The Football Factory

With his first book, John King has written a cult classic for our times: telling, for once, the truth about soccer violence. Forget the armchair nostalgia of "Fever Pitch" of the transatlantic reportage of "Among the Thugs" - this is a book that gets inside. A collection of linked stories, "The Football Factory" centres on Vince Matthews, a seasoned Chelsea hooligan who represents a disaffected society operating by appalling rules. From first-hand experience, we are shown the usual mix of social degradation, unemployment, racism, excessive drink, bad sex and casual violence - the facts of life - but also how they fall into a political context of surveillance, media manipulation and division. Football violence has not been eradicated, it has simply been moved out of the grounds and beyond the cameras. Like the slaughter of Iraqi conscripts in the Gulf War, hooligans and what they do have been pushed under the carpet: out of sight, out of mind. This is what "The Football Factory" is about.

ISBN 009947462X   DEWEY edition DC21 ISBN13 9780099474623 (What's this?)   Pages 262 Publisher Vintage   Weight (grammes) 140 Imprint Vintage   Published in London Format Paperback   Height (mm) 178 Publication date 06 May 2004   Width (mm) 111 Library of Congress PR6O61   Spine width (mm) 19 DEWEY 823.914   Academic level General

'The best book I've read about football and working-class culture in Britain in the nineties. Buy, steal or borrow a copy now' Irvine Welsh 'King's novel is not only an outstanding read, but also an important social document...This book should be compulsory reading for all those who believe in the existence, or even the attainability of a classless society' Sunday Tribune 'The Football Factory will do for hooligan culture what Trainspotting did for Edinburgh housing estates' Select ' Powerfully written and tells you more about the mentality of those who disrupt football matches than all the theses of the sociologist academics put together' Daily Mail 'Bleak, thought-provoking and brutal, The Football Factory has all the hallmarks of a cult novel' Literary Review

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