I reckon this book will be written in 20 or 30 years from now....
The Forum Factory- An unflinching look back at the
history of football forum aggro. Tales of having it online from those
very much on the scene 20 years later.
PART1
September 2020. It was the Autumn of apathy with the UK in the grip of a global pandemic.
Football forum violence had subsided significantly given the vast majority of those active in the game now had little time to partake, with most web-based activity those days spent in online queues attempting to book Covid tests or bulk order toilet roll deliveries.
To quote a popular film of the same name, The Forum Factory:
“Some commentators speculated the decline in Football forum violence was due to the rise of the Vitamin D tablet and Tik Tok culture or that the cyber thugs simply got bored. You’re wrong there mate, we’re not dead, we were just resting. I mean what did you think we’d be pilled up and dancing like mugs in shoddy camera phone videos for the rest of our lives?!
It’s in man’s nature to fight and when the lockdown camaraderie stopped working, we came back to online football forums.
Are you gonna go home to your cosy little flat in ‘nowheresville’ and pull your IKEA curtains shut and stay offline? Or are you gonna sit down, log on and be counted, make a difference and feel the rush. I need forum aggro just to make me feel I’m alive.
I know what I would rather do, mate. Tottenham’s forum away. Love it!”
Fig1. A
scene from box office hit film the Forum Factory starring Danny Dyer as an
online football forumer who types off more than he can chew.
Football forum aggro emerged in the late 90s on the BBC 606 boards. It was long before the days of social media and well before people learned how to really and prolifically dish out venomous abuse to faceless strangers on the internet. It was before the global economic crash and prior to advent of spleen- shitting rallying against leftie TV presenters’ salaries becoming in vogue so the Beeb’s budget saw that their forums were heavily moderated with literally each post being screened extensively by mods before publication. This made any sort of ongoing conflict virtually impossible.
Technology was also a challenge back then with dial up modems making a decent virtual tear up a hit and miss affair but the introduction of fibre broadband was a gamechanger. Suddenly club forums were set up the length and breadth of the land and lads all over the country could meet and have online offs at the click of a button.
There has always been a north/ south divide on the football foruming scene. The northern club forums have always been a bit scruffy and basic…using outdated JavaScript- the equivalent of cave paintings by contemporary standard.
By contrast London club forums have always had a bit about them; they’ve generally been sharp and carried themselves with style and swagger. Arsenal lads had been over to browse some of the Italian forums in the late naughties and brought back the “Edit post” facility whilst Fulham’s forum was the first to introduce the “Like comment” functionality, all of which was pretty much standard within the M25 foruming world by 2020.
The English foruming scene was pioneering and relentless forging a formidable rep all over Europe where loads of English lads would log onto to the Italian and German message boards and have it. The Dutch were particularly game with their good command of language and quirky humour so there were some legendary offs over the years until the authorities clamped down and blocked international access. Some of the hardcore continued to go on overseas forum raids after the ban by using proxy VPNs but it was never the same.
Fig 2. A member of England’s forum firm preparing for a big off vs Holland, circa 2021.
So, by the 2020s when my lot, the Charlton Life Forum (the famous CLF) were active, the forum scene was predominantly domestic; and local rivalries spilled over to heated debates often getting very ugly with average attendance stats even getting pulled out regularly on unsuspecting punters. It was not for the faint hearted and you could be going about your business posting on a thread about favourite cheeses when some lairy **** turned up from another forum belittling your gorgonzola.
There was even inter- forum rivalry between competing message boards from the same club. Just as rival estates or schools vie to be top dog so did rival football chat rooms in the constant battle to be “cock of the net”. There was also infighting of forum members on the same forum when there were no rival fans to row with. That would get particularly ugly with some of the real psychos resorting to direct messaging. I never understood that direct messaging lark…. I mean what was the point of an online row if you couldn’t bask in the glory of the “likes” and “LOLs”? But each to their own.
Admin would always try to nip it in the bud but often it went unchecked so you needed to look lively at all times otherwise you would just get picked off as the weak do in nature. A forum with a lackadaisical admin is very much a jungle in that respect and no place for the vulnerable, so from very early on you had to learn your way around a keyboard if you were going to survive an evening of forumming unscathed.
You also constantly needed to be alert to the grammar old bill who were always out to spoil your fun. A long planned and well-constructed argument to take down your opponent could easily come unstuck with a simple transposition error e.g. using “there” rather than “their” which would then see hours of arduous drafting go down the pan. It was a constant tightrope walk and you needed your wits and spellchecking skills about you at all times.
There was a legendary Charlton forummer back in the day known as “The Thesaurus”. In 20 years of active posting on the scene he never once misused a semi colon, let along made a grammatical error. Whilst most punters had a limited armoury of language like “muppet, “troll”, or last resort when things really came on top “You c***”, the Thesaurus was in a league of his own could dismantle an opposing firm with a diction so broad and hard- hitting it became the stuff of legend.
People still talk about how he single- handedly got the better of 9 QPR fans who had ambushed a thread after Charlton had beaten them 1-0 earlier that day. Articulating evidential flaws in the basis of their arguments he sent them home packing, many of whom retired from the forumming game that evening as a result. And he did it all without using a single cuss word. Proper old school and respected across the whole forum community up and down the country amongst all clubs.
Fig 3. The Thesaurus. A keyboard legend of the football forum aggro scene.
The kids coming up these days think that a “u wot u melt?!” or mere hashtag “mug” counts for forum violence and whilst most online scarfers not involved in the scene might recoil at such an exchange and start flagging comments demanding mods take action it is not what it is like back in the day at its peak in 2020 when you literally took your life in your hands each time you logged on.
As nasty as the inter-same club forumming wars could get, you could not beat a local derby.
Charlton’s forum nemesis was Millwall who had a fearsome reputation cultivated over the years and marked by an inability to type a sentence without referring to the object/person/ topic at hand as a “cunt”. Away fans were not welcome on their forums and were dealt with in short shrift leading to their infamous ditty “No one writes us, no one writes us”.
There were always ongoing spats between Charlton and Millwall*out in the wider cyber world such as Instagram and twitter but it was all generally handbags with Addicks pulling out solitary FA Cup wins and ground capacity stats whilst the Lions steamed in with trainspotter memes.
There was however a real undercurrent of menace bubbling under and it was not pleasant for innocent bystanders and lots of website banning orders got dished out and twitter profiles removed but that was the way it was back in the day.
*The irony being many of the club’s rival top boys would mob up together on Facebook anti - vaxxer/ 5g mast conspiracy pages. The real nutters amongst both firms would even regularly collaborate on the “ ‘Ang the bastards!” comments section of the Daily Mail website.
Fig 4. Charlton and Millwall team up for an off against the notorious Liberal Metropolitan Elite on Katie Hopkin’s twitter page.
However, it would really go off on the forums where the big boys played. “Offs” would have to be planned with military precision and would generally be limited for tit for tat comments about knuckle- dragging and tartan blankets/ thermos flasks before admin got hold of it and closed down the fun by sinking threads.
Millwall’s forumers generally used pay- as- you- go mobiles to facilitate their feral lifestyles and criminality. This meant data limits were often reached before things really got juicy in an online spat.
Conversely, many of Charlton’s top forum faces tended to be suburban middle-class mummy’s boys so a heated exchange would often be halted when mother called up for supper.
But when it went off, it went off big time before being wrapped up by admin.
Occasionally trolls would wade in from Crystal Palace looking to get involved. However, they lacked he acerbic take no prisoner retorts of Millwall forumers and did not possess the cutting, articulate wit of Charlton posters so they were usually fucked off back to Mumsnet pretty sharpish.
Fig 5- Palace try to take the main Charlton Forum with claims of “The Internet is Ours” in summer of 2023 but are held off with ease.
Online battles would rage on through the night with posters of rival clubs going back and forth with shouts of “Stand firm, don’t log out….DO NOT LOG OUT!!!” rallying through cyberspace until the early hours as panic- stricken mods tried in vain to put out the fires popping up simultaneously on various threads.
Millwall would always come with big numbers and nerve touching digs from the outset but Charlton fans would hold their own and stand firm given vastly more in their ranks had attained at least GCSE level English.
No doubt fans of either side will claim results always went their way and that they never ran from an online dual but those who know, know and have the screenshots and forum bans to show for it.
Over excessive use of the C bomb or blatant WUMmery from the get go would mean that the forum moderators were all over it before a chance for any real exchange and were often given an escort back to Google resigned to spend the remainder of the day trolling Z list celebs on twitter or rowing with American teenagers on Call of Duty.
However, those more determined in the ranks and hellbent on getting it on, on an oppo’s forum would side step forum bans by registering new user names to slide in under the radar and before mods had clocked their IP addresses wreak virtual havoc.
I recall a single afternoon when a tidy little firm of Charlton managed to infiltrate the Crewe Alexandra forum under the guise of “CAFC lover”, CAFC4eva” and other such monikers and caused absolute bedlam on there for weeks before the mods decided enough was enough and suspended the entire forum until they could “root out the cuckoos in the nest”.
Posting in caps lock with exclamation marks was an intimidatory tactic than many of the bully boy northern clubs used to pull when dealing with smaller clubs but they always came unstuck when they went toe to toe in a debate with a firm that could come back at them with a barrage of well-crafted lucid paragraphs.
Fig 6 Northern forum hoolie dishing it out on the Dover Athletic message board circa 2022.
The hangers on at the forum firms were the worst. Never contributing anything other than to egg the main posters on or passively aggressively “Like” or “LOL” the posts of others before slinking off into the shadows and claiming the stolen valour of those who had put their forum cred on the line by engaging in an online off. Then crying off to forum moderators if ever called out on their behaviour.
They were the worst kind of bottom feeders and every club forum had them.
Comments
PART 2
Everything changed one Winter’s evening in early 2020. I’d been pissing about on Candy Crush when I got a message that Millwall had showed in numbers on the forum and were out for blood after one of their fans had taken a bit of a seeing to on a CAFCOfficial twitter thread earlier that week. To be fair to the lad he held his own against our youth element but when the experienced older faces (many of whom were university educated) showed up he didn’t stand a chance and came very unstuck when he started misquoting posts, starting strawman arguments and worst of all being fact -checked by a seasoned Charlton veteran who completely trashed his entire rationale with a link to Wikipedia. It was very ugly business.
What unfolded over the course of the next 72 hours went down in forum aggro legend and is known as the “Charlton Life Troll Wars”. It started off with sly digs about bussing in fans from Kent and passive aggressive quips about Charlton being the bigger club but chronic underachievers as a result, before it swiftly descended into absolute carnage. A shout went up and out of nowhere Millwall posters started dozens of threads aimed at provoking addicks on their home forum…some real sick, twisted shit appeared on that forum that day like images of trains being dismantled for scrap, videos of last minute Millwall winners and all sorts of mayhem. An image of a burning tartan blanket was posted at one point which I’m not ashamed to say now brought a tear or two to my battle- weary eyes.
Charlton got organised and came back strong with hard hitting home truths like “not many dockers had lived in Bexleyheath and had Apple macs” and some raucous abuse about Millwall’s abject conflation of metaphors and similes in their postings.
I shiver now as I write this and had to take a good few months’ time out offline after what was witnessed over those dark days as did many on both sides of the divide. It pretty much killed the scene dead overnight.
It was all too much.
Most grew out of it and realised that screaming “Inbred spanner wan@*!” whilst launching their £900 air book across the living room was not economically viable in the long term
Others received banning orders from wives who explained that muttering “Anorak, trainspotting c&*!” in front of their kids whilst angrily hammering their iPad keyboards was not conducive to a stable home environment.
And as fun as it was while it lasted, that was pretty much the start of the demise of the football forum violence scene.
Fig 7 Scenes from the Charlton Life “Troll Wars” which saw insults exchanged across forums lasting 3 days and nights, saw 18 banning’s, 46 warnings and many long-standing forum members quit in disgust at what they had witnessed unfolding on numerous threads in July 2022.
Fig 8 exhausted and battle- beaten forum moderators after failing to take hold of the notorious Charlton Life “Troll Wars”
After the Charlton Life Trolling Wars the scene changed entirely. Many of the old faces don’t post any longer due to RSI or getting a life. Those of us who do have mellowed somewhat and are more likely these days to dish out a mutual LOL than have it on a thread.
We were respected back then even begrudgingly those on the football forum online scene. I would walk through the office and the post room boys would nervously move out the way and whisper “There’s that geezer who spends his lunch hour hammering on his keyboard arguing with rival fans” It was obvious they dreamed of being like me. And to be honest, it felt good.
Rival fan commuters on the train would often glance at your phone over your shoulder and give you a nod of mutual respect if they saw you were engaged in a forum debate. Knowing smiles exchanged as they went about their own action across the aisle, train journeys home often being a frenzy of aggressive typing.
We only ever involved those that were game. At least that was the aim.
There were times that it all went too far and I recall one time a Leeds scarfer accidentally waded into the wrong thread looking to post about possession statistics and was set upon with gleeful malice by our more unhinged element. It was sickening and it had all come a bit out of control. The young breed of posters were less picky and acted up with gay abandon in misguided attempts to impress us older lot who held wiser heads. It was the beginning of the end for me and felt like it had lost its soul.
Fig 9 today’s youth forumfirms- full of exuberance and very game but misguided. Wouldn’t have held their own when outnumbered on a “Best ground for pies” thread on Doncaster’s forum on a cold Tuesday night with a hundred angry Yorkshiremen ranting at them .
I am not particularly proud about my forum violence past but at the same time I am not ashamed.
It’s difficult now trying to explain to today’s kids but we lived for it back then.
Most blokes not involved in the scene chose to spend their free time on Porn Hub or Paddy Power. I never got why you would chuck your money away or pull your plonker over some fake-titted tart when you could be having a verbal online to and fro with some scouser or manc lads until the early hours and didn’t need to clear your browser history afterwards.
For me football foruming aggro was my drug. There was nothing I liked more than getting dressed up in my most comfortable clobber, stocking up on pringles and coffee and trolling the fuck out of some random bods in cyberspace.
The rush and buzz of steaming onto to an away mob’s forum and deconstructing their point of view with a well-reasoned conjecture was out of this world. Better than online sex.
It was of the moment and an important part of our history even though the mainstream forum establishment community wouldn’t like to admit it.
I often get the itch to get involved again when some dry lunch gets lemon on a thread but resist the urge to wade in and put them right with some caustic words because I can’t be doing with another forum ban and I am trying to set a better example for the youngsters coming up who can learn from the errors of my ways.
Appendices
Fig.10 Pre season with Aberdeen gets tense
Fig 11. Nolly, Charlton forum legend
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Whilst most supporters know about the hooligan violence that blighted
football in the 70's and 80's, few people will be aware of the clashes
that took place between rival children's TV gangs.
This week sees the publication of 'Congratulations you've just met the
RJF', the long awaited biography from children's TV favourites, Rod,
Jane and Freddy. This explosive book brings readers face to face with the
relentless violence of 80's kiddies TV.
Beginnings
Rod: In 1979 there were a lot of really useful firms operating out of ITV
and "The Rainbow Boys" were one of the best in the business. The
problem was, because we were new, we were always on the outside looking
in. It was time to make a bit of a noise and show them we could handle
ourselves.
Freddy: We decided we were going to take Play School in their home pub,
Chatters wine bar in Hampstead. On the face of it, it was a f*ckin
ridiculous thing to do. They were pretty handy and had a big reputation,
but that didn't mean nothing to us. We were ready to make our mark and
didn't care how we did it.
Jane: We got there early and just kept a low profile. Pretty soon the
whole place was filling up. There were quite a few faces in there: Fred
Harris, Derek Griffiths, Big Ted. I can't say it bothered me. All I was
thinking was, "You're going to get it, you numpties!"
Rod: I think it was Johnny Ball who clocked us. I can remember him saying
something like "I can think of a number: the three wnkers stood over
there" and it all kicked off. Even though they hit us with everything they
had, we took it. All I can remember is Freddy screaming, "Hold the line,
just hold the fckin line" and we did.
Jane: I didn't think they could believe that three of us had taken about
forty of them at their place. They just melted away, flicking the V's
at us and looking like a total set of pussies. I saw Hamble with blood
p!ssing from an open head wound. To be honest I was too wound up to care.
Rod: We walked away from there with our heads held high. The Rainbow Boys would have to take notice now. Rod, Jane and Freddy had well and truly
arrived.
The Battle of Blue Peter
Rod: There's been a whole heap of bullsh!t spoken about who vandalised the
Blue Peter Garden. The truth is that place got torn up in one of the
maddest, bloodiest children's television rucks I can ever remember.
Jane: Blue Peter were always giving it some about how they were the best
in the business. We were happy to let them think that. Our feeling was
they'd got sloppy and hadn't fought anyone decent for about five years.
Their shows always went out live, so the plan was to wait until the end of
the live broadcast and pile in. The trouble was it didn't work out like that.
Freddy: We'd gone over the wall and started heading towards them. It was
Simon Groom and Janet Ellis and we could tell we'd taken them by
surprise. Rod wades in and bang, bang, bang they both go down like a sack
of sht. It was all a bit too easy and we couldn't work out why the camera
crew were holding back. Then we realised, they'd been having some sort of past presenter's reunion. They all came pouring out of the studios: Noakes,
Purves, Singleton; all ready to kick seven shades of sht out of us.
Jane: As far as we were concerned there was only one thing to do. Stand
our ground. Other firms would have run but we just thought, fck, this far
and no further. It wasn't easy mind. They were tooled up with bottle tops
from a bring and buy sale. Peter Duncan was just wading into us with a
bicycle chain shouting, "Take that you c*nt !" I honestly didn't think
we'd last much longer.
Rod: Then we heard it. The best sound in the world; "Up above the streets
and houses, Rainbow climbing high!" It was The Rainbow Boys battle cry
the cavalry was coming. Zippy dropped the nut on Biddy Baxter and suddenly
things were a bit more even. I swear on my mother's grave if security
hadn't stepped in we'd have murdered the b*stards.
Freddy: The garden was totally fcked. They covered it up and said it was
the work of vandals. No it wasn't, it was the scene of our finest hour.
That's not to say women don't also have our on-line spats, of course.
This has been a stressful year for the world, and Addicks have had more than their share of footie-related worries to wind them up. There have not been all the usual ways to let off steam, so the pressure builds more than normal.
It is so good that within this community we have such talented writers who can help us laugh at ourselves. This thread has been such a good read. Thank you all.
LLL&BH everyone, and lets enjoy the feelings of optimism while we can.
Absolutely brilliant.
In fact I might just stay up a bit longer and check out some of the threads for randoms - can't wait to use my new secret weapon.
This had me proper laughing.
Come on folks this is a work of genius. Funniest thing I've read in ages. Show young Rodders your appreciation - he's got two GCEs you know!
You've definitely been hiding your light under a bushel !
WE WANT MORE !