"After that, everybody wanted to fight us, but you couldn't back down," says Turner. "When I was a kid, my thought for punk rock was that it could put West Ham on the front pages." To this end, the band – affiliated to the club's hooligans in the Inter City Firm – had appeared on Top of the Pops in West Ham shirts. "Most of the punk bands at the time, they had their ideals – the Clash, Career Opportunities, political stuff, fair play," says Turner. Turner continues: "There was a lot of people cut and hurt, I got cut, my brother really got done bad, with an ashtray, the gear was decimated, there was people lying around on the floor. "I'd seen quite a bit on the terraces or outside football grounds, but this was carnage," says Jeff Turner, today an immensely amiable decorator, then "Stinky" Turner, the Cockney Rejects' teenage frontman, cursed with what his former manager Garry Bushell tactfully describes as "a bit of a temper". Still, it has its own claim to historical import: by all accounts, it was the most violent gig in British history. In fairness, no one is ever going to rank the show by the East End quartet – then enjoying chart success with a punk take on the West Ham terrace anthem I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles – alongside Jimi Hendrix at Monterey in terms of musical brilliance. It warrants no mention when music journalists compile the 100 Most Shocking Moments in Rock, nor the 100 Craziest Gigs Ever, which seems like a terrible oversight. T he Cockney Rejects' 1980 performance at Birmingham's Cedar Club remains unnoted in the annals of rock history.
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