I entered the stands for the visiting supporters and ended up following a skinhead—big and brawny—with a tight-fitting white T-shirt and fleshy biceps. His name, I would learn, was Cliff, which—sheer, unadorned, vaguely suggestive of danger—seemed entirely appropriate. The skinhead phase had long passed and, even here, in this crowd, Cliff stood out as a nostalgic anomaly, but Cliff had such an aggressive manner—the regulation braces and the heavy black boots and pockets full of twopences (their edges sharpened beforehand) to throw at Cambridge supporters—that he seemed the most obvious person to befriend.

Bill Buford, Among the Thugs (133)