They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin' Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the Queen, football clubs (especially Manchester United), and themselves. Their dislike encompasses the rest of the known universe, and England's soccer thugs express it in ways that range from mere vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. Now Bill Buford, editor of the prestigious journal Granta, enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure with the social imagination of a George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of a Hunter Thompson.
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"This is such a great book- the fruits of years of ethnographic research.
Every few years, an incident happens in English football which makes people question the culture- is it racist, violent etc. This book describes a time that was on a whole different order of magnitude. The level of tribalism, and the thirst for violence was something largely forgotten or never even known of by most of us in the modern day. One of the great pieces of sociological research of our time, certainly one of the best I have read
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Charles Miller (5 out of 5 stars)