Too well dressed to riot

It was another bad night for football on Tuesday. The evening clash between West Ham and Millwall was always going to be a flashpoint, seeing as the two clubs top the league in bitter rivalry.

But it was a worse evening for terrace style. Whatever happened to the well-dressed hooligan?

Back in the eighties, the heyday of hooliganism, when running battles outside football grounds were part and parcel of a Saturday afernoon, how you dressed mattered as much as who you supported. You had to look the part, and in the initial days of what has become known as the Terrace Casual, that meant Fila And Sergio Tacchini tracksuit tops, jumbo cords and Dia Dora Seb Coe trainers.

As the years progressed so did the one-upmanship, and by the late eighties it was all about Stone Island (it was cool then), Armani, and Paul Smith.

Certain clubs commanded more respect than others. Funnily enough West Ham's Inter City Firm (ICF) was among the better dressed of hooligan mobs. Them and Chelsea. Millwall, on the other hand, never had much style.

Mackenzie t-shirts? Adidas hoodies? On camera? In the paper? It would never have happened. Back then, if you were going to invade a pitch you would make sure you were at your most pristine. You were going to be in the public eye, after all. And you would never, ever, lumber onto that grass in nothing but a pair of shorts and a beer belly. The shame.

My memories of football in the eighties don't really stretch to the games themselves. All I can remember is hundreds of us marching down the street, in our just-out-of the bag Stone Island parkas and Armani roll-necks, looking sharp.

I haven't been to the football in years, unless you count Southend v Chelsea last year, which I don't. Perhaps there is still a casual hooligan element. If there is, they've got more style and verve than to be caught on the pitch with their bellies out.

So either West Ham have let their standards slip since the sharp days of hooliganism, or all the troublemakers were Millwall. Whatever, those fans should be locked up for crimes against menswear, if nothing else.

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