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Cass Pennant does
not sound like the kind of guy you would like to share a pint with;
he’s served time as Britain’s first and most notorious football
hooligan, was nearly charged with murder and used to carry his trusty
Stanley knife, aka Uncle Stan, around to slash rival thugs with.
In his heyday as
a West Ham boot boy, Pennant was both fearless and fearsome in equal
measure. Not even the craziest nutters would go toe-to-toe with the
6ft 4in bruiser – even if they outnumbered him. This geezer was
seriously dangerous. He’s rumbled with the most vicious thugs,
mixed with dangerous villains and even survived shootings and stabbings.
For someone only
42 years old, he’s been through more drama than the entire cast
of EastEnders. So anyone looking for an entertaining read or gift this
Christmas should look no further than Pennant’s new yarn, Cass,
published by John Blake, price £14.99.
Pennant is proud
that at its launch at the Peacock Gym in Canning Town he sold 250, a
fantastic number for an unknown. In only two months it is already on
the WH Smith best-sellers list and will soon sell-out of the initial
12,000 print run. It is one of the most unlikely must-reads of the year,
with little marketing or promotion.
The venue for my
meeting was a classic rude boy arrangement. ‘Outside the Cooper’s
Arms pub, beside platform three on Victoria Station, six o’clock,’
he said. He’s there first, towering above the commuters. Dressed
in a flat cap, ‘respectable’ glasses and beige raincoat he
looks more like a city slicker. He carries a hold-all that could easily
contain a Thermos flask and packed lunch. In his former life Uncle Stan
would have been in there.
We find a trendy
café a couple of minutes walk away and Pennant, sipping from
a bottle of lager, talks enthusiastically of the book’s response
in his in-yer-face cockney dialect.
He pulls newspaper
cuttings out of his canvas bag, one of them a glowing plug in The Sun.
‘Look,’ he beams. ‘They gave the book a plug in a match
report. They mentioned biographies by Paolo di Canio and Stuart Pearce
too. It’s nice to see my name linked with di Canio’s and Psycho’s.
‘So far I haven’t
had one negative about it. Feedback has been positive – even from
mums who take it off their sons to read. People are saying that once
they start it they can’t put it down. Some are even taking time
off work to read it! Some, who have lived through it, say it brings
back lots of memories. Even for people who haven’t lived through
it, they enjoy it.’
He’s not wrong.
It is addictive. I was reading it on the tube once and a white couple
sitting opposite said they had heard about it and wanted to get it.
Cass was completed
in collaboration with ex-Currant Bun (The Sun) feature writer Mike Ridley.
The style is pure tabloid, with the first chapter containing a vivid
description of the time Pennant was shot several times when working
as a doorman in Deptford, South London and how he ‘died’ twice.
He says he actually felt his spirit rise out of his punctured body and
look down on himself. Somehow he survived and it provides a graphic
opening salvo for the rest of the racy tale.
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It took Pennant
18 years to get there but the finished version was well worth the perseverance.
‘I got branded as a hooligan and was sent down for it, but when
I was in prison I thought, “they just don’t know us”.
I always wanted to be a writer and started it behind bars. Out of the
football culture I thought I could find my fame and fortune because
all the football books that existed were by sociologists and professionals
who hadn’t lived it.
‘I tried to
get a publisher for ages until I told Kate Kray, Ronnie’s ex-wife
who has written six best-sellers. She encouraged me and because I never
give up on anything, I eventually got it published. My publisher, John
Blake, said: “You’ve got eight books here, Cass.” Ridley
did a brilliant job of shaping it.’
It’s a fascinating
read; given away for adoption by his Jamaican mother at six months old,
he was a Barnardo’s child before being brought up by white foster
parents in Slade Green, Kent. He first started fighting because of racism
from schoolmates and discovered he had a natural ability for it. The
fact that he was called by his real name, Carol, did not help matters.
Constant winning
battles against much bigger kids served as an apprenticeship for his
later endeavours as a hooligan. Although he always won, it was an emotionally
tortuous time for the gangly kid who only really wanted to be loved
and accepted in his local community.
He later found that
sense of belonging with the notorious InterCity Firm, West Ham’s
internationally renowned hardcore following. He credits their longevity
to the fact that there was no overall leader, although he was definitely
top dog throughout.
‘If you took
out the leader then the whole thing crumbled but we had lots of leaders,’
Pennant defers.
He admits that expressing
his early life in the book was a heart-wrenching experience. ‘When
you write about yourself it’s so painful, like the shooting and
my childhood. Even my own wife, who I’ve been with for 15 years,
never knew all about my childhood.
‘It’s
easy for a footballer or actor. They can cheat in their biography and
be selective about what they talk about but, as a street fighter, I
couldn’t do that. There’s drama, emotion, highs, lows, laughter
– she found out all about my childhood in the book.’
Contrary to popular
belief, hooligans of Pennant’s era were usually employed, family
men – few had criminal records. They found weekend rucking a bizarre
relief from working life’s stresses and monotony.
They actually enjoyed
the brutality; it was a way of life for those who went to football,
in the same context of lads going out on a Friday night, getting drunk
and topping the night’s enjoyment with a good ruck. ‘We enjoyed
the risk, danger element. We got a rush from it,’ he admits.
He is a trained
painter and decorator and now runs his own business, a sandwich bar,
having successfully run a min-cab firm in the past.
Ultimately though, being a full-time writer is the goal.
Cass is not his
first contribution to creative art; Pennant and close friend Neil Bowers
were the main storyline contributors to Guy Ritchie’s world-wide
smash-hit Snatch, but they were offered a pittance for their contribution.
Pennant might have once visited Ritchie with Uncle Stan, but now he’s
letting lawyers deal with it.
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‘It’s
an on-going legal case. Me and Neil contributed to the film, which Ritchie
and Matthew Vaughn don’t deny, but we’re disputing the value
of our contribution.
‘Hopefully,
it will be amicably sorted but we are consulting lawyers. It’s
not just the money, we want respect.’
There is a burgeoning
interest in gangster-related stories, making celebrities of villains
and glamorising criminal activity. Isn’t his book glorifying violence
and making Pennant money immorally?
‘Listen, I’ve
fought for years to have the true story told about football violence.
If there was one answer the authorities would have sorted it out years
ago. My book is graphic and violent but it’s quite unashamedly
the truth.
‘It’s
a valuable account of social history. Teddy boys, punks, weed-toting
hippies, skinheads … they are all seen as memories of social history.
There’s a lot of social history here that’s never been told.
Look at casual fashion now, it comes from football terraces.
‘I didn’t
write it purely to make money. It’s there to be knocked, but someone
might read it and understand it from a different angle. It was not just
a mindless minority as people say. With my knowledge as the most notorious
hooligan in the country, I know how to prevent it going back to what
it was.’
Pennant confesses
that being black in a totally white environment was a traumatic experience.
‘Growing up,
for me, it was a different kind of tough being black. Everything in
the shops about being black in the 70s was about suffering, depression,
Malcolm X, back to Africa … it was heavy. But what about the blacks
brought up here and the mixed-race ones?
‘From my football
travels I met blacks from all over. In Tiger Bay, Cardiff they are a
heavier community than Brixton. They are very proud. They feel like
outcasts in Tiger Bay but are fiercely Welsh. I’ve also met black
Brummies and Scotsmen and found that I was not alone. Why can’t
we be proud of where we are born and also be proud to be black?
‘Even Bob Marley,
when he got into the pop and rock charts, was accused of selling out.
I think that’s wrong. The black community now love him like Nelson
Mandela. I’m still black and resent blacks telling me I’m
not really black. I’ve experienced more racism than blacks who
live in their own community. If I have enough money I’ll go back
to Jamaica to see my father with my family.’
Pennant’s first
and only time in Jamaica was a few years ago when close friend Frank
Bruno took him there on an all-expenses-paid trip. That’s where
Pennant met his biological father, Cecil, for the first time. This episode
marks one of the most emotional scenes in the book.
Bruno did it partly
through generosity and friendship, but also out of a sense of gratitude
because he credits Pennant with saving his life after the time Big Frank
was confronted by four knife-wielding, racist skinheads on a train platform.
Big and muscular as he was, Bruno was in huge trouble. Pennant, by chance,
arrived in the middle of the stand-off and steeled himself to join in
a fight that was not his. The skinheads were intimidated by Pennant’s
glare.
Even though the
odds still favoured them, the bigoted cowards did not fancy their chances
and bolted. Like a scene out of a movie epic, Bruno stepped on the train
as the skins disappeared, grunting his appreciation to the bemused Pennant.
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It was not until
months later that they bonded as friends when Pennant went to the fighter’s
gym in Canning Town to buy boxing tickets and the former WBC heavyweight
champion recognised him from that incident.
‘Yeah, Frank
picked up the tab for the Jamaican trip,’ he smiles. ‘It was
nice of him. Nobody would have known that if I hadn’t written about
it because Frank doesn’t blow his own trumpet.’
A life ban from
his beloved West Ham was Pennant’s punishment for his years of
bringing dishonour to the club’s name. He grudgingly accepted it
until one day, his son, Marcus, who was seven at the time came home
crying because kids at school, mostly Manchester United supporters,
were teasing him that West Ham were perennial losers. Cass tried to
explain that following a team was about territory and community and
not really winning but Marcus could not appreciate it.
So the two went
to Upton Park for a meeting to try to get the ban lifted. Ironically,
it was with the former policeman who nicked Pennant, John Bull, who
was in charge of Operation Own Goal, the police investigation on football
hooliganism. The police fabricated much of its evidence and the case
was thrown out by the High Court after great expense to taxpayers. Pennant
was acquitted but the hostility between police and ‘hoolies’
remained. It caused a stir in the Government and provided the media
with plenty of juicy material. Massive embarrassment for the cops.
‘It was difficult
meeting John Bull because he only saw me as ‘hooligan’ and
I saw him only as a ‘copper’. I can fight a man holding a
gun or a knife but I can’t fight the powers that be. I had to reason
with him. I said I was there for my son and he should not be denied
the right for a season ticket. I was talking to him as a father and
not a hooligan. He listened as a granddad and not a copper.’
Pennant takes a
sip of his drink and adds triumphantly: ‘We’re season ticket
holders now. Go every other week. It’s our time for father-son
bonding.’
Did he follow West
Ham because of Clyde Best, one of the first black players to make an
impression in the top flight? ‘No. West Ham was the first match
one of my neighbours took me to. Clyde Best was like a bonus. Just him
being there was a novelty. Like Muhammad Ali, he converted people. I
handled the name-calling easier then than the inverted racism you found
in jobs. I believe we’ve been accepted here more than blacks in
America.’
In Cass, Pennant
mentions that the true West Ham InterCity leaders did not take liberties
with opposing gangs if they outnumbered them. When I mentioned that
to a faithful Arsenal supporter he laughed and recalled the time one
of his mates accidentally got caught up in the Hammers throng on the
Holloway Road and got a right kicking.
‘That was the
action of groupies,’ claims Pennant. ‘The firm got too big,
it became a monster. We were the originators. Only the faces had a code
of honour. For example, Banana Bob of Man Utd kept on slagging us off.
When we caught him he expected a beating but we let him go. The groupies
did their own thing. If we caught them taking liberties, we gave them
a pasting.’
He finishes his
beer then rushes off for his son’s football team’s meeting.
You’ve come a long way since your hoolie days, I say. ‘That’s
right, I’m a qualified referee too,’ he laughs. Presumably,
Uncle Stan is not carried in his back pocket with his notebook!
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