Notorious Chelsea hooligan who wanted 'war' on the terraces quits UK for 'safer' country - 30/06/2023Source : The Sun
Former Chelsea Headhunters 'general' Jason Marriner, who was sentenced to six years in jail based on evidence from an undercover BBC investigation, now says the UK is too dangerousAn infamous former football hooligan who once boasted England "invented" terraces violence has ditched the UK for a "safer" country.
Jason Marriner led the feared Chelsea Headhunters firm throughout the 1990s, following his beloved Blues up and down the country to wage war on rival fans.
But, in an interview with documentary-maker Liam Galvin, Jason said he's left that all behind for Thailand.
“I bet Thailand is safer than the UK,” he said.
“You ain't got uh street gangs and all that and this and that… listen you're going to get your odd looney tunes."
But as a general rule, Jason said the Thai police “wouldn’t put up” with the level of street violence in the UK.
Marriner’s estimates of the relative safety of the two countries are not borne out by official UN figures.
They put Thailand’s murder rate at just over double what it is here in the UK, with 2.58 killings per 100,000 of population as opposed to just 1.2.
Marriner, who now runs a shop in Thailand selling British food and other home comforts for expats, appeared to blame the UK’s street crime issues on immigrants, saying the Thai authorities “wouldn't be letting boatloads turn up”.
Following the England team abroad, Marriner also spread English fans’ reputation for violence throughout Europe, telling This Morning host Philip Schofield in 2016: “We come from a fighting country, it's naturally in your blood”.
He told another interviewer that football hooliganism had been “invented” in England: “We’re the most feared nation you know … you got a f*****g place like Bulgaria, or…like…Poland…all these mad countries , they’re ten years behind us but they look up to us because we invented football violence”.
Marriner was jailed for six years in December 2000 after undercover footage emerged showing him planning an “ambush” with fellow Headhunters “general” Andrew ‘Nightmare’ Frain.
The footage, shot by the BBC’s Donal MacIntyre, showed Marriner at a match in Copenhagen shouting: "We've come here to have a war."
In another clip, he boasted of assembling a massive contingent of hooligans to take on Leicester fans, saying: "We have got about three coaches going and a minibus. It's sorted. It's naughty. Leicester will be naughty.”
The programme exposed the firm's links to far-right activists, with "top boy" Marriner boasting that he and fellow hooligan Frain had shocked visitors at Auschwitz by doing Nazi salutes.
Nick Love's 2004 film The Football Factory showed a fictionalised version of the former hooligan leading the firm in pitch battles against Millwall and Tottenham fans.
Marriner later wrote a book, describing the BBC exposé as a “stitch-up” and claiming that much of the footage had been faked.
But he now says he has left football violence behind, and left England too – settling for a quiet life in Thailand.
He admits that sticking to British food while living in Thailand can be an expensive business, paying around £3 for a can of baked beans and “about six and a half quid” for a pack of Lurpak butter.
Today at 2:11 pm by UFW Maltchickers
