Danny
Dyer, star of The Football Factory and a West Ham fan, presents a new series about soccer hooligans beginning with the rise of the "firms" that gathered around London clubs.
With exclusive access to all of the most notorious football firms in the country, this brand new series on Bravo travels the length and breadth of the UK to give viewers a unique understanding of the framework and anarchy of Hooliganism. Danny
embarks on a journey into hooliganism’s violent heartlands – where he discovers the firms, their main men and the stories of the major battles, as well as the culture, fashion and music that surrounds them. The series features some of the fiercest battles ever fought in the history of these gangs and in-depth profiles with their leading ‘faces’ in order to understand the culture of violence that has attached itself to football, attempting to uncover what turns normal human beings into violent animals come Saturday afternoon.
The
series will "replicate the style and imagery" of Nick Love's acclaimed movie through music, pop culture and news events of the time.
"As a big fan of The Football Factory I want to pay homage to Nick Love's film with The Real Football Factories and am delighted that Danny has agreed t be our front man," said Jonathan Webb, programming director at Bravo.
The show will begin with a one-hour special on England, with subsequent episodes focusing on different famous football fighting regions, including the North West (Man Utd and Liverpool), Yorkshire (Leeds and Sheffield), the Midlands (Villa and Birmingham), Scotland (Celtic and Rangers) and London (Chelsea, Millwall and West Ham).
PRESS
RELEASE
DANNY DYER LIFTS THE LID ON THE REAL FOOTBALL FACTORIES
Danny Dyer, star of Human Traffic and The Business, will delve into the underworld of football hooliganism in his new documentary series; ‘The Real Football Factories’, exclusive to and premiering on Bravo on 11th May.
Inspired by the film ‘The Football Factory’ in which he starred, Dyer embarks on a journey into hooliganism’s violent heartlands – where he discovers the firms, their main men and the stories of their major battles, as well as the culture, fashion and music that surrounds them.
The series also traces the roots of this mob culture - from the 1960s clashes between Mods and Rockers in towns like Brighton and Margate, through the territorial pitch wars of the 1980s and into the organised violence of the 1990s, as well as present day hooliganism and the sub-cultures developing around it - such as firms filming their actions and distributing these violent keep-sakes among their members. Taking an in-depth and impartial look at this culture of violence, the series examines what it means to those involved and the roots of their passion, while also dispersing the myth that hooliganism is the product of undereducation and poverty, as Dyer meets the city boys and even the OAPs who seek to express themselves through organised violence.
Travelling across the country to footballing regions such as the North West (home of Liverpool and Manchester United), Yorkshire (Leeds and Sheffield United), Scotland (Celtic and Rangers), and London (Chelsea, Millwall and West Ham), Danny Dyer tries to get inside the minds behind the firms and their aggressive members.
This series captures the visceral impact of the original film, while also using interviews with fans, observational match day filming, shocking archive and CCTV footage and carefully selected footage taken by football firms themselves to illustrate the terrifying, ultra-violent actions of the documentary’s subjects.
‘The Real Football Factories’ is made by independent production company Zig Zag exclusively for Bravo and premieres Thursday 11th May at 10pm.
KICKING OFF Danny Dyer tells why he risked his life to get the lowdown on football hooligans
by Julia Kuttner
WHEN hard man actor Danny Dyer delved into the underworld of Scottish football hooliganism, he faced terrifying death threats.
Cockney Danny visited Scotland to get the inside story on the football casuals and the violent supporters of Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee, Dundee United, Hibs and Rangers.
Danny, who interviews and narrates on a new TV special, The Real Football Factories, came face to face with thugs who had waged tribal wars within their firms. He even managed to get the main men to talk about the thought process behind some of their most vicious attacks.
The star of The Business, Hum an Traffic, and more pertinently, The Football Factory, where he played the character Tommy Johnson, interviewed convicted Celtic casual John O'Kane, Rangers hooligan Jim McTaggart, former Aberdeen Soccer Casual Bob Carmichael and ex-Hibs Capital City Service member Derek Dykes, to get their view on the situation.
But perhaps the most frightening ordeal came when Danny interviewed Rangers fans in a notorious Bridge ton pub shortly after an Old Firm game which Celtic won.
Danny, 28, said: "I didn't feel very safe. I was there with the cameraman, who weighs about six stone, and a girl from the production company with a clip board. If I had known how terrifying making this programme would be, I'm pretty sure I would have said no. It may look like I'm being made welcome, but that was far from the case. These people took me under their wing, but then some weren't so happy and I even got kicked while I was in a pub and I had to leave."
He added: "I now realise that my reputation as an actor for the parts I've played went a long way into winning these people over to talk to me on camera.
"I spent six weeks travelling the UK and some of the people I spoke to were reformed violent hooligans, while some hadn't changed their ways."
As a lifelong West Ham supporter, Danny was only too aware of the rage between rival supporters, but this new documentary series showed a far darker side than he'd been exposed to before.
He said: "Some of these people wanted to go on camera because they knew me from my acting and I had to play up to that. Some would see the TV camera and just wanted to be famous for all the wrong reasons, as if being violent was something to be proud of.
"But one of the people I met who touched me the most was Bradley Welsh, a Hibs fan who'd been arrested about seven times before he was 15-years-old. Bradley is a boxer and now runs a gym which helps under-privileged kids channel their aggression, but at 13, 14 and 15, he was leading over 100 youngsters. Bradley is well out of it now and he came across as quite a nice guy, but sometimes I came across people who were offering me drugs and they just wanted me to do what they do. Bradley managed to prevent a couple of his cousins from following in his footsteps, but I tell you one thing, I 'm not going back to Scotland any time soon.
"This ended up being guerrilla filming and it's really hard to explain, but when I was offered it, as a jobbing actor, you just don't turn work down. I ended up just having to walk around and talk to hooligans.
"A lot of people I came across in the series were stereotypical racist and Nazi skinheads, but some hooligans are the type of people who would pick you up if you fell on the floor. Other people just wanted to be part of a gang.
"I also came across some weird women, the wives and girlfriends of the hooligans, who seemed to be really turned on by what their violent partners were doing. And then there were wives who didn't have a clue until they saw their partner's faces in the paper when they appeared in court."
Some of the most shocking parts of the Scottish episodes are hearing the convicted criminals talk about the adrenaline rush they get from being violent. The Hibs' fans even talked about their planned attacks on Aberdeen fans in the centre of Edinburgh.
As Danny began to feel more and more threatened, he confesses at some points during filming he wanted to quit.
He said: "I mean it was fascinating, but when the police told me not to film in Dundee, I had really had enough of it. I was well out of my comfort zone. But I hope people will see the fascinating side to all of this.
"Some of the people I came across now have kids, and some have been to university. But then there were others who are thick and I think some of them have been sending me death threats. I'm getting messages posted on my website, but what can you do about it? I can't surround myself with protection, but my family aren't very happy about it. I really can't imagine what I would need to be offered to go down a path like this again and make another show like this. It might be controversial, but it can get very frightening."
At the moment, Danny is slightly in disguise with tints of red in his hair after having to die his hair to play Ray Winstone's son in the Channel 4 drama, All In the Game. And Danny says he believes his acting has spared him from a life of crime.
He said: "I was brought up in Custom House in East London, my dad was a painter and decorator and acting is something you don't really know about. But at school, my drama teacher could see something and she encouraged me. Up until then I had been a bit of thief, but she pushed me in the right direction. She got me to go to Sunday School for acting which was free, and I was spotted by an agent.
"When I was 14, I appeared in Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren. Since then, I've never looked back. I've never been to drama school, I've learned everything from watching people. And although I go to football matches where there's swearing, anger and aggressive behaviour, you can make a choice where you stop.
"Sometimes I think they should build a coliseum and put in all the hooligans who want to fight. They could just battle each other, but there's always going to be a few nutters who follow the game."
The Real Football Factories series starts on Bravo on Thursday, May 11, with the Scottish episode due to be shown the following week.
