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Thread: The Gangs of Liverpool

  1. #16
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    Thugs who made us into Britain’s ‘wickedest city’
    Apr 8 2008 by Greg O'Keeffe, Liverpool Echo

    In the second of a two- part series on Liverpool street gangs, author Mick Macilwee tells Greg O’Keeffe how rock ‘n’ roll and football influenced the city’s thugs

    EVEN FOR a city used to criticism from the national press, this was a low blow.

    While reeling from the high profile conviction (later quashed) and hanging of the two men accused of the infamous Cameo murders, Liverpool was still arguably no more violent than any other major UK city.



    But the city’s vicious gang scene triggered massive concern.

    In February 1950, Justice Oliver told the Liverpool Assizes ‘Violence in Liverpool is rife’. In the same year, the Daily Herald felt compelled to ask of Liverpool: ‘What makes it our wickedest city?’

    And during an exhaustive trawl through the newspaper cuttings of the time to write his new book (Tearaways, Milo Books, £7.99), author Mick Macilwee found that things were about to get even worse – thanks to rock ‘n’ roll.

    He writes: “This imported craze coincided with the creation of a decidedly English teenage style that slavishly copied, or rather parodied, the sharp cut of earlier upper-class fashions from the beginning of the century.

    “The very name ‘Teddy Boys’ derived from the Edwardian suits revived by Savile Row tailors in 1950. Working-class teenagers soon filched the style and made it their own ...

    “The very strangeness of the Teddy Boy’s attire brought terror to neighbourhoods. They were such a visible presence on the streets.

    “Not since the days of the High Rip, with their ‘bucco caps’ and mufflers, had a gang stood out so menacingly from the crowd.

    “People were assaulted for simply staring at the Teddy boys ... In Edge Hill, the Teddy Boys were known as ‘Mississippi Gamblers’. Tailors were blamed for selling the suits on the ‘never never’ thereby allowing teenagers to become gangsters overnight ...

    “In 1954, the chairman of Liverpool Juvenile Court told three Teddy Boys accused of burglary in Fazakerley: ‘You seem only to ape Edwardians in their dress. It would be far better if you adopted their code of honour’. ”

    Adds Mick: “The Teddy Boy phenomenon spread like wildfire throughout Merseyside. Women in Norris Green voiced concern that they were afraid of walking past the groups who congregated on the corner of Utting Avenue East and Broadway. The Capitol Cinema in Edge Hill was forced to display notices banning lads in Edwardian dress ...

    “In the same year, some Teds piled on the top deck of a bus as it stopped in Wavertree. Two men sitting quietly with their partners objected to the lads’ bad language. One was punched and beaten. As his girlfriend tried to stop the assault, a Ted stood on the seat and booted her in the face.

    “The police later brought the woman to a local dance hall where they were able to identify their attackers.”

    Mick was amazed at the constant prevalence of gangs on the streets of Liverpool, and suspects basic human impulses are to blame.

    “If it wasn’t sectarian gangs, it was gangs of Teddy Boys and so on,” says the 47-year-old. “When one phase finishes a new one comes along, and it’s another channel for the aggression and violence of young men.

    “It’s like the idea of kinship. That sense that ‘we are together and you are against us’.

    “Like today were we have gangs from the same part of Liverpool who might only live just a few streets from each other.”

    Fast forward to the following decade and Mick charts the beginning of another Liverpool gang scene which was preoccupied with fashion – football hooligans.

    The chapter Mersey maniacs charts the beginning of football-related violence.

    It recalls: “Merseyside football fans were still able to make an impression, particularly on away trips.

    “When Everton fans visited Leicester in 1933 a long special train brought over 600 boisterous supporters, who crowded out of the station and made a terrific din with rattles ...

    “With shouts of ‘Good old Everton’ and ‘Everton for the cup’, they surged down Granby Street behind one of their number, who carried a large jar of beer on his shoulder.

    While such behaviour was not threatening, by the 1960s it had become more than that.

    Mick recalls how one headline in 1963 said: ‘Let’s save the game from Merseyside’s football hooligan hordes’ and Goodison Park became the first British ground to install temporary barriers.

    He writes: “In January 1964, play between West Ham and Liverpool was paused to allow the referee to pick up shards of broken glass thrown at the Londoners’ goalkeeper.

    “In August 1967, both Merseyside clubs faced their two Manchester rivals. Trouble was almost guaranteed. At Goodison Park, during a 3-1 win against United, 33 rowdy fans were arrested, a British record at a time when the average number of arrests was 10 per game.

    “After a 0-0 draw with City, Liverpool fans smashed the lights and fittings of the special train carrying them home.”

    The national success of Merseyside football teams during the 60s, together with the worldwide triumph of the Merseybeat sound, certainly put Liverpool on the map.

    Yet the ascendancy of Scouse popular culture only served to mask some severe social problems back on the streets of the town.

    Says Mick: “A massive redevelopment programme was to disperse some of the city’s landmark communities and see the dreams of town planners become the nightmares of uprooted residents of the new overspill estates. The Tearaways responded by smashing up the place and turning on each other.”

    Mick adds: “A lot of people look back at the past with rose-tinted glasses and think it was a golden age. But nothing really changes. It was as bad then as it is now.”

    grego’keeffe@liverpoolecho.co.uk
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kev View Post
    Liverpool gangs: Our history of violence
    by Greg O'Keeffe

    Tearaways is published by Milo Books, priced £7.99



    KEV. I once read a book called 'Razor King' about the gangs in Glasgow between the wars, their calling card was a slash across the face with an open razor.

    All major cities had their gangs and tearaways, not just Liverpool.

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