bovver, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bovver n.

[Cockney pron. of SE bother/bother n.]

fighting, disturbance, esp. that caused by skinhead youths.

1969		New Society 13 Nov. 762/1: ‘We show ’em because they’re useful if there’s a bit of bovver.’ Bother is the crophead word for fight; indeed, a lot of them call their footwear ‘bovver boots’.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 192: ‘If you’re into bovver,’ said Brodie, ‘it might not be so bad.’ ‘I take it you are into bother, as you say?’ said Araba.
1999		Guardian Rev. 1 Oct. 10: The result is a natty 20 minutes of prime Cockney bovver: dodgy geezers huddle round smoke-cowled card tables, violence is dispensed up dank lanes.
1999		Observer 29 Aug. 27: Loaded, the magazine that started all this ‘bovver’ is by no means the worst offender.

In compounds

bovver boots (n.)

high-laced boots preferred as footwear by skinhead youths, usu. merchandised under the brandname Dr Martens.

1969		seesense 1 above .
1978		D. Hebdige Subculture 26: Bum freezers and bovver boots.
1993		K. Lette Foetal Attraction (1994) 34: Below them, an entire division of high-heeled bovver boots awaited their marching orders.
2000		Observer Mag. 30 Jan. 13: A fag in her mouth is part of her image, along with the cropped hair, men’s jeans, bovver boots, the whole aggressive, in-yer-face stance.

bovver boy (n.) (also bovva boy)

1. a hooligan, usu. a skinhead n. (4), and quite likely a football fan and member of the right-wing National Front; his female equivalent was a bovver bird.

1970		Observer 11 Jan. 28/4: It was called The Aggro Boy and centred around a football match in general and two bovva boys in particular.
1970		Pix (Aus.) 29 Aug. 7/1: In Britain, [...] skinheads and their ‘bovver birds’ came into fashion around last April [OED].
1971		Dly Mirror 8 Nov. 16/4: Two years ago you couldn’t spend a quiet weekend [...] on the Kent coast for fear of the ‘bovver’ boys.

2. in fig. uses of sense 1.

1983		Listener 20 Oct. 27/2: Mr Hanna is the nearest thing Newsnight has to a bovver boy, but that is not to say that he is a vulgar or crude person.
1993		K. Lette Foetal Attraction (1994) 57: They were not so much lager-louts as Bollinger bovver boys, Heidsieck hoons.
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 239: In 2010 the federal oppositon leader is bovver boy, Tony Abbott.