WSF. The Origins Of Casuals In Brighton.

[bhafc99]

In my hand is a photograph. Though the image is faded what I see remains clearly stamped upon my memory. It is an old Brighton blue bus.

The bus is crowded with young lads smiling across the decades, locked for perpetuity into a frieze of eighties urban culture. Okay, there are a couple of girls too. But they got on at Churchill Square and actually have nothing to do with us. Still, we blanked them. Dogs.

Upfront, terrified to within an inch of his life, is the driver. One of the firm extends a trademark pinkie. Smeared with nutella sarnie stains, it is Our Sign. You've been done mate. Good n proper.

Blue wristbands. A Primark green t-shirt that used to belong to my older brother and is still a size too big for me. Ginger hair. The emblems of a culture that is still thumbing through its dictionary to find some more fancy adjectives that will make this sound proper dramatic and all are clear. Blimey that was a complicated sentence.

It is not going to be easy, and I anticipate a few snide comments from those who missed this bus, but I am willing to open up my memory bank and share it with you, if you want to come long for the ride.

I will begin tonight. If my mum lets me.

 

[Spanish Seagulls]

What a load of old bollocks. I bet I taxed you for your Lacoste or Pringle. I was a top west street boy. Mullet the lot mad Eddy's right hand man.

Taxing people for clothes...hee hee. I never did get that, why not just buy your own or couldn´t those who did this afford the trip up to Stuarts in Shepherds Bush.
Taxing people for clothes haa haaaaaa haaaaaaaahhhhhhh

 

[severnside gull]

what a load of tosh


















is all


you never know what might be interesting until you read it

 

[shoreham moonraker]

bhafc99 that is the best post I have seen on this forum in my short time here. excellent work.

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

This is a photo of Motherwell yoof

They're all pretty much the same though.

Bad skin, bad hair and daft clobber.

Nice trainies though.

 

[alan partridge]

In my hand is a photograph. Though the image is faded what I see remains clearly stamped upon my memory. It is an old Brighton blue bus.

The bus is crowded with young lads smiling across the decades, locked for perpetuity into a frieze of eighties urban culture. Okay, there are a couple of girls too. But they got on at Churchill Square and actually have nothing to do with us. Still, we blanked them. Dogs.

Upfront, terrified to within an inch of his life, is the driver. One of the firm extends a trademark pinkie. Smeared with nutella sarnie stains, it is Our Sign. You've been done mate. Good n proper.

Blue wristbands. A Primark green t-shirt that used to belong to my older brother and is still a size too big for me. Ginger hair. The emblems of a culture that is still thumbing through its dictionary to find some more fancy adjectives that will make this sound proper dramatic and all are clear. Blimey that was a complicated sentence.

It is not going to be easy, and I anticipate a few snide comments from those who missed this bus, but I am willing to open up my memory bank and share it with you, if you want to come long for the ride.

I will begin tonight. If my mum lets me.

Almost Meade's Ball worthy that post

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Is 'thecavern' Uncle Spielberg?

 

[thecavern]

Before I begin let me make something clear. I am deliberately avoiding value judgements or moralizing.

If that is what you need there is the Daily Mail.

Here is a brief outline of the beginnings of the Casuals in Brighton prior to the West Street Firm.

I know that this scene was directly contemporaneous
to that of Liverpool, Manchester and London given the generally accepted timelines asserted elsewhere.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


In the late seventies, a short walk down from the clock tower and across from the lower end of Cranbourne Street was a slightly seedy Pool Parlour. It was a members only establishment but easy enough to sign up to with a reference from another member.

This venue became a meeting place for young men with time on their hands and quickly gained notoriety for petty criminal activities. Right here was ground zero of the Casual movement in Brighton and again, for anyone interested to listen, this is the story.

I first became aware of this gang one night at the end of a mid week club popular with a local Teddy Boy gang at the Court School of Dancing next to the old Astoria cinema in Gloucester place in about 1978. With A few school friends I would go down and have a laugh at the Teds “doing the bop”
At closing time the sweaty clientele had been turned outside and were milling about when a large group of maybe forty youths came running down through Morley Street.

They Sprinted across the pavement and laid into the Teds. A friend of mine’s brother was with these lads and after the core-up my friend and I tagged along. They ran along through Church Street and put through the windows at the Wagon and Horses.

These lads were a good two or three years older than us but following this we could not wait to become members of the Pool Parlour and of course beg steal or borrow the de rigueur Pringle Jumper and Pods or Kickers.

Following on from a long tradition of street gangs stretching back to the original racecourse razor gangs of the 1920’s the various individuals based around this club became known as The Pool Parlour Gang and then The Lions, after the distinctive Emblem of a Rampant Lion Embroidered into the Lambs wool Jerseys they wore.

At the time the jumpers were selling for 20-30 pounds about 128.99 in today’s money according to the Bank of England's online inflation calculator. This was a great deal of money in those days especially for those in poorly paid work even more so for the many not in gainful employment or simply AWOL from school.

Understandably most of these items were obtained on five-finger discount.

One favoured technique involved a device formed from steel coat hangers unwound and used to retrieve expensive items from shop letterboxes, under the cover of darkness. A practice echoed in the later technique of “wiring” fruit machines to rack up credits.

One regular victim of this method was Fischer’s in the Lanes, which kitted out many of the town’s wide boys in two-ply cashmere cardigans and pullovers.

The Golf Shop on Trafalgar Street was another victim. As this scam was uncovered and letterboxes shielded more traditional methods came into play.

Tealeaf’s (shoplifters) have long been a part of the Brighton black economy and more so before the days of cctv and anti-theft tags.

A regular target was the Hannington’s store in at the corner of East Street and North Street, a department store seemingly modelled upon Grace Bros in ” are you being served” . Along with Boots the chemist this store unknowingly kept half the town in cut-price Paco Rabanne and YSL Pour Homme for years. The final humiliation for Hannington’s was a botched Ram raid attempt and it closed its doors for good in 2001.

Saturday mornings in the Pool Parlour were usually riddled with stolen goods. Some would be sold or swapped and some would be worn as a badge of honour. It was considered madness to pay for anything. I once saw someone come in with a full fishing outfit, for sale including hot flask of tea obviously lifted from some poor sucker’s car en route to some Beach fishing or maybe lifted from the banjo groyne while the angler was having a leg.

Many of the people from that scene have not fared well many have drifted into drug addiction and a few have died prematurely.
Perhaps this says more about the type of person who feels the lure of gang involvement. I know many of these people came from troubled backgrounds. Many were from notorious families in the Brighton Area.

I became disillusioned with the Pool Parlour scene after witnessing the senseless and unprovoked beating of a Persian man who literally had his head kicked inside out and was then robbed of a watch and a small amount of cash by another lad present. I was fourteen years old.

The last straw was a Murder. I am not going to say too much about this except on that night the killer was wearing my jumper. He had borrowed it to smarten himself up so that he could get into the Top Rank Suite.

Speak soon.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Are you a BHA fan then Cavern?

 

[Simster]

GRIPPING stuff so far.

 

[User removed 4]

GRIPPING stuff so far.

well go and discuss some pretentious german film with man of harveys or something, no-one is forcing you to read it are they ?

 

[Simster]

No thanks. This thread is f***ing awsome.

"Tealeaf’s (shoplifters) have long been a part of the Brighton black economy and more so before the days of cctv and anti-theft tags."

What an insight. Cracking stuff.

 

[Deleted User X18H]

Oh gawd he'll be puting a name in the frame for the trunk murders next.

I don't think Queenspark Publishing will be taking this up. But saying that and after re reading it is very intersting. Take it away Cavern

 

[User removed 4]

No thanks. This thread is f***ing awsome.

"Tealeaf’s (shoplifters) have long been a part of the Brighton black economy and more so before the days of cctv and anti-theft tags."

What an insight. Cracking stuff.

Cock.

 

[Dave the OAP]

"after the core-up "


isn't that something to do with apples?

 

[Chicken Runner61]

Whilst the trip down memory lane might be nice the scene so far is no different from most parts of Brighton & Hove in 77/78. In fact make that before '77 and up to date.

Brighton has always had a shady criminal under current.

 

[Simster]

Cock.

Bit harsh.

 

[looney]

Anyone who actually knows anything legitamate from back then would say the intresting bits are the clubs "collusion" in some of it.

 

[Dave the OAP]

The first time I became aware of our so called "firm" was Chesterfield away in 1975ish, may have been 1976....there was loads of trouble there and the first time I actually saw a "mob" of fans charging around ( and recognising some of them from Falmer High)

 

[Chicken Runner61]

I don't think Queenspark Publishing will be taking this up.

Hooper Struve!!