| The ALS Interview With Donal Macintyre |
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Those of us that viewed BBC1's "MacIntyre Undercover" on Tuesday 9th November were gripped by the undercover reporter's insight into the world of football hooliganism. In the space of eighteen months, Donal MacIntyre infiltrated the Chelsea Headhunters and, with the aid of hidden cameras and recording equipment, the results were fascinating. In preparation for the investigation, MacIntyre watched hours of Chelsea videos and leafed through pages of Chelsea literature. Upon discovering who was who in the world of Chelsea thuggery, he even moved into the same block of flats as the Headhunters' main man, Jason Marriner. We decided it would be a good idea to have a chat with Donal MacIntyre and were just about to give up hope of interviewing him when the phone rang.
"Hi it's MacIntyre here, how's it going?" A soft Irish accent at the other end of the phone. This wasn't the voice I'd heard cracking on with some of Britain's most notorious hooligans on TV a few weeks before. "Obviously I had to loose the accent under cover, but I'm from Dublin originally. Listen I'm on Richard and Judy in twenty minutes, shall we do the interview now?" The Richard and Judy thing cracked me up, I didn't know if he was joking until their cheesy intro music came on in the background and I had to laugh. "I'm waiting in the Green Room, I can't believe it, hardened football thugs to Richard and Judy, talk about worlds apart." I'd left the questions I'd faxed to the BBC in the office, and was sitting in my car, totally unprepared to do the interview. As I hunted around for a pen I considered following the first rule of interviewing - make the interviewee at ease by asking him an easy first question. "Bugger that," I thought, "I'll begin by annoying him." To make yourself look more of a Chelsea boy you got the CFC crest tattooed on your arm, but then you passed out whilst the cameras were filming you getting it done. Were you embarrassed, or did it really hurt? "It was beyond embarrassment. I couldn't believe it. It was really painful. They say men feel pain more than women, so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. When I was getting it done, first of all I felt unwell, then I started to feel dizzy, like I had food poisoning or something. I remember the bloke doing the tattoo saying to the cameraman, "your boy's not too well here." Then I just fainted and they kept the camera rolling. It was weird passing out. I once nearly drowned when I was canoeing and I capsized. I remember blacking out and everything going weird, but somebody pulled me out of the water and saved me, obviously or I wouldn't be talking to you now, would I? Anyway, it felt a bit like that, except I didn't nearly die. It was just one of those things I had to go through for the programme, I'm getting it remove very soon." Did you have any interest in football before you went undercover? "Yeah, I support Wimbledon. I've always like the underdogs and I've followed Wimbledon for quite a while now. Actually, one of the worst things about doing the programme was being at Stamford Bridge last season and having to celebrate as Chelsea beat Wimbledon 3-0. That was hard. Joe Kinnear's the man though, and I'm worried about us going down this year now we've lost him. I know the experts tip us to go down every year and we don't, but I've got a bad feeling about this season. I've got a soft spot for Sunderland too mind you, and I'm not just saying that because I'm talking to the Sunderland fanzine. Being an Irishman, I like Niall Quinn and Sunderland are kind of the new underdogs of the Premiership. They're doing really well. I like the way they've bounced back so well after getting relegated. During the programme Donal pretends to be some big time criminal and rents a £45,000 Mercedes to look the part. This impresses the hooligans and he soon starts giving Britain's most feared thugs a lift to away games. Sitting in his car on more than one occasion is Andrew Frain, nicknamed Nightmare, who boasts on film about slashing an off-duty Policeman. Frain, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, also visited Auschwitz with Marriner and offended Jewish visitors with Nazi salutes. Frain spends most of one particular journey, en route to Leicester, on his mobile arranging the day's events with fellow members travelling to the game. At one stage he even calls up the leader of Leicester's firm and says: "It's Nightmare calling, are your boys ready?" MacIntyre is only too aware that he needs to tread carefully over the next few months to avoid bumping into any of these delightful people whilst shopping in Sainsbury's. When Chelsea played in Copenhagen, you travelled with Jason Marriner and the Chelsea Headhunters and ended up getting your head kicked in by Copenhagen fans. Did it hurt? "Yeah! I must have got kicked and punched about twenty times, there was quite a few of them. I was shouting and screaming at them, it was real. In the end I just curled up into a ball. It was all over in about sixty seconds and I wasn't badly hurt, but it was scary." MacIntyre also becomes friendly with Danny Walford, an up-and-coming twenty-one year old Reading hooligan. Walford idolises the likes of Marriner and boast that eventually he will do time for his vice. "I'll get put away, but Marriner will look after me. He knows a lot of people on the inside." Like many hooligan groups, the people you were investigating had extreme right wing links and were sympathetic to the Protestant Loyalists in Northern Ireland. At one stage you followed them along to barrack a Bloody Sunday protest march, how was that? "That was very strange because being from Ireland and being a Catholic, they were the complete opposite to me. Obviously if they'd known that, there would have been trouble. I just kept telling myself I was doing my job as a reporter for the BBC." The background music to Richard and Judy was now full blast in the background. "I've gotta go in for make-up in a minute, can you believe it?" How did you disappear out of the lives of the hooligans you'd become friends with? What have you learned about the world of football hooliganism? "Actually, I've got a lot of respect for the police. The Headhunters are well organised, but the police are well organised too and are doing a good job in controlling the problem." And with that he disappeared into the intellectual void of daytime TV. Since the programme was broadcast, Donal has been living in a BBC safe house. The BBC has passed a video of the programme onto Scotland Yard who are attempting to arrest Marriner and Frain. Danny Walford was arrested near Hampden Park during disturbances on the day of the recent Scotland v England Euro 2000 play-off game. originally from http://www.a-love-supreme.com/archive/als/als085.htm |