Jed & the Naughty Forty

During my research, I came across an article that was written about a man named Jed who used to be a member of the Naughty Forty. He became a member of this firm in the early nineties and gave it up after six years. Jed now dedicates time to justifying football firms, and providing truth to the image that the media creates about hooliganism. The media creates the misconception that hooligans don’t like the actual sport, but only form firms for the violence.
He first heard about the firm through a friend who was a member. The two attended a football match together, and he recalls a particular situation before entering the match, saying, “"There was a big crowd outside the away end and he turned round to me and went 'I don't like it when there's big numbers like this. Why don't you come with me, we'll go into one of the side streets, see where we could find five or ten of them on their own." This is where he immediately realized that the notions of the media were not true, and that his friend was not a member of the firm because of violence alone.
After he decided to become a member of the firm, he discovered that it was not going to be an easy task. Because trust is one of the most important things to these people, it took a lot for them to completely earn an outsider’s trust. Once Jed was considered on the inside with the Naughty Forty, he found out what true firms were all about. The trust was endless among its members, and the older members looked after the younger ones. They did whatever it took to keep them out of trouble and away from drugs. The firm is about respect and loyalty, and the author of the article states, “the football firm offers a kind of unquestioning acceptance that is difficult to find elsewhere.” This statement is true for Jed’s situation like many other hooligans; they join to be apart of something. Unlike the media’s perspective, Jed found that they are passionate about the game. According to him, some of the matches get really bad, so you have to love the sport in order to sit through the entire game. After leaving the life of hooliganism, Jed now does performances and writes poetry about his experiences with the Naughty Forty to prove that these images are false.


2002 Running with the ‘Naughty Forty.’ BBC News: World Edition, May 2.