Among The Thugs

Discussion in 'Soccer Board' started by triceratops, Mar 1, 2011.

  1. triceratops

    triceratops Tribe Of Dan
    Staff Donor TMB OG
    Clemson TigersCarolina Panthers

    Who here has read this book?

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    Buford, a native of the United States, is the editor of the London-based literary magazine Granta . In 1982 he witnessed the takeover of a train, a football special, by English soccer thugs. He reveals how fascination for this distinctly English phenomenon of "soccer hooliganism" led him to follow a group of violent supporters of the Manchester United Red Devils. Buford is accepted into the group and in time seems to develop a sixth sense about impending violence or when things, in English parlance, are "going to go off." Particularly riveting is his account of the aftermath of a match in Turin, Italy, where 200 or so Manchester supporters marched through the ancient streets leaving fire and destruction in their wake. Buford's original theories on football violence, fraught with notions about disenfranchised youth and the frustration of the working class, are forever dashed. He concludes that the English working class is dead, and what remains is a culture so vapid that " . . . it pricks itself so that it has feeling, burns its flesh so that is has smell." Public and academic libraries should have this. - Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"