Beverley Knight poses during a portrait session at the Black British Theatre Awards 2021 at The Old Finsbury Town Hall on November 21, 2021 in London, England.

We asked a 2000s pop princess her favourite football book: the answer is incredible

October 18, 2023 Sports 19 Views

What’s your favourite book about football? One 2000s songstress has a fantastic answer.

Cass Pennant’s eponymous autobiography, Cass, is an astonishing tale of hooliganism, with Pennant detailing tales of how he was shot three times in the chest and still kept on fighting and how he saved Frank Bruno from an attack.

So imagine FourFourTwo’s surprise during a chat with soul singer Beverley Knight, when somewhat in contrast to her polite and polished stage presence, Knight proclaimed that Cass was her book about football.

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“My husband – a Norwich fan – was once a bit of a wrong’un when it came to going to football, and sometimes got up to no good,” the Shoulda Woulda Coulda singer told FFT.

“I became fascinated by that hooligan world and watched the movie Cass about a black guy being the head of a firm, which I wouldn’t have imagined. You didn’t see black men with hooligans, by and large, and certainly not leaders of the firms.

British football hooligan, leader of West Ham United's Inter City Firm and author Cass Pennant poses for a portrait on June 11 2008 near his home in Penge in South East London, England.

British football hooligan, leader of West Ham United’s Inter City Firm and author Cass Pennant, has a fan in Beverley Knight (Image credit: David Corio/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images)

“When I was kid, football wasn’t always as welcoming off the pitch for people of colour, so I was interested in how a black man could be the boss of a West Ham firm, plus the way he turned his life around after that.

“Watching the film led to me reading the book – I’d love to have a chat with Cass Pennant one day.”