I grew up in the "heyday" of football hooliganism, and coming from Warwick where skinheads were the main "style" and many local lads were getting involved with trouble following Wolves and Villa, and some are still on the fringe of it today in their 50's, and some are pillars of our society.
The majority of lads like myself grew up on council estates, where everybody knew each other, and you could trust them.
Mods, Rockers, then Skinheads and Greasers, and as a person who went through the Doc Martin, Crombie coat,and still got a Harrington jacket, by the way.
we went to football matches as large groups of lads all pretty much dressed the same so you were herded together, and groups of similar dressed fans of other teams would try to show they were better by trying to take your end of the ground.
Back in the 70's the West End at Coventry would be segregated by a line of police, but away fans would try to get in early and take over the end before the police and home fans arrived, it was then down to the home fans to move them and the only way was to fight for your "end" and your club.
Fans wore silk club scarves tied to their wrist and showed their colours in the grounds, and so it became tribal.
This happened at lots of grounds and you would see away fans being marched from the home end into the away "end" and be welcomed as heroes.
Most trouble was inside grounds, as segregation was minimal but sometimes you would have to fight your way back to the coaches and then travel back without any windows. You would go to some grounds, be surrounded all game and hope you might lose so that the opposition fans might not want to fight after,but that never changed.
The introduction of fencing between fans and then all-seater stadiums changed this, but moved the problems outside, this made it easier for the police to control it, and so over the years those that wanted to cause trouble at football matches stopped wearing colours and arrange to meet away from the grounds and still it happens in very small numbers still today.
Not glorifying what happened, just telling it as i saw it from the inside.
Thankfully most grounds are safe to go to.