Reddit reviews Rolling With The 6.57 Crew: The True Story of Pompey's Legendary Football Fans

Alright.

So, way back when in the 80's and 90's and before etc, each team had a "Firm" or a group of lads who'd go watch the football, with the intention of meeting the other teams Firm. They'd generally avoid kicking the shit out of your average fan. Things were organised beforehand they'd meet at set locations etc.

Things got relatively naughty, there's plenty of books about the top firms, my personal preference being Rolling with the 6-57 Obviously this is bias because it's my club.

Any of the books will give a good outline of what's gone on in the past, and just how organised things got. In the book linked above for instance, it details how Portsmouth's 657 ended up running like a military unit, they'd plan things out months in advance, study road maps etc. One highlight, is travelling to Wales I believe for a match. They'd paid other fans to go on ahead in large groups, knowing the police would arrest or stop them which they did, then the entire crew travelled by train dressed in suits with wedding invitations.

At the moment, from what's being reported back in the UK, it appears that Russia's top firms have been holding auditions for the best fighters to be paid to travel to the Euro's, if you watch video's you'll sometimes see them wearing numbers. This has been reported, that essentially its so your firm knows which ones yours and you can watch him on the news, and a large majority of these guys are military trained too.

On the flip side, currently most of the firms or hooligans in the UK are mainly in their 18-20's, the older guys mostly have football bans for life for fighting, and can't travel to international games either. So even if we managed to get our established firms into the Euro's we still don't have the "Elite" members there who would have actually had a chance.