Cass Pennant - Good Afternoon, Gentlemen, the Names Bill Gardner

2012 Bill Gardner and Cass Pennant, 2006, 2012

Bill Gardner and Cass Pennant have asserted their rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.

Published by Category C Publishing.

First published and printed in 2006
First published in eBook format in 2012

eISBN: 978-1-909270-67-1
(Printed edition: 1-84454-261-0)

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All pictures the authors except for section two p1, p8 top Grant Fleming and section two, p6 top left, p7 Cass Pennant

I would like to dedicate this book to David Gray, a Spurs fan and a good friend, who died in 2004 after losing a lengthy battle against cancer. In spite of his own terminal illness, he was always helping others and was an inspiration. For me he was the bravest man Ive ever known.

By Ian Butch Stuttard

S een from a distance, a gathering of football supporters looks like a gathering of football supporters, regardless of what team they follow or what colours, shirts or other identifying marks are on display. But a firm looks like a firm. The violent hooligan element associated with any football club is different from its main body of fans. This firm has an edge and a purpose that is absent from those turning up simply to watch a game of football and cheer their team on. Within a group like this, some characters stand out. Not necessarily because of their physique or demeanour, but because they are the leaders, the strategists, the ones with initiative, those to whom others turn when things go wrong. Such a man is Bill Gardner. His loyalty is to West Ham and his reputation is well respected among the fans who travel regularly to away matches.

I first came to know Bill Gardner through the ICF (InterCity Firm) in the 1984/85 season, when I was making a documentary film for Thames TV called Hooligan. By then, Bill Gardner had been around for some time. To some of the fans on the terraces, and certainly to the hardcore ICF, he was renowned. His experience boosted the ICFs young turks: Cass Pennant, Andy Swallow and their cohorts. They showed Gardner due respect, just as the ICFs junior branch (known as the Under 5s) deferred to them. Although Gardner and his colleagues remained independent and seemed to be semi-retired from hooligan activity by that stage, whenever a meaty confrontation loomed in the fixture list, anticipation would grow as the word went round that Gardner would be along to swell the ranks of the ICF.

Bill is a big man and solid, but as he readily admits he has never been fleet of foot. Yet he has always known when to stand, hold fast and face whats coming at him. Find the high ground, or somewhere where youve got your back to the door, so you can see whats coming in front of you. Never be caught in the middle where people can get around you.

I witnessed a graphic example of Gardner in action after a mid-table First Division match when West Ham visited Nottingham Forest during the 1984/85 season. Although the travelling ICF numbered only about 15, the party included Gardner, Big Ted and Andy Swallow. This was a much-travelled and battle-hardened group. At half-time inside the ground the Nottingham boys stepped up to the ICF and fighting erupted in the toilets and at the pie stall at the back of the stand. I began filming the encounter with my small video camera. Not for long. I was pounced on by the police and arrested on suspicion of being an organiser of the fracas. I spent the second half locked up, but when the match ended I was released and managed to link up with the ICF as they made their way out of the ground.

Given our modest numbers, it was important to stay close and not become isolated. Sure enough, as we crossed the bridge over the River Trent, I could see a large gathering of 150 Nottingham boys waiting. The sparse West Ham contingent was being escorted by eight stern mounted police, who seemed keen to get the Cockney bastards out of town.

With home advantage the Nottingham boys knew when and where to strike, and as the ICF filed past exchanging pleasantries the local crew suddenly surged across an area of derelict ground, grabbing up rocks and bricks and hurling them at us as they advanced. Our meagre group stayed tight but we were quickly backed up against two advertising hoardings that formed a shallow V behind us. My camera stayed in its bag. We were set up like coconuts in a shy, and as the fusillade began the mounted police evaporated. Crouching in a kind of upright foetal position, I tried to make myself as small as possible. As I peered up from beneath my arms, I took a brick on the shoulder. This was going to end badly.

Then I saw Gardner. Stand, stand! he roared. Flanked by Swallow and Big Ted, he walked into the hail of bricks. They were all hit. Swallow sustained a head wound and Gardner a cut below the eye. This didnt stop them and they edged forward, snarling and sneering at the opposition, who began to back off. That defiant manoeuvre broke up the intensity of the attack and gave the rest of us the chance to slip away sideways.

But now the police were back, and although their presence kept the Nottingham posse at bay they harassed us all the way back to the train station. My impression was that they were very happy to see a bunch of Cockneys on the wrong end of a cascade of bricks.

Bill Gardner, over 20 years ago: loyal, bold and unflinching. I was grateful to him that day.

F or all the people that stood with me and for the people that stood against me. With further thanks to all my family for standing by me all these years.

M y name is Bill Gardner. In 1986 I was arrested for being The General the leader of the ICF, who were the hardest gang of football fans England has ever produced. This is my story. A story of friendship, pride, honour and trust things that have disappeared from our society today.

I will tell you things that you may think are lies, but, believe me, they happened. At the end of reading my book, I will leave it up to you to decide if I was a hardened criminal or merely a man with a love of football and his chosen club.

I was born on 29 January 1954 to Bill and Charlotte Gardner in Hornchurch, Essex. My dad was a Ford car worker, my mum a shop assistant. Both were originally from the East End. My childhood was a very unhappy time. My parents never got on and were constantly fighting. Through the whole time I never once saw my father hit my mother; it was always the other way round. I remember times when I would cower under the settee if they were at it.

But I loved football and, even though I was not particularly good at it, I had trials at Fulham as a youngster. I first started going to football with my father at Tottenham. He was an avid Spurs supporter and I think he would have liked me to support his team too. Going to football was the thing to do back then, although speedway was also popular. These were the days when the insurance man knocked at the door, days when you had shilling, two bob meters for electricity, a rental TV, an HMV gramophone cabinet, big black telephones and football, football, football.