Stories of the undercover police who infiltrated the hooligan Wolves Subway Army
Family – the importance of, the need to cater for – runs in every paragraph of today’s football gospel.
Women and children sit in comfort as the matchday excitement unfolds. They are not swept forward by a baying sea of humanity as their beloved team enter their opponent’s penalty area.
It is an afternoon of balti pies, bonhomie and good-natured banter. It is a corporate carnival of cheerleaders and half-time entertainment.
And like all corporate, family-friendly events, it is an expensive afternoon.
After decades spent on sardine-packed terraces, football has come home to a place of living room warmth and security.
Our treasured, national game has, thankfully, travelled a long, long way from the dark, menacing days of the 1970s and ‘80s, an era scarred and scalded in the furnace-hot cauldron of tribal, terrace thuggery.
In the West Midlands, the successful strides taken to sanitise soccer were sparked by one no-nonsense detective.
With the cancer of hooliganism growing, Mike Layton, who rose to West Midlands Police chief superintendent, was given a brief – dismantle and crush the West Midlands's most notorious “firms”, now causing matchday mayhem in the communities their teams travelled to.
And in 1987, his job description was further refined. Quite simply, Mike was called in to help tame Wolverhampton’s infamous Subway Army and its splinter group The Bridge Boys.
They were to be broken under an operation entitled “Growth”. The acronym spelt out the covert operation’s simple aim – "Get Rid Of Wolverhampton’s Troublesome Hooligans”.
To that end, dedicated officers were tasked with infiltrating the firms by pretending to be one of them. The intelligence-gathering tactic carried high risks, but reaped rich rewards.
Mike had already gained his stripes in the war against terrace tearaways through Operation Red Card, set up to strike at the heart of Birmingham City’s infamous Zulu Warriors, responsible for one of the darkest moments in English football history.
When the dust had settled on the mass, St Andrew’s pitch punch-up between Blues and Leeds thugs, 500 were injured and an innocent schoolboy crushed to death.
Memories of armed fans bellowing “Zulu, Zulu” during the terrible May 1985, day still sends shudders down the spine of decent, self-respecting supporters.
Now Mike’s band of hooligan-busters turned their attention on the Black Country, specifically the Subway Army. He provided the invaluable knowledge gained through Red Card.
Formed in the early 1970s, the firm gained its name through ambushing visiting fans as they entered a subway leading to Molineux.
On the opening day of the 1987-88 fourth division season, the rag-tag Old Gold invaders caused carnage in the Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough. One fan fell through the roof of Scarborough’s stadium and in the aftermath 18 people were jailed.
Mike, now 70, this week described both “Red Card” and “Growth” as highly successful and significant.
“The Subway Army was a serious firm, a firm to be dealt with,” he said. “It would be naïve to say what we did culminated in the eradication of football violence in its entirety.
“But what we did was very successful. It had never been done before in the West Midlands and the number of convictions was very high. Football hooligans feed on anonymity. Through their court appearances, we removed that cloak of anonymity.”
Today, two brave undercover officers who penetrated the Subway Army’s secretive circle of foot soldiers, lieutenants and generals tell their incredible story. We have given them the pseudonyms Steve and Mark to protect their identities.
Steve said: “I used to be a West Brom fan, but I lost interest when I joined the police. I knew very little about Wolverhampton Wanderers, but when I was asked to do an undercover job on their hooligans, I said yes straight away.
“One thing was not to have a moustache, it was a giveaway you were a police officer. I had an ear-ring put in and wore an old sheepskin coat. The hooligans used to call me and my partner Steptoe and Son.
“By the end of the operation, we were the only two who managed to stay together throughout. A number had to leave because the risk of being exposed as undercover officers was too great.
“I remember a particularly scary moment when Cardiff City were playing at Wolverhampton and we were in a pub called The George which was rammed with 200 hooligans. There was a really nasty atmosphere.
“Suddenly, we were the centre of attention with people from Tipton staring at us, making pig noises and saying how bad the room smelt.
“There was no way out, the door was locked and we had no phones or radios. Things weren’t looking good.
“Suddenly, a target we’d nicknamed Hot Dog because we once saw him trying to overturn a hot dog van with a person inside it came out of the toilets. I grabbed him by the b******s and started play fighting and wrestling with him.
“The others obviously thought, ‘if he knows Hot Dog he must be OK’. It was a close thing.
“On another occasion, I was standing outside the main entrance to Molineux with a group of fans who said they were going to pull a mounted officer from his horse. Suddenly, the Operational Support Unit waded in and I was hit with a truncheon. The officer got a shock when I rang him and asked for a witness statement.
“At the end of the operation, I gave evidence for several days at Wolverhampton Crown Court. I finished on one day, little knowing the next day I’d be back in the witness box giving evidence while sporting a black eye.
“I went in a local pub for a pint after court and a guy approached me, swearing. I ignored him, but as I went to order a drink he nutted me several times. The pub gaffer and his son thought it was just two men fighting and pushed us both out of the doors.
“I finished up in the roadway, but I started to get the better of him and by the time the police arrived it looked like I was attacking him. Fortunately, I was recognised, he was arrested for assault and got three months in prison.
“I felt physically drained at the end of the operation. I used to go home in the dark to avoid the neighbours seeing what I looked like. That said, I would’ve done it again.”
Mark said: “I was a Wolves fan, but found you didn’t really need to know that much about the team – it wasn’t difficult to start an argument over who was playing well and who wasn’t.
“My partner didn’t drink at all. He used to take his beer and throw it down the toilet. They all thought he was a big man for being able to drink so much, but the truth was he touched very little of it.
“Right at the end of the operation, he was pointed out as being a police officer and that was his last day on the job. I got a new partner and we were in Brannigans when a target known as Escabano came in. He had just come out of prison and some of the fans we were with went up to the bar to talk to him.
“They turned round after a while and started looking at us. My partner went white, got up and left – he had obviously been fingered.
“I was in there on my own thinking, ‘how the hell do I get out of this?’ I went to a fruit machine, put some money in as they stared at me. Then I started banging and punching the machine until the doormen threw me out. I ran down a side-street and hid behind a car as some of them came looking for me.
“On a more humorous occasion, we went to a game at Exeter with a younger crew. While we were in an eatery, they stole all the cutlery. There was a fight later and one of these youngsters tried to stab an Exeter fan with a fork.
“The guy was wearing an Arran woolie jumper. As the fork got caught in the wool, the jumper began unravelling. Everybody burst out laughing.
“The main hooligans were very well organised, you could see them on phones, arranging fights.
“In one incident, an officer videoed a group of fans trying to push an opposing fan’s head under the wheels of a taxi near to the bridge on Wolverhampton Railway Station.
“Those were the moments when you realised you were involved in a serious business.
“For me, it was a job well done with more than 100 arrests. I was really proud to be on it.
“After the court cases, I was in a pub in Stourton off-duty when 10 hooligans who had been sent down by Growth came in and recognised me straight away.
“They said they would ‘see me out on the car park’. Some of the locals got wind of what was happening and I was told not to get involved. A group of them went outside and sorted them out.”
