The revered and feared Cockney Reds had historically turned Camden’s Euston Station, England’s busiest inter-city passenger terminal, into a regular warzone, whilst also infiltrating ends of Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge during match days. Moreover, violence and hooliganism intensified with perennial stabbings and, of course, the tragic death of a Tottenham Hotspur fan at an underground station during the height of the Cockney Reds influence which coincided with the culture of football hooliganism in England. Furthermore, courtesy of such incidence, Cleur experienced the inside of jail cells in England, Spain and The Netherlands due to his involvement and leadership with the Cockney Reds.
By 1985, football hooliganism in Thatcher-era Great Britain had reached its zenith and Cleur’s Cockney Reds additionally engaged in battles with the police during the ransacking of St. Albans, as well as deeply intense conflicts with West Ham United’s notorious supporters on a North Sea ferry. More poignantly, the police ran a well-documented undercover operation to finally break up the Cockney Reds. However, Cleur was indeed one of the several individuals dragged off in dawn arrests, but subsequently walked free when the conspiracy trial collapsed at court.
FOX Sports Radio 96.9 FM/1340 AM’s Dean Perretta briefly caught up with Manchester United’s Cockney Reds leader and Author, Robert “Banana Bob” Cleur, to discuss his grippingly powerful and eye-opening brand new book entitled “Cockney Reds: The Story of Manchester United’s Southern Army”, coupled alongside Cleur revealing the once concealed controversially enigmatic Cockney Reds stories which have remained mysterious and relatively misinterpreted until now.
