Cass Pennant

Cass Pennant
Born (1958-03-03) 3 March 1958 (age 68)
Doncaster, Yorkshire, England
Occupations
  • Writer
  • film producer
  • public speaker
Writing career
Period2002–present
Subjects
Notable workCass

Carol "Cass" Pennant (born 3 March 1958) is an English writer, film producer and former football hooligan.

Background

Pennant's mother emigrated from Jamaica while pregnant and he was born in Doncaster, Yorkshire. When he was six weeks old, Pennant was abandoned and placed into a Dr. Barnardo's Home. He was soon fostered by an elderly white family in Slade Green, south-east London, where he was the only black person. Pennant says he was "bullied from day one" year after year, and beaten persistently – "Not just from rivals or other kids, the whole town. Imagine as a kid, you're picked out; people in vehicles shouting out at you, total strangers".

Pennant had been christened Carol, a common masculine name in parts of the West Indies but unusual as a masculine name in the UK; this was also a source of bullying for him, particularly at school. After seeing legendary boxer Muhammad Ali (then known by his birth name of Cassius Clay) beat Henry Cooper, he adopted the name Cass.

Pennant was a member and leader of the Inter City Firm (ICF), a hooligan gang associated with the English football club West Ham United in the late 1970s and 1980s. He became one of the generals of the ICF, despite being black. He was sentenced to four years in prison in 1980, and was the first person to receive that long a sentence for football hooliganism.

Pennant was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in 1987 as part of Operation Fulltime. The aim of this police operation was to bring West Ham's football hooligans to justice.

After a second time in prison he started running a night club security firm in London. While working at one such nightclub in South London he was shot three times.

In 2002, Pennant appeared on the Channel 4 documentary, Football's Fight Club about football hooliganism in the 1970s. He has been a consultant on television programmes such as The Real Football Factories and The Real Football Factories International. He also worked as a consultant and played a cameo role as a riot police officer in the 2005 drama film about football hooliganism, Green Street.

In 2006, he had a documentary made about him, Cass Pennant – Enough Said (Gangster Videos) directed by Liam Galvin, and in 2008 a film was made based on Pennant's life story, Cass, starring Nonso Anozie as Pennant, and directed by Jon S. Baird. In 2010, he played a leading role in the movie Killer Bitch. He also wrote the foreword for Manchester United football hooligan Colin Blaney's book Undesirables and contributed a short piece about Manchester United's rivalry with West Ham.

In 2015, Pennant produced the short film Beverley, directed by Alexander Thomas and starring Laya Lewis and Vicky McClure. The film later won Best Short Film at the 2016 British Urban Film Festival.

In 2020, Pennant co-founded the football-inspired clothing label Old School FC with Hamburg-based designer Jens Wagner.

In 2026, Pennant contributed to the BBC Radio 4 series Sixty Years of Hurt, appearing in the episode "England v Hooligans", which examined football hooliganism and changing fan culture in England. Earlier that year, he was a guest on The Overlap's football history podcast It Was What It Was, where he discussed the making of the 1985 documentary Hooligan, the Inter City Firm and the history of football hooliganism.

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 "Official website". Archived from the original on 24 February 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2008.
  2. 1 2 3 Solomons, Jason (27 April 2008). "Trailer Trash – Fila dealer". The Observer. Retrieved 20 June 2008.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Leitch, Luke (16 June 2008). "Enough with the tough from a boy named Carol". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 15 June 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2008.
  4. ↑ Live, Birmingham (31 July 2008). "Midland Premiere for Cass held in Broad Street". Birmingham Live. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
  5. 1 2 Buchan, Jamie (4 August 2008). "Article – North-east director scores hit with first film". Press and Journal. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
  6. ↑ Kilner, Martin (29 April 2002). "Welcome to the Top Ten Rumbles". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 June 2008.
  7. ↑ Bellos, Alex (1 March 2005). "Hollywood wakes up to the call of the world's biggest game". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 June 2008.
  8. ↑ [dead link]
  9. ↑ Blaney, Colin (2014). Undesirables. John Blake. pp. ix–xi. ISBN 978-1782198970.
  10. ↑ Edmonds, Lizzie (23 July 2015). "Cass Pennant: Notorious former football hooligan now fights against violence". Evening Standard. Retrieved 19 July 2022. Pennant now regularly visits prisons, schools and other groups to relay his story and stop others from falling into violent crime and hooliganism.
  11. ↑ "Beverley". British Council. Retrieved 11 September 2026.
  12. ↑ "Nominees and Winners 2016". British Urban Film Festival. Retrieved 11 September 2026.
  13. ↑ Hedley, Mark (17 September 2026). "Cass Pennant: "It's clothing for the fans by a fan"". Square Mile. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
  14. ↑ "England v Hooligans". Sixty Years of Hurt. 30 May 2026. BBC Radio 4.
  15. ↑ "Turf Wars Part One: The Making of 'Hooligan'". It Was What It Was. 17 February 2026. The Overlap.
  16. ↑ Pennant, Cass (2022). You're Going Home in a F*cking Ambulance: Hooligan Wars – The Inside Story. John Blake Publishing. ISBN 9781789461909.
  17. ↑ Barrington Patterson; Cass Pennant (4 March 2013). One-Eyed Baz – The Story of Barrington 'Zulu' Patterson, One of Britain's Deadliest Men: The True Story of Barrington 'Zulu' Patterson, One of Britain's Most Fearsome Hard Men. John Blake Publishing, Limited. ISBN 978-1-78219-378-4.