headline was simple and to the point. In fact, it consisted of one word – and that word was ‘Wanted.’

Around the headline there were photographs of seventeen lads, all of whom were wanted for questioning in connection with the violence.

The photos were designated A1 to A17 and the paper thoughtfully printed an ‘0800’ phone number with the following the following instruction:

––––––––

DERBY MATCH RIOT.

If you recognise any of these men, ring 0800 . . . . . .

I was lucky. My boat wasn’t among the mugshots. But I knew the Old Bill would love to pin something on me and that with my form it would mean jail time. I was worried, we all were. So, I was careful, staying away from football for a couple of months and generally keeping a low profile.

But many didn’t get away with it. In fact, most of the ‘seventeen’ on the front page handed themselves in to the nearest police station, knowing they would have been caught anyway. It later came to light that the crime hotlines set up by the Old Bill and the papers were overwhelmed by calls from members of the public, all of them keen to grass us up.

One lad who didn’t give himself up was my old mate, Steve Gardiner. The sneaky cunts Old Bill pulled a right fast one on him. This day, Steve got a call on his mobile.

‘Is that Steve Gardiner, the scaffolder?’ the voice on the other end of the phone asks.

‘That’s me,’ Steve tells him.

‘Look mate. I’m getting a bit of work done on my roof and I’m looking for a scaffolder. Can you come round and give me an estimate?’

‘No problem. I’ll see you when I’m finished here,’ Gards tells him.

So, after work, Steve went to the customer’s house, parked up and got out of his van. As he walked towards the house he was rushed by three or four undercover old bill and arrested. Down at the nick he was picked out from an identity parade, which included twenty-eight other suspects, and charged with affray. Like I said, sneaky cunts.

In all, forty-four arrests were made, and in court fourteen of those charged were found guilty of affray, four of assault, two with threatening violence and twenty-two of trespassing on the pitch. Sadly, one lad got sent down for six months while others received fines, community service or probation.

Everyone convicted got a banning order from football, while the club handed out life bans to everyone who was convicted.

As for Steve Gardiner, he got a fine and an eighteen-month banning order at a later court hearing.

A JEKYLL AND HYDE CHARACTER

My earliest years were a nightmare. Our house was not a happy one and my memories are of loud rows and tears. I blame my father for that. He was always, it seemed to me, perpetually angry; angry at mum and angry at me, the oldest of four siblings. There was also an issue with how he disciplined us: there is no doubt a legitimate debate to be had on whether or not it is acceptable to smack children.

But to my way of thinking he crossed that line on a