Sex, Drugs and Football Thugs by Mark Chester

Author:Mark Chester [Chester, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Category C Publishing
Published: 2011-09-05T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The Lads’ Tales

THE FOLLOWING FOUR stories illustrate different aspects of the football hooligan culture and life that I am trying to portray: taking drugs (sometimes to excess), following England, and serving time. All of the N40 have experienced at least one of these, and some all three. The first of these tales was told to me by Barry Sargeant, the lad who experienced it; the others are told directly by those who were there.

Graham and Pauline Sargeant were strict parents but also loving and supportive to their three children, Jody, Stephen and Barry. Nothing strange about; the vast majority of families in 1970s Britain were no different. Is that not what put the Great into our old country? When neighbours would stand at their gates and chat a while.

“Oh they are a lovely family, the Sargeants. I think Pauline has got her hands full with the eldest Barry, though. He will end up in prison one of these days, you mark my words.” The housewives’ sentence. The black mark. The teachers’ curse. They were right though. Barry was going to go to prison. Several times.

Milton, on the east side of Stoke, was not that rough a place unless you wanted it to be. Gang culture was nearly a decade away from the adolescent Barry, who spent most of his early childhood days playing football and building dams in streams at the nearby Bagnal woods. The theft of a car or tooting of a pipe? Kids did not do that type of thing in those days. Barry’s crime was being mischievous.

The early to mid Eighties saw the rise of one gang in particular that changed the street scene of the city of Stoke- on-Trent. A new, vicious identity was being forged among the foundries and pot banks and pits. Young, disenchanted teenagers were hearing the myth and spreading the word. “Get down to Stoke on Saturday, it’s going to go off. The Naughty Forty are planning an attack. There is going to be blood spilt. Lots of it.”

It was not long before similar gangs were forming all over the suburbs. Milton was no exception. Lynchy and Mellor were several years older than Barry. They were the founder members of the MGC, the Milton Game Casuals. It was they who introduced the bright lights of Hanley to a young Mr Sargeant. They used one pub in particular, Leadbellies, the headquarters of the N40. You only drank in there if you were accepted.

It was not long before Barry was. Tough street fights and inter-estate warfare had seen a teenager gain respect and enforce a reputation on all bar none. Like so many others in our city a nickname came with the turf. “Fucking hell, that’s Mad Barry Sargeant over there. He has just got out of young offenders for fighting with some blokes twice his age.” And so on. During his apprenticeship with the N40, as with so many of the other youngsters, he was picked up and nurtured by one of the older, more established members.

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