'I was West Ham hooligan – facing one rival firm left me fearing for my life'

notorious Inter City Firm was one of the most feared throughout the 1980s. Mythologised in films such as Green Street, The Firm and Rise of the Footsoldier, the ICF were prime movers in the football crowd violence of the era.

But, while ICF members had a reputation for wading into the fray without a moment’s thought, former member Carlton Leach confessed that there were moments when he genuinely feared for his life.

And the most memorable and scariest of those moments were not in clashes with their great rivals from Millwall or , but north-eastern side .

He told the Daily Express’s podcast how he and Bill Gardner – one of the elder statesmen on the gang – had become isolated from the main bulk of the group and found themselves in the middle of the home team’s terraces at Ayresome Park.

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Carlton explains that the plan had been to storm Middlesborough’s terraces en masse. He explained: “Our biggest thing was to try to get in their end… just run in and start fighting. That was your trophy for the day. If you could do that, that was a big thing.”

But the police had intercepted most of the supporters, leaving just Carlton and Bill amid a massive throng of Boro supporters. That was particularly bad, Carlton says, because of the team’s fearsome reputation. “Everyone talks about and , but Middlesbrough’s one of the worst…they’re hard as nails,” he continued.

But while Carlton was wary of being surrounded by a mob of opposition supporters, Bill calmly told him to accompany him to the very middle of the home team stands. “I remember thinking we're going to get absolutely murdered, smashed to bits,” Carlton said.

Then, Bill deliberately escalated the situation by pulling his claret-and-blue scarf out from under his jacket, arranging it neatly around his neck and breaking into the team’s signature tune I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles. Carlton nervously joined in, expecting to be attacked at any minute.

“But then a big gap appeared around us, we shouldn’t have walked out of there in one piece,” he said, attributing their survival to the fact that the Middlesborough supporters had assumed they were “a couple of psychos” and wanted nothing to do with them.

Before the situation could change the police swooped in, and marched Bill and Carlton back to their own end, with Carlton recalling how his terror turned to bravado as the Hammers fans started applauding them. But that potential brush with death has stayed with him. “In moments like that, yes, I was scared," he said.