Trial of Chelsea Mob Football Hooligans

Of a gang known as the Chelsea Mob. All nine are charged with conspiracy to

cause affray on occasions between 1980 and 1986.

Our Home Affairs Correspondent, Bill Hamilton, now reports.

The court was told of a six-year catalog of violence carried out by football

hooligans calling themselves the Chelsea Mob.

According to the Crown, their victims weren't just opposing fans,

but

ordinary men, women, and children, some of whom weren't even attending

games. The violence took place before matches,

inside the

grounds, and after games, when the gang would lay in wait for

supporters as they left by bus, coach, or on foot.

Some of the victims were left with visiting cards.

One recovered by the police read, "You have been nominated and

dealt with by the Chelsea Headhunters".

The prosecution claimed that the nine men in the dock were led by

twenty-three-year-old London clerk, Terry Last.

It was alleged he kept diaries stretching back to 1980 and

detailing scores of incidents at towns right across the country.

They included a particularly brutal fight at a Newcastle

pub when Geordie fans were attacked from behind by Chelsea

hooligans, some with knives.

Several were badly injured. One Newcastle fan needed a hundred

and forty stitches. Later, the police mounted an

undercover operation. They infiltrated part of the organization

with plainclothes officers who traveled to games to find out who

were their leaders and what were their plans.

Still, the violence continued at Liverpool,

at Birmingham, at

Southport, and here at Wembley at last season's full

Members Cup final. A mob of two hundred and fifty attacked

Manchester City coaches with stones, fence railings, and pieces of

wood. One of the defendants, the jury was told, kicked a

policeman unconscious.

Then last March, in a dawn raid, the police moved in.

Their operation, called Own Goal, resulted in the arrest of Last

and six of the other defendants. Their trial is likely to

continue for at least another seven weeks.