Wild antics of West Ham thugs – scaring ‘UK’s hardest man’ to battering killer

There was a time when West Ham United fans were seminal figures in the football hooliganism scene.

They were known as the Inter City Firm (ICF) and ruthless members left calling cards on their victims that read: “Congratulations, you have just met the ICF.”

Stories about their wild antics in the 70s, 80s and 90s are many and there is no better man to speak about it than Cass Pennant.

READ MORE: ‘I was in jail with UK’s hardest man – he was like Hulk but making jokes was dangerous’

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A founding member of the firm, Cass was actually.born Carol – but changed his name after being inspired by Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay) before co-founding the ICF.

And giving an insight into his first match outside of London, he said: “My first away game was Wolverhampton, and we were set upon during the walk back to the train station. We were on the other side of the road when we saw a fight.

“Being black, I was spotted and, even though I didn’t know who these lads supported, they came after me. We split up and ran for our lives.

“A policeman, who could see we were being chased, was no help – he even said it was our fault for being there! We continued to run from one gang and met another heading in the direction we had come from. The leader stopped me and asked why I was running.

“When I explained, they left me and went looking for the gang chasing me. I had turned to police and got no help, I had been split up from the only people I knew and, alone in a hostile city I did not know, I tagged along.”

But this was just the beginning of the many tales surrounding West Ham hooligans. When cult classic Green Street was released in 2005, their notoriety exploded. . And three years after that, Pennant’s life was dramatised in the movie Cass.

Below, we take a look at some of the most bonkers moments involving Hammers hooligans.

Boxing Chaos

Former gangster, Danny Woollard, once claimed the ICF made Lenny McLean – Britain’s hardest man – and actor Mickey Rourke run for their lives.

The East End hard nut said the West Ham mob stormed Woodford Football Club after an ICF member was battered unconscious in the audience.

Gene Hackman and Mickey Rourke were supposedly there and trouble kicked off when a drunk reveller grabbed the shorts of a fallen fighter in the ring to stop him getting up.

And according to Danny’s book, McLean and some others started to give the youth a “good kicking” for getting involved.

However, he added: “Once the boy had regained consciousness, he started ringing his mates up. He was a member of West Ham’s notorious Inter City Firm.

“They all came, motor-loads of them, tooled up and looking for revenge. Roy Shaw, McLean, Williams, Carrington, Mickey Rourke and all the actors ran like scared rabbits to the club house, Woody’s, and locked themselves safely away.

“The Inter City Firm smashed the place to pieces.If they could have got hold of Billy Williams they would have killed him – quite deservedly, I thought, as he had taken a terrible liberty.

“Anyhow, after that, I gave up boxing promoting for a while and concentrated on my scrap business, just to let things quieten down for a while.”

Kid Killer

One of Pennant’s pals is Bill Gardner who was a leading figure on the terraces back when football violence was rife.

But it was not just rival mobs he targeted, because after his arrest for football thuggery in 1987, he went after an infamous kid killer in prison.

Russell Bishop – known as the Babes in the Wood killer – sexually assaulted and strangled best friends Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in woodlands in Brighton.

He was tried for the murders in 1987 but was acquitted. Three years later he was convicted of abducting, molesting and attempting to murder a seven-year-old at Devil’s Dyke. It wasn’t until 2018 when he was finally convicted of murdering Nicola and Karen.

But he encountered Gardner in HMP Brixton and the former hooligan told the Anything Goes with James English podcast: “When I was there I did give the Babes in the Wood killer a good hiding in the toilet.”

Bill, who was arrested in 1987 as part of the Met Police’s Operation Fulltime where hooliganism was cracked down on, added: “When he was in there the first time he was on remand in Brixton in what they called Fraggie Rock where all the monsters are.

“But he had to come into our bit in the hospital because I was in the hospital bit to go and have a piss and all the boys in there were geeing me up (saying) ‘go on, give him one’. The coppers won’t go in because I was on crutches.

“So in the toilets they have like the top so you can look over and I’ve gone through the door like a western and I’ve done him on the pan, you know what I mean? And the coppers came in and pulled me away . Russell Bishop was his name – I copped him one.”

Bishop, who never admitted to his heinous crimes, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2020 and died in January 2022.

600-man brawl

Gardner, who was taken to Spurs in 1961 by his dad but chose to follow West Ham instead, said Millwall were always their toughest opponents.

He also spoke to James English about one 600-man brawl, saying: “More than 300 on each side, you know what I mean, when we went over there they used to all turn out and I’ve got nothing but respect for them, I think they are all alright.”

“It’s just a free for all really, like they say in the film Zulu ‘mark your target’ when they come, you know what I mean. You know the one you are going to have.

“I used to always go for the one at the front who was the mouthy one. I used to go for that one because I believed that you cut the tree at the bottom, the tree will fall.”

Similar to Pennant, Gardner also turned his life around, and he now describes himself as a family man and he wrote a book called The Man, The Mth, The Legend.