Two fans of Chester FC who appeared on the Channel 5 series Football Hooligans & Proud have denied they were out to cause trouble.

The episode, broadcast last Wednesday, shone a light into the underworld of 21st-century hooliganism with frank and honest interviews with perpetrators associated with several different clubs.

In Chester, the main focus was around the rivalry with Wrexham FC and the build-up to a local derby match which ended 0-0 and proved uneventful.

Noel ‘Yozza’ Hughes, a 59-year-old member of the so-called 125 firm, said turn-out among the ‘firm’ was the best he had ‘seen out in years’.

Speaking to camera, he said: “If they come here looking for us, well, they’ve met this, haven’t they?

“I’m not saying anything like that, but if they bring it on, bring it on. If they come into town later and start getting drinking down them and start gobbing off, then we can’t be responsible for what happens, can we?”

Yozza, who was earlier seen drinking in the Bull and Stirrup, walked outside Chester Town Hall where he explained there was something missing from the side of the clock tower facing Wales.

“There’s no clock face which means you wouldn’t give the Welsh the time of day,” he said.

Another of those featured was 47-year-old doorman Shane Wharton, a member of the Chester 125s and Casuals United, who has past convictions for football-related offences but, according to the commentator, ‘had given up hooliganism’.

His bedroom was adorned with blood-and-beer-stained flags for Chester, England and Ulster.

Shane pointed to an England flag from an England v Wales game at Wrexham’s Racecourse ground in 1990, recalling: “It went off everywhere that day, everyone was fighting with everyone.” He also picked up a cosh which he jokingly described as 'crime prevention'.

Shane added: “The only people who walk in this room are like me, British, English and have a soft spot for Chester.”

Barrie Hipkiss, honorary life president of Chester FC, who was disgusted by the programme, said: “I feel the TV shouldn’t have given them any air space. As a family club that’s the last thing I wanted to see.”

Mr Hipkiss, who organises away travel for supporters, said troublemakers were a ‘tiny minority’ and he said men in their 40s and 50s ‘shouldn’t be encouraging things like that’.