Watford have around 600 tickets remaining for sale ahead of the Hornets’ FA Cup Third Round tie with Manchester City at The Etihad Stadium on Saturday, January 5.
From 9am this morning tickets are going on sale with a one-per-person rule to anyone on the club’s ticketing database.
link
Thursday, 13 December 2012
Outrage at Uefa let-off for Serbia's latest race controversy
FA 'disappointed' as European body hands out 'paltry' fine for England Under-21 abuse
The Football Association was tonight at the forefront of widespread condemnation of Uefa's decision to impose just a £65,000 fine on Serbia, while also ordering their Under-21 side to play a single match behind closed doors, as punishment for racist chanting and violence during and after their defeat to England in Krusevac in October.Alex Horne, general secretary of the Football Association, said: "We are disappointed with the sanctions levied by Uefa with regards to the racist behaviour displayed towards England's players. Racism is unacceptable in any form and should play no part in football. The scenes were deplorable and we do not believe the sanction sends a strong enough message."
Lord Ouseley, chair of Kick It Out, called the outcome "paltry", while Rio Ferdinand accused Uefa of not being "serious at all on racism".
Four Serbian players and two coaches were also banned for their part in the after-match fracas which marred the European Championship play-off. Two England players, Thomas Ince and Steven Caulker, were given bans of one and two matches respectively.
The lengthy statement released by Uefa outlining the sanctions made no mention of racism. Uefa delayed its decision for a month to give its control and disciplinary unit more time to consider the case but the severity of punishment still fell well below expectations, not least because the fine is £16,000 short of the amount Nicklas Bendtner was penalised for displaying a sponsor's name on his underpants during Euro 2012.
Horne had previously suggested the FA would consider refusing to play in Serbia in future if the sanctions were not tough enough. The FA is likely to appeal the bans issued to Ince and Caulker but will wait to receive Uefa's written reasons before determining its next course of action.
"It is the FA's vehement belief that its players and staff acted correctly in the face of provocation, including racist abuse and missiles being thrown," Horne added. "We are therefore surprised to see that two of our players have been given suspensions. We shall await Uefa's reasoning but it is our intention, at this stage, to support our players and appeal these decisions."
Hugh Robertson, the Sport Minister who wrote to Michel Platini, the Uefa president, calling for "tough sanctions" in October, also expressed his disappointment "given the widespread racist abuse aimed at England's players".
Stuart Pearce, the Under-21 manager, insisted that his players had not been at fault. He said: "I am concerned to see our players suspended. From what I witnessed our players were forced to protect themselves in the scenes that followed the game." During the match, England players were subjected to monkey chants, with Danny Rose saying he was targeted. Rose was sent off after the final whistle for kicking the ball away before a melee broke out.
Lord Ouseley said: "Kick It Out shares the concerns of many in football that abuse aimed at black players isn't taken seriously enough. This is a paltry slap on the wrist and again we haven't seen decisive action from Uefa."
Serbia has had problems with racism and fan violence in the past. They were forced to play a Euro 2012 qualifier behind closed doors after fans rioted and caused a game against Italy to be abandoned in Genoa in 2010. In June 2007, a fine of £16,500 was imposed because of racist chants at another Under-21 match against England.
Police set to be questioned over Hillsborough
THE questioning of hundreds of police officers over their role in the Hillsborough cover-up will begin within weeks, the Government has said as new powers for investigators are fast-tracked through Parliament.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announced yesterday that it has begun consulting the families of the 96 football supporters who died in the tragedy on their provisional terms of reference ahead of what will be the biggest-ever inquiry into British policing.
New laws to give the IPCC powers to compel serving officers to give evidence as witnesses should be passed before Christmas, but will not be extended to retired police, the Government said.
Speaking in the Lords, Home Office spokesman Lord Taylor of Holbeach revealed the IPCC will begin questioning both serving and retired officers from South Yorkshire Police and up to 30 other forces across the country “early in the new year”.
The development came as a provisional High Court date was set next week for the Attorney General’s bid to quash the original inquests into the victims’ deaths, held in Sheffield in 1991 but now seen as widely discredited.
The families of those who died have campaigned to have the original verdicts of accidental death overturned, and for a new coroner to take a broader look at how many victims might have been saved.
A spokesman for the Judicial Office said: “The Attorney General’s application to quash the Hillsborough inquest verdicts has been listed for a substantive hearing before the Divisional Court on Wednesday, December 19, subject to any applications by interested parties to adjourn.
“The Lord Chief Justice, sitting with two other judges, will hear the application.”
Attorney General Dominic Grieve announced in October he would make an application for fresh inquests after beginning a review of the evidence.
Yesterday’s developments are a clear signal of the Government’s stated intent to move as quickly as possible “from truth to justice” following the bombshell report published by an independent panel in September which revealed a huge cover-up and smear campaign at South Yorkshire Police following the 1989 stadium disaster.
Deborah Glass, the IPCC deputy chair who is leading the inquiry, confirmed the investigation would be looking into the actions of more than 2,000 police officers.
She said: “At present we have a list of 1,444 names provided by South Yorkshire Police covering officers who were apparently on duty at Hillsborough, who responded to the disaster or who were involved in the aftermath.
“In addition we are aware that 30 more police forces or police-related bodies had officers or staff who played some kind of role in relation to Hillsborough – that covers more than 400 officers.
“And we are aware there may be more officers whose details we have not had yet. We estimate we will have in excess of 2,000 names to analyse.”
She added: “I understand that many people want to see quick action after all these years. But completing the full picture for the families of those who died, were injured and were traumatised by the terrible events at Hillsborough is not going to be a quick or easy process.
“We are making real progress, and within the next month we expect the shape and integration of this complex and multi-faceted investigation will be clearer.”
The IPCC will be assisted in its inquiry by the new power to compel serving officers to give evidence – but Lord Taylor made clear it will not be extended to officers who have retired.
“Once officers retire, they are in the same position as any other member of the public,” he told peers.
“The police themselves do not have the power to compel an ordinary member of the public to attend an interview as a witness.
“To give the IPCC powers of compulsion over retired officers would be to extend the commission’s powers beyond those held by the police.
“I do not think that any member of this House would be comfortable with that, and such a matter would require careful and detailed consideration.
“Let us remember that the IPCC can, and will, investigate retired officers for misconduct and criminal behaviour, and it has the powers to compel such individuals to attend interview.
“The IPCC is currently scoping its investigation, and intends to start calling witnesses early in the new year.”
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announced yesterday that it has begun consulting the families of the 96 football supporters who died in the tragedy on their provisional terms of reference ahead of what will be the biggest-ever inquiry into British policing.
New laws to give the IPCC powers to compel serving officers to give evidence as witnesses should be passed before Christmas, but will not be extended to retired police, the Government said.
Speaking in the Lords, Home Office spokesman Lord Taylor of Holbeach revealed the IPCC will begin questioning both serving and retired officers from South Yorkshire Police and up to 30 other forces across the country “early in the new year”.
The development came as a provisional High Court date was set next week for the Attorney General’s bid to quash the original inquests into the victims’ deaths, held in Sheffield in 1991 but now seen as widely discredited.
The families of those who died have campaigned to have the original verdicts of accidental death overturned, and for a new coroner to take a broader look at how many victims might have been saved.
A spokesman for the Judicial Office said: “The Attorney General’s application to quash the Hillsborough inquest verdicts has been listed for a substantive hearing before the Divisional Court on Wednesday, December 19, subject to any applications by interested parties to adjourn.
“The Lord Chief Justice, sitting with two other judges, will hear the application.”
Attorney General Dominic Grieve announced in October he would make an application for fresh inquests after beginning a review of the evidence.
Yesterday’s developments are a clear signal of the Government’s stated intent to move as quickly as possible “from truth to justice” following the bombshell report published by an independent panel in September which revealed a huge cover-up and smear campaign at South Yorkshire Police following the 1989 stadium disaster.
Deborah Glass, the IPCC deputy chair who is leading the inquiry, confirmed the investigation would be looking into the actions of more than 2,000 police officers.
She said: “At present we have a list of 1,444 names provided by South Yorkshire Police covering officers who were apparently on duty at Hillsborough, who responded to the disaster or who were involved in the aftermath.
“In addition we are aware that 30 more police forces or police-related bodies had officers or staff who played some kind of role in relation to Hillsborough – that covers more than 400 officers.
“And we are aware there may be more officers whose details we have not had yet. We estimate we will have in excess of 2,000 names to analyse.”
She added: “I understand that many people want to see quick action after all these years. But completing the full picture for the families of those who died, were injured and were traumatised by the terrible events at Hillsborough is not going to be a quick or easy process.
“We are making real progress, and within the next month we expect the shape and integration of this complex and multi-faceted investigation will be clearer.”
The IPCC will be assisted in its inquiry by the new power to compel serving officers to give evidence – but Lord Taylor made clear it will not be extended to officers who have retired.
“Once officers retire, they are in the same position as any other member of the public,” he told peers.
“The police themselves do not have the power to compel an ordinary member of the public to attend an interview as a witness.
“To give the IPCC powers of compulsion over retired officers would be to extend the commission’s powers beyond those held by the police.
“I do not think that any member of this House would be comfortable with that, and such a matter would require careful and detailed consideration.
“Let us remember that the IPCC can, and will, investigate retired officers for misconduct and criminal behaviour, and it has the powers to compel such individuals to attend interview.
“The IPCC is currently scoping its investigation, and intends to start calling witnesses early in the new year.”
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Football hooliganism, Islam and me
Football hooliganism, Islam and me – the story of an Asian lad in Leicester’s notorious Baby Squad
Riaz Khan was a shy Muslim boy who became a member of the notorious Leicester City hooligan firm, the Baby Squad. He speaks to Lee Marlow about honour, violence and Slazenger jumpers.
This is a story of multi-culturalism Leicester, of white and black and Asian coming together as one; overlooking their differences and standing shoulder to shoulder to fight for a common cause.
Leicester is a city that is built on stories of multiculturalism. This one, says Riaz Khan, is one you’ve probably never heard.
“It sounds almost noble when you put it like that – black, white, Asian, coming together as one. But it was like that,” says Riaz, a 46-year-old English teacher from Evington, Leicester.
“We were one. The colour of your skin didn’t matter. That didn’t happen elsewhere in the country, but it happened here. And it only happened here for one reason.”
The reason? Football hooliganism.
Twenty five years on, Riaz – a softly-spoken, easy-going father of four – still winces at the term “football hooliganism.”
Riaz and his brother, Yusuf, were members of the Leicester Baby Squad, the notorious Leicester City firm.
The TV and the papers called them football hooligans. Riaz shakes his head. “We weren’t hooligans. We were casuals. That’s the word.
“We were fun-loving casuals. We weren’t yobs. It wasn’t mindless
violence, not in the way it was portrayed in the media. It was violent, occasionally, yes – but it was orchestrated; one like-minded firm against another.”
He’s not defending it, he says. He’s redefining it. And, besides, it wasn’t just about the fighting. It was about much more than that. “If it was just about the fighting, I wouldn’t have stuck it. It was about the camaraderie, the fashions, the clothes.”
For six years, from the autumn of 1983 until the end of 1989/90 season, Riaz lived this life.
He watched City home and away. Sometimes he fought. Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he won. Sometimes he took a beating.
He was arrested. He was convicted. He bought the finest clothes from the most expensive designer shops and was the coolest kid on the block. And then he did it all over again, season after season.
All of that – the football, the clothes, the camaraderie, the fighting – became the fabric of Riaz’s life.
But why? It’s a question you could ask any young member of the Baby Squad. Why? What did you get from it?
But for a young Muslim boy growing up in Rushey Mead with ambitious parents and a strict culture which forbade it – how on Earth did that happen? Sit yourself down, he says, brushing down his beard. It’s a lo-o-ong old story.
What you have to remember, says Riaz, is the context. The era. The story starts in Leicester in the mid-70s. It was a very different city to the one we live in today.
Riaz and his brothers and sister grew up in Rushey Mead. It was white then, he remembers, with only a smattering of Asian faces. The Khans stuck out. They were different.
He went to school at Wreake Valley. Casual racism seemed like it was almost part of the syllabus to Riaz. “I remember walking to and from school and seeing swastikas sprayed on walls and NF signs and slogans like ‘Pakis Out’. It was everywhere. It was just part of your life.”
The racism was never physical. It never spilled over into brawls or fights. But it was incessant.
“I took it day after day,” he says. “It made me feel inferior. I rejected who I was and where I was from. I didn’t want to be that person. I wanted to be white. I wanted to belong.”
He found a teenage identity in music and fashion: jazz funk initially, then the New Romantics and the fashions of the time.
“It only really made sense to me when I read a story in the paper about the Leeds Service Crew – a group of Leeds United fans, Leeds casuals, who dressed in a certain way.”
He cut the feature out and read it over and over again. This is what he wanted. The clothes. The hair. The bond, the camaraderie.
“I worked at Walkers crisps in the summer and all my money would go on Lyle & Scott jumpers and Patrick cagoules and Puma G.Vilas trainers. I was out and about, wearing this stuff, when one day, while walking through Leicester I saw a group of lads dressed in the same stuff.”
They started talking. We’re football trendies, they said. Come and join us. It was a chance to be part of something – although what that was, he wasn’t exactly sure – and Riaz took it. He was in. For the first time in his life, he was in.
“I was never into football, but they told me about the football and the fighting and how it was all part and parcel of it and well, that was it for me. I can’t say that was what I was looking for, but, also, it wasn’t enough to make me walk away.”
His first football game was in October 1983, away to Birmingham. City lost that day 2-1. Lineker scored for Leicester. Riaz doesn’t remember this. He didn’t see his first game. He was arrested before the match kicked off.
“I didn’t even make it to the ground. We ran into some Birmingham lads near the Bull Ring and that was that.”
It kicked off.
He came home late that night. “Why are you so late?” his father wanted to know. There was some trouble, Riaz said. His strict father banned him from going to a match again.
“And yet,” recalls Riaz, “although he didn’t approve, we were from a long line of Pathans. They were warriors, fighters. It was a proud heritage. If I’d have been in trouble for theft, my dad would have been appalled. Fighting? Well... it didn’t seem quite so bad.”
His parents wanted him to study; to be a lawyer or an accountant.
“Asian families in Leicester in the 1970s, they were all desperately keen for their children to do well,” he says.
His parents were no different. It made no difference. “I didn’t listen. I thought I knew best. It happens with boys and adolescence – it’s a form of temporary insanity isn’t it? I rejected everything they tried to give me – advice, religion, everything – and set out on my own way.”
The ban didn’t last. He wriggled out of the curfew and started going to the football every week. He started to learn about Leicester City, the football, the players – Lineker and Lynex; Bobby Smith and Andy Peake – but, and this always seemed more important, he admits, he learned about everything else that came with it: terrace culture, mates, fashion trainers and how to handle himself.
“For that first season, I was scared. I’d see other lads coming and I’d stand aside or run off. I was too scared to get involved.”
But the way you got accepted in this strange new world, the way you earned your stripes, was by standing your ground, covering your mate’s back, proving yourself.
“So that’s what I started to do,” says Riaz.
There was a moment, one incident during a lads’ day out in Skegness when Riaz knew, finally, that he’d been .
They bumped into a small group of skinheads who, immediately, started shoving Riaz around. “One of them hit me over the head with a steel-framed newspaper A-board. It was kicking off and it was kicking off for no other reason than because I was Asian.”
One by one, his new Baby Squad mates, who were drinking nearby, poured out into the street and set about the skinheads. It was a clear message: you fight him, then you fight all of us.
“There was a bit of a skirmish: Baby Squad lads versus these National Front lads. They didn’t want me to get beaten up because of the colour of my skin, because I was Asian. They saw me as one of them.”
Amid the flying fists and violence, Riaz was aware something significant had just occurred. It was, he says, a beautiful moment.
“A few years earlier and that just wouldn’t have happened.”
The Baby Squad was the collective name of the Leicester City hooligan firm. It was one big group on a Saturday afternoon, but made up of a combination of smaller gangs from all over Leicestershire – Braunstone, Thurnby Lodge, Netherhall, the West End, New Parks, St Mark’s and St Matthew’s, as well as county areas such as Coalville and Hinckley.
“Before the advent of the Baby Squad, these groups fought each other. The BS brought them together.”
For six years, that’s what he did. Home and away, although not always away. “I never really enjoyed travelling too far,” he says.
He bought his clothes from Scotney’s, on London Road, or MC Sports, in Humberstone Gate. Occasionally, Riaz and some of this friends would take the train to London for a shopping spree at Nik Naks and Lilywhites.
“There weren’t many places to go in Leicester, really,” he says. “I knew some lads – some of the more middle-class members from Oadby – who would fly over to Italy to get kitted out.”
How you looked was important, he says. It set you apart.
Riaz left that world a long time ago, but not all of it, it seems.
On the day we meet, Riaz is wearing black Adidas Gazelles, a Ralph Lauren shirt, Armani jumper and Stone Island hat and coat.
“Yeah,” he says. “Once you’re into that, I don’t think it ever leaves you. I’m not as daft as I was back then, though. This stuff will last me a couple of years now. Back then, I’d wear it for a month then sell it.”
Which is all very nice and glamorous – but it wasn’t always like that, was it?
“No, it wasn’t,” he says. “There were a few hairy moments. I remember lots of City fans getting a police escort from Villa Park one Saturday afternoon.
“Somehow, the small group I was with ended up outside the Holte End at Villa Park with no escort – just as the Villa fans were coming out.
“We were spotted and a gang of 300 or so Villa fans chased us for miles. We ran and ran until we couldn’t run any more. I remember someone saying, ‘Look, we’ve got to stop, let’s just get this over with’. We knew we were going to take a beating.”
And then, as if from nowhere, the West Midlands Police arrived. “I don’t think I have ever been so relieved to see a policeman in my life,” says Riaz.
Another Saturday afternoon: the Haymarket, 1984, Leicester versus Arsenal. “We confronted the Arsenal fans near the Haymarket. It was bedlam. I remember one of our boys, a nice lad from Birstall, was slashed with a Stanley knife.
“I saw the blood and I saw the wound. He never came back after that. I never saw him again.”
There were others, he says. Fights and slashings and brawls and beatings. They all kind of blend into one big bloody brawl of testosterone and designer gear.
“West Ham was always a bit hairy. Chelsea were always very racist. Millwall were just mad. I don’t know why.”
It stopped as quickly as it started for Riaz. In 1989, he was 23, nearly 24. “I was bored of it. I didn’t want to fight every weekend.
“I started going to raves instead. I enjoyed it. It was a completely different thing – driving out to a big field in the middle of nowhere and dancing all night with blokes who supported other teams and having a great time.”
He’d changed. “I grew up,” he says. “That adolescent/teenage period was over. Temporary insanity, you see.” Riaz started to think about who he was, what he’d done, and what he wanted to be.
“The religion I turned my back on as a teenager started to appeal to me. I read about Islam and started going to the mosque on Loughborough Road.”
Riaz is now married to Maryam and has four children.
He went back to college and studied. Today, he’s an English teacher and studying for a Masters Degree in English language teaching at university.
Education, he says. That’s what counts. Education changes everything. His pupils know nothing of his past. “I guess they’re in for a bit of a shock,” he says.
Four years ago, as the EDL started to garner support from the terraces of English football grounds, Riaz thought about writing a book.
“When the EDL came here, I saw people I used to know from the Baby Squad and it just stopped me in my tracks.
“Had it really come to this?
“I thought they were better than that. I wondered what they were thinking.”
The book – Khan: Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual – is out next weekend. It tells the story of a nice little Muslim boy from Leicester who ran with the Baby Squad.
It attempts to explain what that was like, to put what he did in those years into some sort of context. There was a justification for it, he says.
“There is no justification for the thinly-veiled racism you see in the EDL, though,” he says.
And what if one of your sons comes home and says, ‘Dad, I want to be a casual, a football hooligan?’
“I won’t allow that,” he says. “I know what happens. I’ve seen it. I don’t want that for them.”
• Khan – Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual, published by Countdown Books is out on December 15 and is available at HMV in Leicester, priced at £7.99.
link
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/story-17558145-detail/story.html
Comments worth a read
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Riaz Khan
Riaz Khan was a shy Muslim boy who became a member of the notorious Leicester City hooligan firm, the Baby Squad. He speaks to Lee Marlow about honour, violence and Slazenger jumpers.
This is a story of multi-culturalism Leicester, of white and black and Asian coming together as one; overlooking their differences and standing shoulder to shoulder to fight for a common cause.
Leicester is a city that is built on stories of multiculturalism. This one, says Riaz Khan, is one you’ve probably never heard.
“It sounds almost noble when you put it like that – black, white, Asian, coming together as one. But it was like that,” says Riaz, a 46-year-old English teacher from Evington, Leicester.
“We were one. The colour of your skin didn’t matter. That didn’t happen elsewhere in the country, but it happened here. And it only happened here for one reason.”
The reason? Football hooliganism.
Twenty five years on, Riaz – a softly-spoken, easy-going father of four – still winces at the term “football hooliganism.”
Riaz and his brother, Yusuf, were members of the Leicester Baby Squad, the notorious Leicester City firm.
The TV and the papers called them football hooligans. Riaz shakes his head. “We weren’t hooligans. We were casuals. That’s the word.
“We were fun-loving casuals. We weren’t yobs. It wasn’t mindless
violence, not in the way it was portrayed in the media. It was violent, occasionally, yes – but it was orchestrated; one like-minded firm against another.”
He’s not defending it, he says. He’s redefining it. And, besides, it wasn’t just about the fighting. It was about much more than that. “If it was just about the fighting, I wouldn’t have stuck it. It was about the camaraderie, the fashions, the clothes.”
For six years, from the autumn of 1983 until the end of 1989/90 season, Riaz lived this life.
He watched City home and away. Sometimes he fought. Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he won. Sometimes he took a beating.
He was arrested. He was convicted. He bought the finest clothes from the most expensive designer shops and was the coolest kid on the block. And then he did it all over again, season after season.
All of that – the football, the clothes, the camaraderie, the fighting – became the fabric of Riaz’s life.
But why? It’s a question you could ask any young member of the Baby Squad. Why? What did you get from it?
But for a young Muslim boy growing up in Rushey Mead with ambitious parents and a strict culture which forbade it – how on Earth did that happen? Sit yourself down, he says, brushing down his beard. It’s a lo-o-ong old story.
What you have to remember, says Riaz, is the context. The era. The story starts in Leicester in the mid-70s. It was a very different city to the one we live in today.
Riaz and his brothers and sister grew up in Rushey Mead. It was white then, he remembers, with only a smattering of Asian faces. The Khans stuck out. They were different.
He went to school at Wreake Valley. Casual racism seemed like it was almost part of the syllabus to Riaz. “I remember walking to and from school and seeing swastikas sprayed on walls and NF signs and slogans like ‘Pakis Out’. It was everywhere. It was just part of your life.”
The racism was never physical. It never spilled over into brawls or fights. But it was incessant.
“I took it day after day,” he says. “It made me feel inferior. I rejected who I was and where I was from. I didn’t want to be that person. I wanted to be white. I wanted to belong.”
He found a teenage identity in music and fashion: jazz funk initially, then the New Romantics and the fashions of the time.
“It only really made sense to me when I read a story in the paper about the Leeds Service Crew – a group of Leeds United fans, Leeds casuals, who dressed in a certain way.”
He cut the feature out and read it over and over again. This is what he wanted. The clothes. The hair. The bond, the camaraderie.
“I worked at Walkers crisps in the summer and all my money would go on Lyle & Scott jumpers and Patrick cagoules and Puma G.Vilas trainers. I was out and about, wearing this stuff, when one day, while walking through Leicester I saw a group of lads dressed in the same stuff.”
They started talking. We’re football trendies, they said. Come and join us. It was a chance to be part of something – although what that was, he wasn’t exactly sure – and Riaz took it. He was in. For the first time in his life, he was in.
“I was never into football, but they told me about the football and the fighting and how it was all part and parcel of it and well, that was it for me. I can’t say that was what I was looking for, but, also, it wasn’t enough to make me walk away.”
His first football game was in October 1983, away to Birmingham. City lost that day 2-1. Lineker scored for Leicester. Riaz doesn’t remember this. He didn’t see his first game. He was arrested before the match kicked off.
“I didn’t even make it to the ground. We ran into some Birmingham lads near the Bull Ring and that was that.”
It kicked off.
He came home late that night. “Why are you so late?” his father wanted to know. There was some trouble, Riaz said. His strict father banned him from going to a match again.
“And yet,” recalls Riaz, “although he didn’t approve, we were from a long line of Pathans. They were warriors, fighters. It was a proud heritage. If I’d have been in trouble for theft, my dad would have been appalled. Fighting? Well... it didn’t seem quite so bad.”
His parents wanted him to study; to be a lawyer or an accountant.
“Asian families in Leicester in the 1970s, they were all desperately keen for their children to do well,” he says.
His parents were no different. It made no difference. “I didn’t listen. I thought I knew best. It happens with boys and adolescence – it’s a form of temporary insanity isn’t it? I rejected everything they tried to give me – advice, religion, everything – and set out on my own way.”
The ban didn’t last. He wriggled out of the curfew and started going to the football every week. He started to learn about Leicester City, the football, the players – Lineker and Lynex; Bobby Smith and Andy Peake – but, and this always seemed more important, he admits, he learned about everything else that came with it: terrace culture, mates, fashion trainers and how to handle himself.
“For that first season, I was scared. I’d see other lads coming and I’d stand aside or run off. I was too scared to get involved.”
But the way you got accepted in this strange new world, the way you earned your stripes, was by standing your ground, covering your mate’s back, proving yourself.
“So that’s what I started to do,” says Riaz.
There was a moment, one incident during a lads’ day out in Skegness when Riaz knew, finally, that he’d been .
They bumped into a small group of skinheads who, immediately, started shoving Riaz around. “One of them hit me over the head with a steel-framed newspaper A-board. It was kicking off and it was kicking off for no other reason than because I was Asian.”
One by one, his new Baby Squad mates, who were drinking nearby, poured out into the street and set about the skinheads. It was a clear message: you fight him, then you fight all of us.
“There was a bit of a skirmish: Baby Squad lads versus these National Front lads. They didn’t want me to get beaten up because of the colour of my skin, because I was Asian. They saw me as one of them.”
Amid the flying fists and violence, Riaz was aware something significant had just occurred. It was, he says, a beautiful moment.
“A few years earlier and that just wouldn’t have happened.”
The Baby Squad was the collective name of the Leicester City hooligan firm. It was one big group on a Saturday afternoon, but made up of a combination of smaller gangs from all over Leicestershire – Braunstone, Thurnby Lodge, Netherhall, the West End, New Parks, St Mark’s and St Matthew’s, as well as county areas such as Coalville and Hinckley.
“Before the advent of the Baby Squad, these groups fought each other. The BS brought them together.”
For six years, that’s what he did. Home and away, although not always away. “I never really enjoyed travelling too far,” he says.
He bought his clothes from Scotney’s, on London Road, or MC Sports, in Humberstone Gate. Occasionally, Riaz and some of this friends would take the train to London for a shopping spree at Nik Naks and Lilywhites.
“There weren’t many places to go in Leicester, really,” he says. “I knew some lads – some of the more middle-class members from Oadby – who would fly over to Italy to get kitted out.”
How you looked was important, he says. It set you apart.
Riaz left that world a long time ago, but not all of it, it seems.
On the day we meet, Riaz is wearing black Adidas Gazelles, a Ralph Lauren shirt, Armani jumper and Stone Island hat and coat.
“Yeah,” he says. “Once you’re into that, I don’t think it ever leaves you. I’m not as daft as I was back then, though. This stuff will last me a couple of years now. Back then, I’d wear it for a month then sell it.”
Which is all very nice and glamorous – but it wasn’t always like that, was it?
“No, it wasn’t,” he says. “There were a few hairy moments. I remember lots of City fans getting a police escort from Villa Park one Saturday afternoon.
“Somehow, the small group I was with ended up outside the Holte End at Villa Park with no escort – just as the Villa fans were coming out.
“We were spotted and a gang of 300 or so Villa fans chased us for miles. We ran and ran until we couldn’t run any more. I remember someone saying, ‘Look, we’ve got to stop, let’s just get this over with’. We knew we were going to take a beating.”
And then, as if from nowhere, the West Midlands Police arrived. “I don’t think I have ever been so relieved to see a policeman in my life,” says Riaz.
Another Saturday afternoon: the Haymarket, 1984, Leicester versus Arsenal. “We confronted the Arsenal fans near the Haymarket. It was bedlam. I remember one of our boys, a nice lad from Birstall, was slashed with a Stanley knife.
“I saw the blood and I saw the wound. He never came back after that. I never saw him again.”
There were others, he says. Fights and slashings and brawls and beatings. They all kind of blend into one big bloody brawl of testosterone and designer gear.
“West Ham was always a bit hairy. Chelsea were always very racist. Millwall were just mad. I don’t know why.”
It stopped as quickly as it started for Riaz. In 1989, he was 23, nearly 24. “I was bored of it. I didn’t want to fight every weekend.
“I started going to raves instead. I enjoyed it. It was a completely different thing – driving out to a big field in the middle of nowhere and dancing all night with blokes who supported other teams and having a great time.”
He’d changed. “I grew up,” he says. “That adolescent/teenage period was over. Temporary insanity, you see.” Riaz started to think about who he was, what he’d done, and what he wanted to be.
“The religion I turned my back on as a teenager started to appeal to me. I read about Islam and started going to the mosque on Loughborough Road.”
Riaz is now married to Maryam and has four children.
He went back to college and studied. Today, he’s an English teacher and studying for a Masters Degree in English language teaching at university.
Education, he says. That’s what counts. Education changes everything. His pupils know nothing of his past. “I guess they’re in for a bit of a shock,” he says.
Four years ago, as the EDL started to garner support from the terraces of English football grounds, Riaz thought about writing a book.
“When the EDL came here, I saw people I used to know from the Baby Squad and it just stopped me in my tracks.
“Had it really come to this?
“I thought they were better than that. I wondered what they were thinking.”
The book – Khan: Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual – is out next weekend. It tells the story of a nice little Muslim boy from Leicester who ran with the Baby Squad.
It attempts to explain what that was like, to put what he did in those years into some sort of context. There was a justification for it, he says.
“There is no justification for the thinly-veiled racism you see in the EDL, though,” he says.
And what if one of your sons comes home and says, ‘Dad, I want to be a casual, a football hooligan?’
“I won’t allow that,” he says. “I know what happens. I’ve seen it. I don’t want that for them.”
• Khan – Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual, published by Countdown Books is out on December 15 and is available at HMV in Leicester, priced at £7.99.
link
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/story-17558145-detail/story.html
Comments worth a read
Sunday, 9 December 2012
'MONKEY JIBES' SWANSEA FAN ARRESTED
A SWANSEA fan accused of making racist ‘monkey gestures’ at black Norwich star Sebastien Bassong has been arrested.link
Saturday, 8 December 2012
Wenger preaches patience over splashing cash
Arsene Wenger has hinted yet again that Arsenal will be keeping their
cheque book under lock and key during the January transfer window.
The Gunners are no closer to resolving the contract saga of Theo Walcott, while the manager is hopeful of tying Bacary Sagna to a new deal.
But the possibility of new faces coming through the door at the Emirates Stadium next month appears slim as Wenger maintains just simply buying a few new players is not the answer.
“Football is not only to splash money out and work, it’s also about patience and the pride to create your own players,” he said.
“There are some important aspects in the game we never get credit for, but I find them very important.
“For example, in the last 10 years, we have brought more players out than any other club together at Champions League level. You can look all across Europe.
“That is part of our pride as well - to give a chance to players to show their talent at that level.”
link
The Gunners are no closer to resolving the contract saga of Theo Walcott, while the manager is hopeful of tying Bacary Sagna to a new deal.
But the possibility of new faces coming through the door at the Emirates Stadium next month appears slim as Wenger maintains just simply buying a few new players is not the answer.
“Football is not only to splash money out and work, it’s also about patience and the pride to create your own players,” he said.
“There are some important aspects in the game we never get credit for, but I find them very important.
“For example, in the last 10 years, we have brought more players out than any other club together at Champions League level. You can look all across Europe.
“That is part of our pride as well - to give a chance to players to show their talent at that level.”
Sunday, 25 November 2012
STABBED BRIT ASHLEY MILLS: TWO YOBS LET OFF
FOOTBALL fans were seething last night as two thugs accused of knifing a Spurs fan had their attempted murder charges dropped.
Ashley Mills was sliced across the head and groin in the vicious attack before Tottenham’s Europa League game with Lazio last week.
A mob of 50 ambushed The Drunken Ship pub in Rome as the 25-year-old builder enjoyed a pint with fellow Spurs fans.
Italian detectives charged Francesco Ianari, 26, and Mauro Pinnelli, 25, with attempted murder after the bloody brawl.
But yesterday their lawyer Lorenzo Contucci said the charges against the two men had been cut to aggravated wounding with a weapon.
He also revealed the controversial judge had decided the violence in the pub had not been racially motivated and was instead a “football related crime”.
Hours later fans hit online forums to vent their anger, branding the decision “disgraceful”.
Johnathan fumed: “Disgusting. What do you need to do to someone to get an attempted murder charge then??”
Kevin Hayes added: “It’s disgraceful. The Italian authorities should be ashamed of themselves.”
And Steve said: “Not been racially motivated but that it was a ‘football-related crime’ – so that makes it ok then?”
Initial reports suggested masked far right Lazio Ultras were to blame for the cowardly attack. But the two men were understood to be supporters of cross-town rivals, AS Roma.
At least 11 people were injured in the attack, including an American and a Bangladeshi.
Police named other injured British fans as Dave Lesley, Stephen Tierney and Christopher Allen.
Ashley, from Brentwood, Essex, who had travelled to the Italian capital with his interior designer brother Bradley, 30, remains in hospital after losing huge amounts of blood.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/284526/
Ashley Mills was sliced across the head and groin in the vicious attack before Tottenham’s Europa League game with Lazio last week.
A mob of 50 ambushed The Drunken Ship pub in Rome as the 25-year-old builder enjoyed a pint with fellow Spurs fans.
Italian detectives charged Francesco Ianari, 26, and Mauro Pinnelli, 25, with attempted murder after the bloody brawl.
But yesterday their lawyer Lorenzo Contucci said the charges against the two men had been cut to aggravated wounding with a weapon.
He also revealed the controversial judge had decided the violence in the pub had not been racially motivated and was instead a “football related crime”.
Hours later fans hit online forums to vent their anger, branding the decision “disgraceful”.
Johnathan fumed: “Disgusting. What do you need to do to someone to get an attempted murder charge then??”
Kevin Hayes added: “It’s disgraceful. The Italian authorities should be ashamed of themselves.”
And Steve said: “Not been racially motivated but that it was a ‘football-related crime’ – so that makes it ok then?”
Initial reports suggested masked far right Lazio Ultras were to blame for the cowardly attack. But the two men were understood to be supporters of cross-town rivals, AS Roma.
At least 11 people were injured in the attack, including an American and a Bangladeshi.
Police named other injured British fans as Dave Lesley, Stephen Tierney and Christopher Allen.
Ashley, from Brentwood, Essex, who had travelled to the Italian capital with his interior designer brother Bradley, 30, remains in hospital after losing huge amounts of blood.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/284526/
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