At the heart of a firm of football hooligans, Paul Debrick wreaked mayhem up and down the country for 20 years. But while he may have given up his life of violence, it doesn't mean he has any regrets. Nick Morrison reports.

PAUL Debrick wants to make it clear he's not boasting. He doesn't regret it, but he's not bragging either. All he's doing is telling it like it is. "It is what happened and not what I am now," he says. All the same, he can't resist asking eagerly: "Were you shocked?".

And the truth is his story is shocking. For two decades, he was a leading member of The Frontline, the football hooligans who followed Middlesbrough. He helped build them into one of the most feared outfits in the country, always up for an "off" with a rival group, and often coming out on top.

His account of that time is set out in The Brick, his nickname in The Frontline. Detailing a series of offs both home and away, the book recounts episode after episode of seemingly mindless violence as Debrick and his crowd of hooligans ran amok up and down the country.

"I like the violence, just the buzz you get out of it," he says. "Violence has been a big part of my life for the past 20 years. It's the lifestyle I chose."

His first taste of violence came as he watched a series of running battles between Middlesbrough and Newcastle fans at an Ayresome Park derby. Although he was a bystander that day, it wasn't long before he was taking part.

"I saw it happening and I just wanted to be part of it. It was the excitement and the buzz," he says. "It just seemed like there were a lot of people doing it, I always used to go out with older lads, and one thing led to another.

"Once you get bitten by the bug it becomes a drug and you want to do it all the time. It was like a way of life."

Debrick, now 40, says each club was represented by a firm, a group of lads who wanted to fight, and the violence was always kept between firms. The rivalry between firms was intense, as each strove to be top dog, to gain a reputation as the ones to beat. Although they went to the matches, the football was largely irrelevant: Debrick admits often he didn't even know the score.

THE firms would either arrange where to meet for an off over the phone, or would head for the pubs where the other firm was known to drink. The hooligans recognised each other by their dress code - Stone Island, Prada among the favoured labels.

"You wouldn't turn up in a city centre pub full of people in away shirts and start fighting with them. That was not the done thing - they're just innocent football fans," he says.

"It was always football firms, like-minded lads who wanted to fight each other on a Saturday. If you didn't have an off at a football match then you had a sh*tty day."

This code didn't extend to concern for any bystanders horrified at witnessing the violence, or fearful of being caught up in it, however. "It was just part of it. I didn't give it a second thought," he says.

Offs weren't just confined to battles with rival football firms. Days out to the seaside often ended with a fight. Again, it was apparently only with lads who were also looking for a fight, although again there was no thought for how anyone else might feel.

"There was all the getting on a train and having a drink, but if you got off with the opposing lads that just made the day complete, especially if you turned them over," he says.

He also worked as a doorman in Middlesbrough for 14 years, giving him plenty of opportunity to get involved in more fights. "I haven't picked on anyone who didn't fight a fight," he says. "When I was working the doors, all they wanted to do was have a drink and kill each other."

He says the stereotype of hooligans as mindless thugs is inaccurate. One of The Frontline was a London accountant, and many had good jobs, wives, children, smart houses. He says there was nothing mindless about what they did: they were lads who enjoyed fighting, who fought with other lads who enjoyed fighting.

"People think you're a shaven-headed tattooed person, but football hooligans come from all walks of life. Being a football hooligan doesn't make you a bad person."

He's obviously proud of The Frontline's reputation. "We were recognised as one of the best in the country, and I was a big part of that," he says. "From an early age, putting the boot in as a kid, I was one of the top lads. We were getting a reputation for ourselves and then we had to keep that reputation up."

He says he was never seriously hurt in an off, although his jaw had to be wired together after it was shattered in a non-firm fight. But the danger and risk never bothered him.

"I have been on the floor and kicked, I have been punched and hit with a chair leg - it is just part and parcel of it. The first time you get a beating, if you start crying about it you are in the wrong game," he says.

HE carried a knife, almost as a fashion accessory, although he says he never used it. His book recounts a number of incidents when people were seriously slashed, but Debrick has little sympathy for the victims.

"At the time, when you are actually part of it, you are not really bothered. I thought it was a big joke. I didn't take it seriously," he says.

Debrick, who lives in Eston, East Cleveland, with wife Elaine and two-year-old son Tommy, has given up his life of violence now. He has a good job - he works offshore as a scaffolder - and felt it was time to settle down, although he says the clampdown on hooliganism in the 1990s, better police surveillance, banning orders and stricter segregation, brought an end to that life anyway.

Although he's changed, he's not a reformed character. He says his only regret is getting caught - at 19 he was jailed for two years after a fight with Barnsley fans in Middlesbrough. He believes the hooligan element in football has never gone away, it has just been suppressed, although to such an extent that, "hooliganism will never come back like it used to be," he says, sounding wistful.

HE doesn't go out looking for trouble now, although he can handle himself if it comes along. He says when he first met Elaine, some of her friends tried to put her off, but when they met him they realised he wasn't a mindless thug. "I'm a good lad, really," he says.

Much as he might claim his life of violence didn't do him any harm, he doesn't want his son following his example. "I don't want him to do the things I have done. I want to bring him up to be a good person," he says.

The implication is that hooligans are not good people. But while Debrick makes no claim to being a role model, nor is he willing to renounce the violence. For him, it is what he did. Right or wrong doesn't come into it.

"I'm not advocating anybody to go out and copy what I've done. I don't think I would do it now, but what I have done is what I have done. People can think what they think of it.

"People ask would I do it all again, would I change anything? I probably would do it all again. I wouldn't change what I have done, but I'm talking about what happened, not what I do now. I have never glorified anything, and I didn't set out to shock. I just wanted to tell it like it was and why I was doing it," he says, before asking: "Were you shocked?"

* The Brick: A Hooligan's Story by Paul Debrick (Milo Books) £9.99.