Riaz Khan: From gang member to writer

A FORMER gang member has revealed how the Hillsbrough stadium disaster made him turn his back on football violence.

Riaz Khan has written a new book called Khan – Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual on his six years in the notorious Leicester Baby Squad.

The 47-year-old, whose brother Yusuf was also in the gang, was arrested twice and spent time in jail after a brawl at a match.

Khan (holding dog) revealed the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, where 96 fans were crushed to death, was the turning point for leaving the gang.

The English teacher told Eastern Eye:

The turning point was the Hillsborough disaster, all those people died.

I was slowly pulling away from it, getting older and a bit wiser. When you’re young, you do silly things.

You don’t listen to your parents, I call it temporary insanity.”

Khan got into football violence in the 1980s after growing up in an era when the far-right National Front group were executing racist attacks.

The married dad-of-four said being accepted in a mainly-white group attracted him to Leicester City’s Baby Squad. He explained:

Asians were the outsiders, the invading force, everybody hated us. In the eighties, people started to get along, a lot of Asians started to come into the game.

We had 25-30 Asian members, it broke down a lot of barriers. We were the unique crew. Asians were into studying, boozers in their own area, arranged marriage then work – we went against the grain.

The Firm film, with the clothes and the attitude, that’s how it was. Green Street and Football Factory were entertainining, but not how it was.”

While most football fans have fond memories of going to their first live match, Khan had a very different experience in his first game in the Baby Squad in 1983.

He recalled:

It was against Birmingham. I got arrested before we got to the ground for threatening behaviour. A group of black lads with big afros were running towards us.

I turned around and there was a massive brawl and I was in the middle of it. I saw a man jumping up, I went to hit him and a policeman grabbed me and arrested me before I threw a punch.”

Khan added:

You can be a football thug without getting hurt. You see a bunch of lads, you run in, hit them and run out.

I never got a severe beating and was very fortunate. Some people got stabbed or slashed.”

Khan, who attends some Leicester matches as a fan, says he turned his life around after following Islam:

I got into the illegal rave scene after. I was lost, going from one culture to another.

I am a practising Muslim now. I say to people learn from the book and I tell kids to stay away from it. I see a few of [Baby Squad]. The see me as the same person and have a lot of respect for me still.

It was like back in the days without the drinking and the other stuff. They all miss it. I miss my youth more than anything.”

Khan – Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual is available from www.countdownbooks.co.uk or on Amazon Kindle.

http://www.easterneye.eu/news.html?groupId=11&newsId=1332

Nadeem Badshah