Author: Nick Lowles | Date: June 2001

Hooligans United in racism

“Welcome to Oldham, the front line of the race war!” a British National Party speaker told party members demonstrating outside the local police station after their northern rally in the town in March. A few weeks later his pronouncement proved accurate, as nazis and racist football hooligans descended on the town to exploit its simmering racial tensions.

The early signs were not encouraging. We were still parking our car when a group of young white teenagers walked past. “Fuck off Pakis,” they shouted at an elderly Asian couple across the road, walking in the opposite direction weighed down with shopping bags. The 10-strong group of 12 to 13 year-olds, dressed in baseball caps, tracksuit tops, jeans and trainers, continued their walk into town, stopping opposite two police riot vans parked in a pedestrianised shopping street.

It was only midday, a full three hours before the National Front had promised to show, but already the town was teaming with police, football hooligans and local racists. In front of the Civic Centre, where the NF was threatening to assemble in complete disregard of the Home Secretary’s ban on political marches, 200 Anti Nazi League supporters had gathered to occupy the site.

Under the watchful eye of the police, several pubs on the edge of the shopping centre were beginning to fill up. In four of them, a hundred racists were gathering in anticipation of the NF march, many from outside Oldham. A group of Combat 18 supporters had come from London, joining others from neighbouring Lancashire towns. David Tickle had travelled from Wigan in the company of two members of the loyalist terrorist group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force. They were joined by a group of 10 to 15 Stoke hooligans and a slightly larger number from Stockport. Smaller hooligan groups turned out from Huddersfield, Manchester City and Burnley.

The majority was from the local area, including several dozen Oldham hooligans, the Fine Young Casuals. Among them were several C18 supporters, including Darren Hoy and Martin Fielding, who were deported from Belgium last year. Both were active on the day.

I arrived in Oldham against the backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating situation. Two weeks earlier, a BBC radio broadcast had claimed that young Asians were establishing no-go areas for whites. This claim was given added credence when 76-year-old Walter Chamberlain was attacked and mugged by a group of young Asians on his way from a local rugby match. While his family were quick, and courageous, to view the incident as a criminal assault rather than a racist attack, the popular perception, prompted by a briefing given by an Oldham policeman to a Manchester paper, was that the pensioner was attacked solely because of his race.

A week later 450 Stoke hooligans marched through a predominantly Asian area on their way to a match at Oldham’s ground, smashing windows and chanting racist abuse. One report even suggested that Asian people were dragged out of their cars and attacked. During the game the Stoke fans continued their racist chanting. By the time they walked back through the residential area, 500 Asians had mobilised to defend their homes. In the ensuing clashes, petrol bombs were thrown at the police. When they got back to Stoke, clashes broke out with local Asians.

Encouraged by the antics of the Stoke fans, Oldham racists and hooligans attacked an Asian taxi office two days later. The same evening saw clashes between

50 Oldham hooligans and a similar number of Asian youths.

The planned NF march became very much a sideshow as the hooligans and local racists became bored with waiting for the arrival of the Front. Some time after 1pm, a group of 60 nazis and hooligans left the Centurion pub to march into the town centre. The police were initially swift to act. With batons drawn, police on foot and horseback held the mob back. Appearing to have control of the situation, the police planned to hold the racists in a tight group outside the pub. They certainly had the numbers as within a couple of minutes as many as one hundred officers were in the area. Then, for some inexplicable reason, the police did nothing to prevent the hooligans walking around them and into the town centre.

Police later held 40 of them in the main shopping area for several hours, but dozens slipped the police roundup and continued to roam the streets. More than 70 later regrouped in the Ashton Arms pub and another 25 gathered in the Old Bell, directly opposite the Civic Centre.

The Home Secretary had banned all political marches in Oldham for three months but there was little sign that this was having much effect. At 3pm, news reached the Anti Nazi League that the NF was only a few miles away. Thirty minutes later, two minibuses of nazis appeared on the edge of the town centre. The police managed to reach the nazis literally seconds before the ANL activists. A standoff ensued, with the police holding both groups for more than an hour, during which time the nazis’ flags were confiscated.

A few hundred metres from the NF circus, a group of 20 to 25 football hooligans began gathering in a pub on the outskirts of a predominantly Asian estate. These hooligans had been part of the group in the Ashton Arms, which had been allowed to leave the pub despite the presence of the riot police. Local Asians were soon alerted to their presence and in a clash between the two groups, one Stockport hooligan was stabbed.

The police later applauded themselves on what they described as a “successful operation”. Quite where the success was in a town placed in a state of siege, where most of the town centre shops closed early, where gangs of marauding racists were able to roam relatively freely and where most Asians stayed out of town in fear, was difficult to see.

More worryingly, it appears that the police had caught up with the nazis outside Oldham but failed to prevent them coming into town despite their public admission that they were intending to flout the ban on their march.

Satisfied with their operation, the police demobilised their 500 troops and went home. So did the news crews. Unbeknown to both, the Stockport hooligans, who have a longstanding friendship with the Oldham Fine Young Casuals, were staying the night. Later that evening a group of several dozen thugs tried to kick off trouble in a mainly Asian area.

It was a day of differing fortunes for all concerned. The NF was discredited in the eyes of many of the local racists and hooligans who turned up. Despite its intention to leave London at 9am to arrive in Oldham by lunchtime, the NF did not actually leave until nearer 11.00. The turnout was also derisory. By the seemingly endless messages on its website, observers would have been forgiven for expecting the largest NF mobilisation for some time. In the 24 hours before the morning of the march, additions to the website’s guest book, almost exclusively about Oldham, ran to over 30 pages. Yet on the day, fewer than NF thugs turned up. One racist Stockport hooligan described the NF as “losers” on one Internet site, at the same time promising revenge for his friend who had been stabbed.

The police also let down the people of Oldham. Their failure to enforce the law and their inaction on the day left the local Asian community in a state of siege, fearful of racist attacks.

The winners were the racist hooligans and the small number of C18 supporters who, together, amassed a mob of over one hundred fighters. Buoyed up with what they perceived as a victory, they are already talking of a much bigger hooligan mobilisation in the near future. A number of other hooligan groups have expressed interest in taking part and a much bigger C18 presence can be expected next time.

In the longer term, it is the British National Party that is likely to reap the political advantage. Its local organiser, Mick Treacy, publicly condemned the NF decision to march, although he himself had hoped to organise a public activity in protest at the anti-racist march in the town a few weeks earlier. However, the heightening of racial tensions caused by the day’s

events is likely to increase the vote for the BNP, which is contesting Oldham’s three parliamentary constituencies.

The actions of the hooligans and C18 can only further encourage local racists. The small group of skinheads whom I saw abuse the elderly Asian couple at the beginning of the day came into town to watch the NF march. They would have left town that day emboldened that people from outside the area, including “hard” football hooligans, are fully behind the racist cause. What better incentive to continue their own racism.

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