Suicide Squad (hooligan firm)
The Suicide Squad was a Burnley-based football hooligan group linked to Burnley Football Club. They were active from 1983 to 2011 and were involved in violence, riots and fights around football matches.
The group got its name in the early 1980s because of their willingness to fight against much larger crowds. They became well known for their violent behavior at away games.
They had long-running rivalries with Blackburn Rovers, Millwall, Plymouth Argyle, Preston North End, Stoke City and Bolton Wanderers. The 1980s saw Burnley fall from the First Division to the Fourth, a period of decline that coincided with fierce terrace wars and the rise of the Suicide Squad.
A younger group, called the Burnley Youth, emerged and stayed loosely connected to the Suicide Squad. They did not always follow the rules and were seen by police as more dangerous, sometimes traveling to away games with weapons.
In November 2002, Burnley police and the club launched Operation Fixture to tackle football hooliganism around Turf Moor. The plan led to more bans, arrests and quicker convictions, and it also targeted racism.
On 7 December 2002, a Nottingham Forest fan was killed after Burnley supporters attacked Forest fans in Burnley town centre. A 19-year-old Burnley fan, Andrew McNee, a member of the Suicide Youth, was charged with murder and later sentenced to seven years in youth custody, with a ten-year ban from football. He was released in 2006 but was fined for breaching the ban when found near Turf Moor later that year.
In July 2007, founding member Andrew Porter was nearing the end of a ban, and Burnley police sought a new banning order. In May 2009, another founder, Philip Holmes, was banned for a further three years after continued incidents.
The Suicide Squad was the subject of the TV documentary The Real Football Factories on Bravo.
On 18 October 2009, after a Premier League derby between Blackburn Rovers and Burnley, members clashed in a riot described by police as very serious.
In January 2011, 12 members were jailed for a total of 32 years and given long banning orders. Andrew Porter received the heaviest sentence: five years in prison and a ten-year ban. Porter had written a book about his experiences, Suicide Squad: The Inside Story of a Football Firm.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:00 (CET).