Bloody Casuals: Diary of a Football Hooligan

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He still follows the Dons, but Jay, who is divorced, has a nine-year-old son who he would discourage from having anything to do with football violence. The publication of Rivers's book, compiled from the notes and diaries he kept at the time, supposedly marks the 25th anniversary of the gang's foundation in 1980, though that in itself is a hazy concept. So I messaged the number, which was Allan – although I didn’t know that at the time – to say: ‘I’m at Aberdeen’s training ground right now, the connection’s bad, so I’ll call you when I leave’. A Top Boy' in the Aberdeen Soccer Casuals, Jay spent just 60 days behind bars but it was long enough to change his life. I consider myself somewhat of an amateur cultural historian - and while I am very much interested in football supporter culture as a whole, I've become particularly fascinated with the cult of the casual/dresser. With respect to this, I feel that Aberdeen does not get NEARLY enough credit for the sharp dressers they've been consistently been turning out since the very beginning.

In 1981, Liverpool won their third European Cup Final in five years, beating Real Madrid in Paris. Hooton was at the midweek game and, like thousands of other fans, travelled over on the ferry the weekend before. As well as football, he had training shoes on his mind: a rumour had spread about a shop in Paris called The Adidas Centre which sold trainers unavailable anywhere else. It was the Holy Grail as far as Hooton and hundreds of other Scouse soccer casuals were concerned. They spent all weekend scouring the city looking for it. It's a far cry from a grim prison cell in Aberdeen where, two decades ago, he decided it was time to turn his life around. When they started out they were small in numbers but remember they were "Edinburgh Casuals" not Hearts or Hibs. The term casual was not originally meant to represent football hooliganism.

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Last month, Burberry's chief executive Rose Marie Bravo said the label's adoption by "chavs" - the English equivalent of neds - "probably had not helped" the upmarket brand's UK performance. It recounted how, in the early Eighties, the Aberdeenshire farmer's son moved to the city at 16 and became a founding force in the Aberdeen Casuals. As with every youth movement before and since, it was the clothes that marked the casuals out. "It wasn't even being covered by the fashion magazines, " says Peter Hooton, the former frontman of indie group The Farm, who was editing an influential football fanzine called The End in Liverpool as the 1980s began. Both the social worker and her employer referred her to the HCPC. She was suspended for 12 months on two occasions, in 2015 and 2016, before a committee took a decision to strike her off last month. Harm If the violence is the least attractive aspect of the casual phenomenon, its influence on the music industry was altogether more benign. By the end of the 1980s, the casuals melted away from the football grounds. One important factor was the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death during an FA Cup match.

It was this weekend 2 years ago that I got a call I’ll never forget. My band and I were driving to a show on the east coast when my little sister had to break the news that mom wasn’t going to make it through the night. My guys pulled the van over and wrapped their arms around me while I cried and said my goodbyes. I’ll forever be impacted by that moment, but that moment is also what keeps me going. When I have moments of doubt. When I think my music isn’t being heard. When I want to throw in the towel…I don’t. Because I have an angel in heaven cheering me on. And all that matters to me is that I make her proud. To my family, friends, team, and fans…thanks for standing by me. #ENDALZPosted by JAY ALLEN on Saturday, February 20, 2021 The panel also heard that the social worker had shared cigarettes and personal information with the mother, which it said breached professional boundaries as it “blurred” the relationship between the pair.Another member of staff lied about having made visits to the family, because it was a 4.30pm visit and “out of her way”. She told me personally that she wasn’t going to do the visit as it would make her late home. She too was dismissed. He said in Scotland I can go and make a name for myself and hopefully climb the ladder. He knows a lot of managers will go and watch games, and said: ‘You’ve got two years’. The house is here, he’s driving, Allan said the club will help me out with driving because I don’t know the area. But that wasn't the end of the casuals' influence. Lured into nightclubs by the house music explosion, the casuals were transformed from rowing hooligans into loved-up ravers by a new drug, ecstasy.