coventrygull
the right one
Why no mention of the Bosun. Brighton's first firm
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WSF. The Origins Of Casuals In Brighton.
- Thread starter thecavern
- Start date
Ecosse Exile
New member
Yeah i remember Lisa well, lovely girl saved my bacon once or twice, but not to be messed with
Last i heard she was with Black Sam (cockney reds).
HAILSHAM SEAGULL
Well-known member
- Nov 9, 2009
- 10,359
What about the Castle Square gang, wern't they the main boys in the North Stand during mid 70's
portslade seagull
Well-known member
Bosun were always in the south stand
seagullsovergrimsby
#cpfctinpotclub
The nutters from Haywards Heath went in the South Stand as well.
sod1
New member
Yeah i remember Lisa well, lovely girl saved my bacon once or twice, but not to be messed with
Last i heard she was with Black Sam (cockney reds).
That's a shame, apparently Sam died a couple of years ago. I've been chatting to a Manchester Red elsewhere who knows a few Brighton lads who ran about with the West Street lot but followed MUFC, he asked me to ask people here.
Cheers for the help
There was no fight just another of your lot talking shit.erm so let me get this right. about 150 palace fans enter the ground late to start rucking with other palace fans who are in favour of Noades merger plan, or maybe against it?
Yea that sounds real credable. Really if your going to try to bullshit your way through life at least make it sound slightly beleivable.
I remember the rovers fan said the group were singing and chanting but he couldn't hear what it was due to distance or wind?
Maybe it was "Your just a bunch of splitters".
lol f*** off retard.
f***ing twat.
coventrygull
the right one
- Thread starter
- #190
If you were between thirteen and eighteen in Brighton in the early eighties a
Bj did not mean what it does now. It meant something better. It was a Fila Bjorn Borg Tracksuit top and everybody wanted one.
If you considered yourself even remotely clued-up, there was no way you could not know this.
The desire to stand out from the scarfer crews at the football meant that if you were serious about such things, you had to put in the legwork to get the look. I remember being on a mission and losing my bearings exiting Brent Cross Station then running like a madman across the M1 to get to the Shopping Centre the day the Diadora Bjorn Borg Kangaroo Elites landed. People must have thought I was a lunatic.
And after, I took the Tube across London to get to a small outlet on the Kings Road rumoured to be selling discounted Fila and then back to Piccadilly Circus Lillywhites for something else, now lost to recall. But anywhere you went, you had to keep your wits about you. It was known that the unwary were getting mugged or taxed all over the place.
I know one fella had his brand new Stan Smith’s taxed by MJ a notorious local nuisance. He had to go home barefoot and explain why his £50.00 Trainers were not still on his feet.
He tried it on again outside the Crystal Rooms Arcade with another
Big lad from Bevendean who was a bit useful. This one told him to f*** himself.
“I dunno know who he fuckin’ thinks he is” he told me.
This bullying trait backfired another time when this Bully’s intended target smacked him so hard his cheeks collapsed, needing reconstruction surgery. It left him looking like Boris Karloff for months on end.
This lad who whacked him had a reputation for knocking people unconscious with one punch. He did it in front of me at the Sea House one night after someone poked his finger into the Green Crocodile logo on on his Lacoste and asked
“does it fuckin’ bite?” He got his answer, though he couldn’t have known much about it.
Some believe the West Street Firm only numbered thirty boys, maybe it did to begin with, more or less. But it was gaining a reputation
And the cachet of being part of something even briefly mentioned in National newspaper articles meant that inevitably the numbers grew.
If you are curious how the name came about it was coined by Bret Paton.
Everyone knew the ICF and, looking for a name and given the stamping ground it was inevitable that the West Street Firm took that name.
One thing about those times was the seeming absence of Cliqueyness.
Obviously if you were a melt (in the parlance of the day) then you were in the Wally Firm, but on the whole if you looked the part and you were well known then you wouldn’t get bothered. I’ll never forget walking down the road wearing my first Lacoste tracksuit, slit jumbo cords and Adidas Forest Hills thinking I was the business. Waiting for a bus one night with two other lads I heard a girl at a bus stop tell her mate “ they’re West Street”
I loved it. We even had an anthem, Street Life By the Crusaders.
I used to ask King Jerry in the Cavern to drop it about half-ten
To get people at it. It worked too.
The WSF thing may have been partly tongue in cheek to begin with but the thing is I honestly believe it got you a pass sometimes.
One time I was at a house party and every time I used the stairs this
good sort kept rubbing my legs as I passed. I told my Pal and he warned me who she was with. It was common knowledge he’d recently pushed someone through a plate glass window on Duke Street. Anyway I went up to the toilet on the first floor but she followed me in and locked the door. Well I knew this bloke was downstairs but she locked the door and was kissing me. To be truthful I was a little bit trashed of this fella’s reputation so I let myself out. To my horror he passed me on the stairs going to the bathroom I’d just come out of with his bird still inside.
This wasn’t a Smoking gun it was a f***ing mushroom cloud. I made my way back down thinking f*** it. I was torn between leaving the party and holding my nerve.
I remember people talking to me but I had tunnel vision.
I could hear people but they may as well have been speaking Cantonese for all I knew. All I was thinking about was this other mush. I could feel my legs twitching with the adrenaline. Suddenly this fella has come down the stairs and walked straight past me without even looking my way. I couldn’t understand it.
With that she came back down and said she’d finished with him ages ago.
I was with her for about 6 months after that and only one time, the next weekend did this fella say anything to me. He said “ I think she’s doing it to get back at me” . Later we always got on all right. I was only sixteen and I can’t help thinking but for the company I kept it might have kicked off.
Weekends a lot of us used to meet in Churchill Square sitting round the Wishing Well.
Some would be drinking coffees in Miss Selfridge and during the Summer, a few would walk down onto the Seafront . One day a big group of us were sunbathing and a bloke nearby went for a swim. While he was in the water my mate rifled his pockets for a laugh and took all his change. A bit later he was getting dressed when he suddenly started nervously patting himself down. "You alright Guv" my pal called over after a bit.
“Nah, I’ve lost me Bus fare in the pebbles”
“Here ya go” and my mate threw him over a nicker of his own money.
“You sure?” he said, “Yeah go on, don’t worry about it”
This bloke still used to thank my mate for helping him out years
later.
Another regular face MS was a once talented local boxer who went a bit eccentric. He was known to pester women to go with him and often succeeded. When he’d had a drink he was a nightmare, standing up on tables with his trousers down or blocking the road then climbing on a waiting Car and sitting his hairy arse on the windscreen. He once was falsely accused of Rape in Ship Street Passages, then narrowly escaped being charged with Armed Robbery after threatening shop staff for a wind-up. The Police took it seriously and cautioned him. It sounds unlikely but in his day he was one of the Finest Boxers Brighton ever produced and had a huge following.
One weekend was Watford away and many lads decided to travel up on the Friday Night and sleep rough somewhere. Mostly with away games we would Jib (Fare evade) the train. Then when the inspector came through the carriages.
The word would go round and the toilets would suddenly get very busy.
But this night we wanted to go clubbing so three pals and I gave another fella a score to run us up in his Cortina. We were amazed to pass groups of West Streeters moseying through Brixton in the Dark.
I spotted Darren F among them
his Deerstalker stood out like a sore thumb in Brixton High Street at 3 am.
God knows how they ended up there.
Arriving at Watford, the sleeping quarters ended up being several carriages of a train sided overnight at Watford Junction. There were loads of them and you could take your pick. In the darkened compartments it was like something from a war film, an air raid shelter with bodies everywhere. Chrissie C. was building joints with the red leb resin that was ubiquitous back in the day. One lad stayed fast asleep and ended up in Crewe on the first service.
A few lads had broken in to a nearby church hall and were bedded down there like evacuees. The place was derelict but it didn’t seem to worry anyone.
The silly things you do at sixteen.
At dawn a few bleary eyed lads walked the streets drinking pints of Milk taken from doorsteps. One or two walked off in search of a café.
Later, on the Saturday the various groups met up and went shopping in Watford. An Electrical shop was swamped out and later several lads were walking about with portable radios and stuff. Darren O was waving a Sony Walkman about with no cassettes to play on it. At the stadium there was a strong Police presence. As we were walking through the Police were shoving people about being heavy handed. A few people were baiting the police. A friend of mine took a truncheon across the face and was bleeding. The chant went up “Kill Kill Kill The Bill “ (from the Wally firm obviously) . A few were arrested and sent home.
The match went off without too much incident but on the Victoria to Brighton fast service home someone recognised a Palace face who was a buddy of Crellin, rumoured to be the Palace top Boy. He was fronted up but escaped through the carriage and locked himself in the toilet. The door was being pummelled and kicked but sensibly he stayed inside. We reached East Croydon but he still wouldn’t come out. He was shouting out for help but no one could hear him above the din. The train pulled out and this poor lad was now bound for Brighton. It was getting comical. The door had been bent out of shape and you could just make out his terrified face reflected in the mirror. There was no way he was coming out and he loudly pleaded innocence of any knowledge of
Football firms.
Eventually those still hammering the door lost interest and he was finally rescued at Brighton by a guard and the Transport Police who heard him hollering from inside. To this day I don’t know if that poor
Bloke was really a football hooligan.
"Another time we invaded a game at Selhurst Park. It was around ‘82 Palace home to Blackburn Rovers last day of the season. It was decided this would be an ideal game to infiltrate Selhurst Park and cause mayhem. At Brighton Station we were an easy 100 lads. At Preston Park another forty. It had been planned for weeks in advance I remember an older guy Beaky a local face had been involved with the planning. It was all cloak and dagger nonsense with splitting up diversions at East Croydon and Selhurst Park to confuse the OB. The first kick off was at East Croydon. A Palace firm was spotted on another platform and were called out The fight spanned across several platforms with scuffles breaking out everywhere. I saw a distress flare go whizzing across me to a fence where some Palace fans were climbing out. It was pandemonium. A by-stander was pummeled for whacking someone with his briefcase and Women were screaming. Beaky was furious. We had blown our cover already for a flash in the pan. But he need not have worried. What happened next at Selhurst Park would become infamous"
We met up at the turnstiles; some coming from Thornton heath station some from Selhurst as arranged. A few nods and we
Went through. To our left was a large group of traveling fans and when all of our number was through we started to walk slowly along through the main stand near the touchline. Palace fans were singing. Some began looking. It wasn’t a full house but as we snaked along I could the sense the eyes of some of the home crowd trying to make sense of what they were seeing.
Quizzical Looks were exchanged. As planned we kept walking. We moved along and eventually ended up on the opposite corner to where we entered. By this time it was clear that a few people had recognized some faces. The game started.
One of our firm D.S
spotted Crellin, supposedly their Top Boy who he’d had previous with at a home game and broken his tooth, part of which stayed in his hand and went poison. At half time we walked back round to the food vendors. On the way back someone threw a cup of Tea over a home fan and it kicked off.
The Police waded in. People were being pointed out and aimed out though
a fair number were getting out discretely. It was agreed to regroup near Norwood Junction.
By this stage we were down in number by a few. Some had been nicked and some were probably lost in the maze of streets trying to find Norwood Junction. But we were still
Mob handed and took the train to Thornton heath. Approaching Selhurst Park the game was over and the streets were full of fans. Mostly scarfers. In a side street someone put a Rubbish Bin straight through the window of a terraced house, don’t ask why, but it galvanized the moment.
Things spiralled out of control. Someone was trapped in their car with dozens of head cases pummeling the roof. A handful of People were getting bashed up but a few were game, standing their ground and having a go. This was the thing about Football Hooligans. The ultimate Taboo was leaving anyone roasting, you had to stand your ground or lose all respect. . Suddenly everyone was being told to get to East Croydon. When we got there ob were everywhere. I was relieved to be going home. I have never witnessed such mayhem in my whole life. Hopefully I never will.
Just don’t ask me where that kind of behavior comes from. It’s probably latent in every human being on earth. Even you.
Speak soon.
Bj did not mean what it does now. It meant something better. It was a Fila Bjorn Borg Tracksuit top and everybody wanted one.
If you considered yourself even remotely clued-up, there was no way you could not know this.
The desire to stand out from the scarfer crews at the football meant that if you were serious about such things, you had to put in the legwork to get the look. I remember being on a mission and losing my bearings exiting Brent Cross Station then running like a madman across the M1 to get to the Shopping Centre the day the Diadora Bjorn Borg Kangaroo Elites landed. People must have thought I was a lunatic.
And after, I took the Tube across London to get to a small outlet on the Kings Road rumoured to be selling discounted Fila and then back to Piccadilly Circus Lillywhites for something else, now lost to recall. But anywhere you went, you had to keep your wits about you. It was known that the unwary were getting mugged or taxed all over the place.
I know one fella had his brand new Stan Smith’s taxed by MJ a notorious local nuisance. He had to go home barefoot and explain why his £50.00 Trainers were not still on his feet.
He tried it on again outside the Crystal Rooms Arcade with another
Big lad from Bevendean who was a bit useful. This one told him to f*** himself.
“I dunno know who he fuckin’ thinks he is” he told me.
This bullying trait backfired another time when this Bully’s intended target smacked him so hard his cheeks collapsed, needing reconstruction surgery. It left him looking like Boris Karloff for months on end.
This lad who whacked him had a reputation for knocking people unconscious with one punch. He did it in front of me at the Sea House one night after someone poked his finger into the Green Crocodile logo on on his Lacoste and asked
“does it fuckin’ bite?” He got his answer, though he couldn’t have known much about it.
Some believe the West Street Firm only numbered thirty boys, maybe it did to begin with, more or less. But it was gaining a reputation
And the cachet of being part of something even briefly mentioned in National newspaper articles meant that inevitably the numbers grew.
If you are curious how the name came about it was coined by Bret Paton.
Everyone knew the ICF and, looking for a name and given the stamping ground it was inevitable that the West Street Firm took that name.
One thing about those times was the seeming absence of Cliqueyness.
Obviously if you were a melt (in the parlance of the day) then you were in the Wally Firm, but on the whole if you looked the part and you were well known then you wouldn’t get bothered. I’ll never forget walking down the road wearing my first Lacoste tracksuit, slit jumbo cords and Adidas Forest Hills thinking I was the business. Waiting for a bus one night with two other lads I heard a girl at a bus stop tell her mate “ they’re West Street”
I loved it. We even had an anthem, Street Life By the Crusaders.
I used to ask King Jerry in the Cavern to drop it about half-ten
To get people at it. It worked too.
The WSF thing may have been partly tongue in cheek to begin with but the thing is I honestly believe it got you a pass sometimes.
One time I was at a house party and every time I used the stairs this
good sort kept rubbing my legs as I passed. I told my Pal and he warned me who she was with. It was common knowledge he’d recently pushed someone through a plate glass window on Duke Street. Anyway I went up to the toilet on the first floor but she followed me in and locked the door. Well I knew this bloke was downstairs but she locked the door and was kissing me. To be truthful I was a little bit trashed of this fella’s reputation so I let myself out. To my horror he passed me on the stairs going to the bathroom I’d just come out of with his bird still inside.
This wasn’t a Smoking gun it was a f***ing mushroom cloud. I made my way back down thinking f*** it. I was torn between leaving the party and holding my nerve.
I remember people talking to me but I had tunnel vision.
I could hear people but they may as well have been speaking Cantonese for all I knew. All I was thinking about was this other mush. I could feel my legs twitching with the adrenaline. Suddenly this fella has come down the stairs and walked straight past me without even looking my way. I couldn’t understand it.
With that she came back down and said she’d finished with him ages ago.
I was with her for about 6 months after that and only one time, the next weekend did this fella say anything to me. He said “ I think she’s doing it to get back at me” . Later we always got on all right. I was only sixteen and I can’t help thinking but for the company I kept it might have kicked off.
Weekends a lot of us used to meet in Churchill Square sitting round the Wishing Well.
Some would be drinking coffees in Miss Selfridge and during the Summer, a few would walk down onto the Seafront . One day a big group of us were sunbathing and a bloke nearby went for a swim. While he was in the water my mate rifled his pockets for a laugh and took all his change. A bit later he was getting dressed when he suddenly started nervously patting himself down. "You alright Guv" my pal called over after a bit.
“Nah, I’ve lost me Bus fare in the pebbles”
“Here ya go” and my mate threw him over a nicker of his own money.
“You sure?” he said, “Yeah go on, don’t worry about it”
This bloke still used to thank my mate for helping him out years
later.
Another regular face MS was a once talented local boxer who went a bit eccentric. He was known to pester women to go with him and often succeeded. When he’d had a drink he was a nightmare, standing up on tables with his trousers down or blocking the road then climbing on a waiting Car and sitting his hairy arse on the windscreen. He once was falsely accused of Rape in Ship Street Passages, then narrowly escaped being charged with Armed Robbery after threatening shop staff for a wind-up. The Police took it seriously and cautioned him. It sounds unlikely but in his day he was one of the Finest Boxers Brighton ever produced and had a huge following.
One weekend was Watford away and many lads decided to travel up on the Friday Night and sleep rough somewhere. Mostly with away games we would Jib (Fare evade) the train. Then when the inspector came through the carriages.
The word would go round and the toilets would suddenly get very busy.
But this night we wanted to go clubbing so three pals and I gave another fella a score to run us up in his Cortina. We were amazed to pass groups of West Streeters moseying through Brixton in the Dark.
I spotted Darren F among them
his Deerstalker stood out like a sore thumb in Brixton High Street at 3 am.
God knows how they ended up there.
Arriving at Watford, the sleeping quarters ended up being several carriages of a train sided overnight at Watford Junction. There were loads of them and you could take your pick. In the darkened compartments it was like something from a war film, an air raid shelter with bodies everywhere. Chrissie C. was building joints with the red leb resin that was ubiquitous back in the day. One lad stayed fast asleep and ended up in Crewe on the first service.
A few lads had broken in to a nearby church hall and were bedded down there like evacuees. The place was derelict but it didn’t seem to worry anyone.
The silly things you do at sixteen.
At dawn a few bleary eyed lads walked the streets drinking pints of Milk taken from doorsteps. One or two walked off in search of a café.
Later, on the Saturday the various groups met up and went shopping in Watford. An Electrical shop was swamped out and later several lads were walking about with portable radios and stuff. Darren O was waving a Sony Walkman about with no cassettes to play on it. At the stadium there was a strong Police presence. As we were walking through the Police were shoving people about being heavy handed. A few people were baiting the police. A friend of mine took a truncheon across the face and was bleeding. The chant went up “Kill Kill Kill The Bill “ (from the Wally firm obviously) . A few were arrested and sent home.
The match went off without too much incident but on the Victoria to Brighton fast service home someone recognised a Palace face who was a buddy of Crellin, rumoured to be the Palace top Boy. He was fronted up but escaped through the carriage and locked himself in the toilet. The door was being pummelled and kicked but sensibly he stayed inside. We reached East Croydon but he still wouldn’t come out. He was shouting out for help but no one could hear him above the din. The train pulled out and this poor lad was now bound for Brighton. It was getting comical. The door had been bent out of shape and you could just make out his terrified face reflected in the mirror. There was no way he was coming out and he loudly pleaded innocence of any knowledge of
Football firms.
Eventually those still hammering the door lost interest and he was finally rescued at Brighton by a guard and the Transport Police who heard him hollering from inside. To this day I don’t know if that poor
Bloke was really a football hooligan.
"Another time we invaded a game at Selhurst Park. It was around ‘82 Palace home to Blackburn Rovers last day of the season. It was decided this would be an ideal game to infiltrate Selhurst Park and cause mayhem. At Brighton Station we were an easy 100 lads. At Preston Park another forty. It had been planned for weeks in advance I remember an older guy Beaky a local face had been involved with the planning. It was all cloak and dagger nonsense with splitting up diversions at East Croydon and Selhurst Park to confuse the OB. The first kick off was at East Croydon. A Palace firm was spotted on another platform and were called out The fight spanned across several platforms with scuffles breaking out everywhere. I saw a distress flare go whizzing across me to a fence where some Palace fans were climbing out. It was pandemonium. A by-stander was pummeled for whacking someone with his briefcase and Women were screaming. Beaky was furious. We had blown our cover already for a flash in the pan. But he need not have worried. What happened next at Selhurst Park would become infamous"
We met up at the turnstiles; some coming from Thornton heath station some from Selhurst as arranged. A few nods and we
Went through. To our left was a large group of traveling fans and when all of our number was through we started to walk slowly along through the main stand near the touchline. Palace fans were singing. Some began looking. It wasn’t a full house but as we snaked along I could the sense the eyes of some of the home crowd trying to make sense of what they were seeing.
Quizzical Looks were exchanged. As planned we kept walking. We moved along and eventually ended up on the opposite corner to where we entered. By this time it was clear that a few people had recognized some faces. The game started.
One of our firm D.S
spotted Crellin, supposedly their Top Boy who he’d had previous with at a home game and broken his tooth, part of which stayed in his hand and went poison. At half time we walked back round to the food vendors. On the way back someone threw a cup of Tea over a home fan and it kicked off.
The Police waded in. People were being pointed out and aimed out though
a fair number were getting out discretely. It was agreed to regroup near Norwood Junction.
By this stage we were down in number by a few. Some had been nicked and some were probably lost in the maze of streets trying to find Norwood Junction. But we were still
Mob handed and took the train to Thornton heath. Approaching Selhurst Park the game was over and the streets were full of fans. Mostly scarfers. In a side street someone put a Rubbish Bin straight through the window of a terraced house, don’t ask why, but it galvanized the moment.
Things spiralled out of control. Someone was trapped in their car with dozens of head cases pummeling the roof. A handful of People were getting bashed up but a few were game, standing their ground and having a go. This was the thing about Football Hooligans. The ultimate Taboo was leaving anyone roasting, you had to stand your ground or lose all respect. . Suddenly everyone was being told to get to East Croydon. When we got there ob were everywhere. I was relieved to be going home. I have never witnessed such mayhem in my whole life. Hopefully I never will.
Just don’t ask me where that kind of behavior comes from. It’s probably latent in every human being on earth. Even you.
Speak soon.
Last edited:
patchamalbion
Well-known member
Spanish Seagulls
Well-known member
This is guerilla marketing your memoirs somewhat, good read though. It's interesting how the parallels run throughout towns & cities all over Britain.
Spanish Seagulls
Well-known member
They do say everyone (hmmm) has got a book in them if they could only write, well done to you for your efforts.
KNC
Well-known member
Whatever happened to Sonny Smith?
Beach Hut
Brighton Bhuna Boy
No that was Si, ran over by a car in Portugal - he was into surfing big time by then.
Caveman
Well-known member
- Jul 14, 2003
- 9,926
It was the Deerstalker hat that got me wondering.