A MAN who was jailed after a footie hooligan brawl said his job after prison got him into more trouble.

John Nation was banged up after a clash between his local club Bristol City FC and West Ham when he was just a schoolboy.

Being one of the youngest members of the group, the self-confessed hooligan was focused on "making his mark" and wanted to "prove himself".

But Nations' activity went one step too far and then saw him jailed at 17 years old after he "fractured [a man's] skull".

Speaking on the podcast Hurts So Good, Nation said: "I was mixing with an older group, who were maybe 10 years older than me.

"You had to prove yourself, and so certain games you’d have to stand if you're outnumbered maybe get a bit of a slap, get a shoeing, but it held you in good stead for when you were going to be part of the firm."

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He went on to say how one scrap in the early 80s saw him come up against some "proper units" from West Ham's Inter City Firm.

Nation added: "We were coming unstuck, to be honest, and luckily for us just where the incident all transpired there was a road skip.

"So it had all the debris from the road works and we just grabbed whatever we could.

"[I then swung a road lamp at a man’s head]. I fractured his skull, and got charged with malicious wounding with intent.

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"I was still a juvenile back then, so I got six months."

Nation said conditions inside Eastwood Park Detention Centre were brutal and he experienced a type of violence he never had before.

And despite changing his ways and deciding to work with youths upon his release, the one-time hooligan found himself in more trouble with the cops.

In the 1980s, he began graffiti artwork – spray painting on walls in the city.

However, artists in Bristol at the time were the main targets for Operation Anderson, which was the biggest anti-graffiti operation in the history of British policing.

And one raid by officers in riot gear was of Nation's home at 6am.

He said: “What they also found there was a dissertation that I'd written from my University degree and the title was Drawing the line; Art or crime. It was a 20,000 word dissertation that I'd spent a year writing as my final thesis for my degree.”

They arrested him on suspicion of conspiracy to organise criminal damage.

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After 48 hours in police custody, he was released before being charged with conspiracy to incite individuals to commit criminal damage.

According to Nation, one week later he was acquitted.

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