‘Fighting Millwall as Spurs hooligan was mad – people threw spears and bloke was impaled’

Reformed soccer hooligan Frank Portinari has told how a Boxing Day fixture between Tottenham and Millwall descended into brutal medieval combat – with fans using whatever came to hand as weaponry

A self-confessed football hooligan has told of the “maddest” day of crowd violence he ever lived through – where men threw “spears” at each other.

North Londoner Frank Portinari became a Spurs supporter as a teenager, during a golden era where the club was going from success to success. But he soon fell in with a dangerous faction of the team’s fanbase, after being seen “standing his ground” during an ugly clash at Stoke.

By his thirties, Frank had become a crucial member of a violent gang that had followed the team across the country and into Europe. The most horrific moments of Frank’s stint as a football hooligan occurred during a Second Division match against London rivals Millwall.

Spurs were drawn away to Millwall in a Boxing Day fixture not long after the BBC’s Panorama show highlighted the South Londoners as the worst example of football violence.

“I went to a Christmas party the night before and left at 5 a.m.,” Frank explained to podcaster Dodge Woodall.

“At 8:00 a.m., my friend Bill came banging on the door… I’m still half-p******d. I’d finished half a bottle of Captain Morgan’s rum. “I said, ‘Bill, you’ve got to be joking, mate,’ and he said, ‘Come on, we’ve got to go – I’ve got the works!'”

Bill had “borrowed” his work’s van, and filled it with shovels and pickaxes in anticipation of a major battle with the feared Millwall hooligans.

“I said ‘What’s the plan Bill?’ and he said ‘We’re going to drive down The Old Kent Road, we’re going to attack the Canterbury Arms.’ I said ‘Where is everybody else?’ But it was just us two.”

Perhaps it was for the best that Bill’s madcap plan was thwarted after police spotted the pair driving across London Bridge and advised them to rethink their plans for the day.

But there was still a good deal of violent mayhem at the match that the police were unable to prevent.

“That was the maddest day I’ve ever had at football in this country,” Frank said. “I saw a feller put a screwdriver throw another feller’s cheek. There was wooden fencing being used – people beating each other with it, throwing it at each other…

“People had even broken up metal railings and were throwing them at each other like spears.

“I’ve never seen so many blokes wearing suits at the game, because they’d all been out at Christmas parties the night before – just left a party and thought ‘F*** it, we’ll go to Millwall’.”

Frank finally gave up football hooliganism, but his violent nature saw him spend time as a hard-right thug until finding some peace in his sixties.