Inside Millwall’s hooligan agency – Gregg Wallace, pitch riots and undercover cops
During Britain’s darkest days of football hooliganism one firm stood out for being the most notorious – and below we look inside some incidents that gave the Millwall Bushwackers such a feared reputation
Gregg Wallace stepping down from MasterChef after being accused of sexual harassment led to a barrage of stories from his past resurfacing – including looking back at his football hooligan days.
The 60-year-old presenter was a self-proclaimed hooligan as a youngster and he once spoke to Zoo magazine about his love of Millwall.
He described how the South London club, the area he is from, earned a “fierce reputation” and he spoke about getting into trouble with the law.
In the recently dug up interview, he said: “I was brought up in Peckham and went to Millwall regularly.
“Some of my friends from school grew up to be hooligans. Millwall had a fierce reputation at the time, which was well deserved. They had a large percentage of people that were able to cause havoc.
He added: “I got arrested for assault when I was 20… But my Millwall days are long behind me. I was a product of my area. Police were making hundreds of arrests at every home game back then. Getting nicked was like a social pastime.”
Wallace has a large tattoo of the club’s lion crest emblazoned on his chest and below we take a closer look inside the Millwall firm, and explore why it earned such a “fierce reputation”.
Origins
BBC Panorama aired a documentary about the Millwall firm in 1977 – describing how the “glory comes not from the team, but the reputation of its supporters”.
One of the hooligans told the cameras how Millwall fans cared about a “good game of football, a good punch up and a good p*** up”.
The investigative programme described the F-Troop gang members (the name given to the firm before becoming the Millwall Bushwackers) as the “real nutters” who went to games looking for fights with opposition yobs.
Kenilworth Road Riot
Hooliganism was endemic in our national game in the 1970s and 1980s but authorities clamped down on fan violence after an infamous FA Cup sixth round tie between Luton Town and Millwall at Kenilworth Road in 1985.
The frightening scenes saw Millwall fans riot after the 1-0 defeat and a knife was even thrown towards the home goalkeeper.
Luton’s manager at the time, David Pleat, remembered: “There were people being carried away on stretchers, fans on the edge of the pitch and players constantly looking up at their families because billiard balls were being thrown at the directors’ box.
“I can’t tell you much about the football, because there was so much else going on. It was completely out of control.”
In response, football banning orders (FBOs) became the norm and policing and intelligence at football games went up many notches. The Violent Crime Reduction Act (2006) also allowed cops to remove fans they suspected of planning to cause mischief.
Undercover cop
James Bannon was a former cop tasked with becoming a member of the Millwall Bushwackers by going undercover in the 1980s. The sting was to help nullify hooligan gangs and he revealed how his cover was once nearly blown.
This happened after one of his old colleagues approached him and he told James English on the Anything Goes podcast: “That’s your biggest fear. I got recognised once by a guy I was in the cadets with.
“It was a sergeant who started coming towards me and you know someone’s recognised you and is going to start talking.
“I just planted an ice cream in his head. I had bought everyone ice creams on our way in and as he came towards me I thought ‘oh f****** hell I’ve got to do something here’.
“I just went ‘bop!’ and then grabbed him and said ‘I’m working what the f*** are you doing?’.”
Bannon wrote about the dangerous string in his book called Running with the Firm.
He said he only wrote the book because there was no public trial after his sting, despite a “smattering of arrests”.
Bannon lost faith in the police and became an actor and writer and remembered: “Two years of my life was concluded on a two minute phone call. Then we had to go back into uniform and through a period of rehabilitation.
“We were really good at what we did. We worked really hard and compiled a dossier of evidence. At that time they felt it wasn’t in the public interest to pursue a public trial.”
Battle of Highbury
In January 1988, Arsenal hosted Millwall at Highbury for a third round FA Cup tie, but the despicable scenes caused by hooligans stole the headlines.
Bannon was present undercover for the match which ended 2-0 to the home side. But the real story was how 500 cops struggled to contain the mayhem both inside and outside the stadium. One officer broke his leg and 60 supporters were also kicked out of Highbury while 48 arrests were made.
Two boozers were also smashed up by Millwall thugs intent on causing as much chaos as possible during their trip across the capital.
One witness, a reporter from the Islington Gazette, said: “You could feel something in the air. It felt nasty.
“The Clock End was properly rammed with 12,000 Millwall fans. In those days, Arsenal would only get about 30,000 people at games, so you would know the familiar faces.
“But there was this big mob of geezers in the North Bank I’d never seen before. I don’t know if it was before or after kick-off, but there was this massive roar of ‘MILLWALL’!
“It just went bonkers and these blokes in the North Bank kicked off on anyone they could find. And this revved up everyone in the Millwall end too.
“I remember walking back to Finsbury Park after the game, and every window in the Plimsoll Arms in St Thomas’s Road had been smashed up. It was pretty crazy.”
Ginger Bob
Not many Millwall gang members have spoken out over the years but one man who shared some stories was former hooligan-turned-actor Frank Harper, who revealed the five toughest rival firms they fought.
But another man, known as Ginger Bob, took a walk down memory lane with James English. He said he had his first ‘tear up’ aged just 13, and shared a chilling tale of how an axe nearly ended up in his skull during a violent clash.
He also described the “hardest bloke” he ever fought – a West Ham fan known as ‘Demolition Chris’ who he boasted about knocking out with a single punch.
Reflecting on his glory days, he told the Anything Goes podcast: “When we played West Ham in 1989 over there (Upton Park) . . . police tried to hold us but we’re 700 firm and we pushed the police.
“They had around 300 and saw how many numbers we had so went around a back street to negate the numbers and maybe push us back.
“One of their top fighters was a guy called Demolition Chris, six foot six, steel boots, he had a boiler suit. The police said to me and him ‘we’ll give you five minutes’.
“He’s 6ft 6in, and I’m about 6ft 1in, and it’s a bit like the OK Corral, and who gets in first. I’ve always had speed of hand… I got my punch in first, a big one on his chin and knocked him out in one punch.
“I got him first, and done him.”
