Aggro boys call the Toon in the early 1970s
IT was the summer of 1972 and the Scotswood Aggro Boys were out and about. Only this time the feared gang from Newcastle’s West End were doing their good deed for the day, having organised a disco to raise funds for handicapped children.
The early 1970s saw youth gangs emerge across the towns of suburban Tyneside and the North East.
They would fight rival gangs, marking their territories out with graffiti tags.
It was the era of the Doctor Marten-wearing, reggaeloving skinhead.
The sight of a group of shavenheaded lads wearing immaculately polished cherry red or shiny black ‘docs’ was enough to make the average law-abiding citizen quickly stride off in the opposite direction. Over at Newcastle United’s St James’ Park where the often edgy atmosphere was utterly different to today’s matchday experience, the gangs would congregate in the long-demolished Leazes End causing all sorts of mayhem. The Scotswood Aggro Boys had actually featured in a BBC documentary aired in 1971. Called All Dressed Up And Going Nowhere, it was filmed in Newcastle and records their conflicts with a rival gang of motorbike-driving ‘hairies’. Amid graffiti-scarred streets, we see the skinheads on the prowl, young lads tearing down the back lanes of old Benwell on home-made ‘bogies’, and Dunston Power Station pumping out smoke across the Tyne.
New estates in Newcastle with a new way of life breeding a new way of violence BBC’s All Dressed Up And Going Nowhere, 1971
Meanwhile, the hairies are filmed tearing around Newcastle city centre on impressive choppers in an age before wearing safety helmets became compulsory.
The film, narrated by a certain Mike Neville was out of circulation for years, but popped up on YouTube a while back.
It’s the portrait of an often vanished city, and it’s well worth a watch.
It talks of “violent crime escalating, despite the emergence of shiny office blocks and new estates in Newcastle with a new way of life breeding a new way of violence”.
A few years ago, the BBC revisited All Dressed Up And Going Nowhere, and met some of the lads as they are today grandparents in their early 60s.
And, back to our great photograph of the Scotswood Aggro Boys from this week 45 years ago, we hope life’s been good to John Maughan, Ken Kay, Geordie Potter, Mick Rutherford and Colin Rutherford.