Wolves hooligans highlighted in football violence documentary

A crew of Wolves hooligans have been highlighted in a documentary showing the rising dangers of football violence - but supporters of the club have reacted with a mixture of disdain and hilarity.

To watch the documentary click here.

But Christian 'Denny' Denton is the subject of two football banning orders that prohibit him from going anywhere near any stadium in the country on match days.

In August at Bolton Crown Court he admitted attempting to cause criminal damage after he was filmed kicking a window on a train following Wolves' game at Bolton in January.

During the incident - which was filmed by another Wolves fan who posted it on YouTube - rival fans can be seen trading insults as a train carrying Wolves fans back to Wolverhampton prepares to depart.

A hooded Denton can be seen taking running kicks at the window.

His actions landed him a 12-month community order with 200 hours of unpaid work and a five year football banning order.

In court it emerged that police had identified Denton because he had previously been subject to a football banning order after being involved in violence.

His lawyer, Coling Buckle, said that Denton had kept out of trouble for several years before the incident on the train at Horwich Parkway and that he had no objection to another banning order.

He told the court: "It is something that is going to assist him in ensuring he concentrates on his family at the weekends instead of his former friends. It is time he grew up."

The banning order prevents Denton - who was described in court as a fitness instructor from Bushbury and the father-of-two young children - from attending Wolves or England matches.

Yesterday his Facebook profile picture showed a promo shot for Football Fight Club 2. He posted: "I see more positives than negatives opinions on that show but for the negative people out there you have to have walked in my shoes to understand my life choices; life can take you in many of dark circles which will make you or break you!

BBC3's Football Fight Club opened up with a view of the ring road showing a sign pointing towards Molineux, while a narrator described the West Midlands as being home to some of the most active youth firms in the country.

We are introduced to father-of-two Christian Denton, named as 'Denny' in the film, who, we are told, has risen to become the top boy at one of the country's most active youth firms, Wolves Youth.

The film shows him leading a 12-strong crew through a subway, all of them decked out in football casual gear and some wearing ridiculous beanie hats with built-in goggles.

"Wolverhampton is a tough city," said Denny, aged 25.

"Everyone knows, you're looking for trouble, you're going to get it. If Cardiff come over, Stoke or whatever, we want them to say: "Look, you can't take the p**s in Wolves."

Another man, a scarf covering his face, said: "You represent something, ay it? That's what we are Wolves, so you look after your town, you look after your people."

A fellow crew member, his face completely obscured by a black snood, boasted about his crew's siege mentality. "We are a pack. We're a family unit. That's what Wolves are. We're brothers in arms."

But Wolves fans on the Molineux Mix website were less than impressed with the lads' bravado.

One user labelled them 'a bunch of plonkers', while another wrote sarcastically: "Millwall and Blues will be c**pping themselves."

While another likens the firm to a naughties chart topping boy band. "Haha," he wrote. "I always wondered what had happened to Blazin' Squad!"

The programme also showed footage of a clash between Wolves hooligans and Birmingham City's Zulu Warriors near to the The Wanderers pub before it was demolished.

The timing of BBC3's Football Fight Club 2 was interesting.

It was only last week that I found myself, unable to sleep, watching the 2004 Nick Love film The Football Factory, about football hooligans 'avin' it large in millennial London.

And how quaint it all looked, with its Stone Island and Adidas Stan Smith trainers and its tasty geezers mugging each other off. It looked a bit like a museum piece, a reminder of how stupid young football-loving men used to be, and also a testament to the fact that Danny Dyer doesn't seem to age.

And then I watched Football Fight Club 2 on BBC3 and I realised that a) nothing has changed at all, b) if anything, it has gotten even more tediously depressing and ridiculous, and c) it's happening right here, in the city I live in.

Football Fight Club 2, a refreshingly sober look at hooliganism in the modern day, chose to operate chiefly on a micro level, exploring the experiences of a small number of active thugs both north and south of the border.

One of those was Denny, a 25-year-old Wolves 'fan' (you will note my ironic deployment of quote marks there, because if you're more interested in punching seven bells out of someone in an underpass hundreds of yards away from the Molineux than you are in attending the game, I'm not sure you get to wear that particular F-word) and father of two, who also happens to be 'top boy' at Wolves Youth, which is a part of the Yamyam Army.

Just let those phrases sink in. Father of two. Top boy. Wolves Youth. Yamyam Army. It's very apparent just from those few words that we're dealing with a serious case of arrested development among these people, as they strut around thinking they're in some kind of edgy paramilitary organisation but sounding for all the world like a rogue faction of the cub scouts who happen to like fighting.

When we finally get to meet some of Denny's fellow members of the Yamyam Army, pretty much all of them are wearing full-face balaclavas or goggles, or scarves so that only their eyes peep out over the top.

They probably imagine they look like terrorists – in fact, they just look like they're quite cold.

That's comforting to know.

The most depressing thing about it all is that Denny seems to be an intelligent chap. He's articulate and possesses the power to analyse why he does what he does, which seems, in a nutshell, to be: I've had to fight all my life, why would I want to stop now? He says at one point: "I'm always going to have it in me," and that's roughly the point that I wanted to grab him by the collar and say: "NO YOU WON'T. EVENTUALLY YOU'RE GOING TO GROW UP."

And then you'll look back on all of this, all the goofball reasoning for why you HAVE to punch rival fans, the bizarre life-long desire to specifically punch rival fans in Europe, and you'll feel embarrassed.

Because there's nothing left for hooligans. Thanks to the wonders of the surveillance age, the police have constantly got you in view and life is an incessant wearying cycle of black eyes and public order offences, and the vain hope you don't rip your Stone Island jumper. The best you can hope for is an appearance on Football Fight Club 3, surrounded by seething man-babies in woolly hats and scarves.