Customer Reviews

Capital Punishment: London's Violent Football Following

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Dougie Brinson has written a slew of soccer hooligan books but this is probably the best. It covers the activities of hooligans associated with the London-based clubs. So plenty of grist for the Millwall...as they say.

It's an eye opener as to how moronic the pursuit of other hooligan gangs, or firms, goes. Highly entertaining read, if you feel the violence associated with soccer is both appalling, but like a traffic accident, strangely you are drawn to vicariously look at the carnage.

This book is written by two brothers, both 'reformed' soccer hooligans. I grew up in London in the '70s and '80s and attended more than a few soccer games and so can relate directly to the subject of the book.

It would not appeal to the average American (unless you are working on a degree in Social Psychology), but for myself it was an interesting read about an era I lived through.

It investigates the individual soccer clubs of London and the 'firms' of hooligans that followed them and caused chaos and varying degrees of riots inside and outside soccer stadiums. How these firms were organized and the tactics they employed to commit mayhem on visiting hooligans and the Metropolitan Police of London is an eye-opener! Infiltration of their rivals 'ends', use of well planned daring ambushes, hit and run raids - it reads like a primer for Special Operations Forces!

A good read that took me back to my (sometimes) mis-spent youth.