The top 12 ‘most notorious football firms’ in the UK named and ranked as Millwall miss out on top spot

The top 12 'most notorious football firms' in the UK named and ranked as Millwall miss out on top spot

Published 07:00 10 Apr 2025 GMT+1

The top 12 ‘most notorious firms’ have been ranked.

The top 12 ‘most notorious football firms’ have been named and ranked – with Millwall missing out on top spot.

During the 1960s, British football hooliganism was on the rise, with groups of fans from different teams – known as ‘firms’ – engaging in organised aggressive, violent or disorderly behaviour on matchdays.

Hooliganism reached its peak around the 1990 World Cup, with papers revealing that the then Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher briefly considered withdrawing from the tournament.

England’s run to the semi-finals of that competition was something of a watershed moment towards the reduction in football violence, though incidents would still occur on a semi-regular basis into the turn of the century and there are still occasional incidents today.

London clubs Millwall, West Ham and Chelsea were among those most associated with hooliganism, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, though violence occurred up and down England, Scotland and Wales.

In 1987, police officer James Bannon spent months inside the Millwall ‘Bushwackers’ firm – posing undercover as a painter and decorator called Jim – as part of a Metropolitan Police operation.

Bannon wrote a book titled ‘Running with the Firm’, in which he detailed his experiences and the relationships he built up with those at the very centre of the Bushwackers firm.

Last February, Lower Block – a website dedicated to football culture over history – ranked the 12 most notorious firms in English football history, with the Bushwackers missing out on top spot.

Here is their list: