Policeman recalls infiltrating Millwall's 'firm' ahead of Italia 90

‘My job was to be a convincing football hooligan’: The police officer who went undercover to root out violent Millwall fans before Italia 90 – and was forced to watch thug beat victim in front of his wife and children because he ‘couldn’t blow his cover’

• James Bannon, 52, spent months infiltrating Millwall’s ‘Bushwackers’ ‘firm’
• The club’s fans were among the most notorious in English football at the time
• English clubs banned from European competition after 1985 Heysel disaster
• Police sought to catch hooligans before they could travel to Italia 90

A police officer who was tasked with posing as a football hooligan to expose violent thugs before England played at the 1990 World Cup has told in a new documentary how it was the ‘only way’ to stop criminals from ‘beating the sh**t out of people’. 

James Bannon, 52, spent months infiltrating hooligan groups connected with South London club Millwall during their most violent clashes with fierce rivals West Ham in the late 1980s. 

The club’s fans were among the most notorious in English football at the time, with a violent minority organising into a ‘firm’ known as the Bushwackers. 

English football in the 1980s had been beset by instances of fan violence, prompting the then government of Margaret Thatcher to launch measures to clamp down on criminality. 

English clubs were banned from European competition for five years after hooligans were blamed for the 1985 Heysel stadium disaster, in which 39 fans were killed.

Now, a new Channel 4 documentary examines the hooliganism crisis that police grappled with in the run-up to Italia 90, when England reached the semi-finals under famed manager Bobby Robson.

Speaking in Italia 90: When Football Changed Forever, Mr Bannon tells how it was his job to be a ‘convincing football hooligan’ in the hope of stopping the worst offenders from travelling to Italy for the World Cup. 

The officer posed as a painter and decorator from 1987 onwards, when he was just 21. He admits his deception was ‘snidey’ but was the ‘only way to stop’ some ‘not very nice people’ from attacking others. 

But on one occasion, he had to watch a hooligan beat a blameless Crystal Palace fan on a train in front of his wife and children, and he could not intervene because ‘if we had done that and broken cover, we were f***ed.’ 

A police officer who was tasked with posing as a football hooligan to expose violent thugs before England played at the 1990 World Cup has told in a new documentary how it was the ‘only way’ to stop criminals from ‘beating the sh**t out of people’. James Bannon, 52, spent months infiltrating hooligan groups connected with South London club Millwall during their most violent clashes with fierce rivals West Ham in the late 1980s . Right: The officer in his guise as painter and decorator Jim Ford

Police began using undercover officers to gather evidence on the activities of hooligans in 1985. 

Officers were planted in groups associated with Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham, Manchester City and Manchester United, as well as Millwall. 

‘I started in ’87. My job was to be a convincing football hooligan,’ he said. 

‘As a serving police officer, at 21 years old to be given that opportunity to go fully covert as an undercover police officer, that is about as good as it gets.

‘There are very few people that actually can do it. Because it is really, really really f***ing hard.’

He posed as Jim Ford from Wandsworth, who had a girlfriend and a young baby and worked as a painter and decorator. 

‘We started going to the Millwall pub, in our painting and decorating overalls. It is a really s****y, snidey thing to do, to go into somewhere and try and convince people that you’re something you are not,’ he added. 

‘When actually you are trying to gather evidence against them.

‘But, it was the only way to stop people, some really not very nice people beating the s**t out of people, that actually some people didn’t want to have the s**t out of them.’

Through a Metropolitan Police operation codenamed Operation Pegasus, Mr Brannon spent months under his assumed name in an effort to root out offenders.

The police were tasked with stopping hooligans from making it to Italy and further tarnishing English football’s poor international reputation after years of trouble abroad.

‘You are on a knife edge all the f***ing time. Because not only have you got the fact that you are going to have a fight with the opposing supporters, you have also got the potential of somebody recognising you, sussing you out.

‘You have to really, really be on your game the entire time.

‘You have to totally and utterly commit to your legend, your cover.’

Police are seen manhandling a fan who has caused trouble at a Millwall v Arsenal game in 1988

An injured football fan is carried off on a stretcher during a 1978 West Ham and Millwall game at Upton Park after violence marred the match

Police officers try to control a crowd of Millwall supporters outside Upton Park station following a match against West Ham in 1978. Six policeman were injured and 70 people arrested after fans clashed in the street after the game, which West Ham won 3-0

A man lies injured on the ground after clashes between rival fans outside Millwall’s South London ground before a match against Wes Ham in 1990

A Liverpool fan is chased by Juventus fans during a pitched battle before the 1985 European Cup Final, when 39 people were killed in the Heysel Stadium disaster

Mr Brannon was on a train with a hooligan he was trying to befriend when the man attacked a Crystal Palace fan who had been sitting opposite them with his wife and two children. 

‘This d**k just stood up, walked over and just punched this guy in the head. And then started kicking him,’ he said. 

‘His kids are screaming and crying. His wife is crying. He has got a massive cut. His lip is bleeding. And he is on the floor sobbing.

‘Every single sinew within me wanted to jump on this p**k and arrest him. But we couldn’t. If we had done that and broken cover, we were f***ed.’

Mr Brannon was also present when Millwall fans clashed with West Ham rivals at a match in 1988. 

He described how fighting was ‘quick, brutal and not very pleasant’, but added that undercover officers who ran away from skirmishes were ‘f****d’. 

The second episode of Channel 4 series Italia 90: When Football Changed Forever, airs tonight at 9pm

‘Because you’re not going to see who is doing what, and you are also not going to be respected and therefore no one is going to talk to you about what they are are planning to do next.

‘So if someone is running at me with a bat, I am going to hit him as hard as I can because they want to hit me.

‘Ultimately what it comes down to is it was my job to be as convincing as I could be. And to get as much evidence as i could to put some nasty, horrible people in prison,’ he said. 

Fearful of the threat of English hooligans, the Italian authorities at the 1990 World Cup kept fans off the mainland by hosting England’s games on the island of Sardinia. 

Fans were forced to stay in isolated camp sites, prompting Sardinia’s nickname during the tournament of ‘Hooligan Island’. 

However, there was little trouble with English hooliganism at the tournament, despite the heavy-handed tactics of Italian police. 

England’s players, including Paul Gascoigne, emerged as heroes from the tournament as they made it to the semi-finals but were knocked out on penalties by West Germany. 

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