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Crew [Paperback]

Dougie Brimson (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 4, 2000
Billy Evans, the suspected kingpin of one of the most notorious hooligan gangs in the country is putting together a 'super-crew' for England's match in Italy. The police are on to him and try to infiltrate his gang. THE CREW is the violent story of what happens next - will the undercover police work out what is going on and be able to stop it? Or will they be unmasked and punished? In a tautly plotted, fast-paced thriller, Dougie Brimson takes the reader into a violent underworld where the only survivors are the quick-witted, quick on their feet and quick with their fists.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

'A winning goal for Dougie Brimson' -- Lynda La Plante 'Punchy dialogue between overworked detectives and cool, calculating gangsters which finishes with a big, technicolour scrap' -- Sunday Times 'More twists than a Roger Milla goal celebration ... A classic tale' -- Total Football

From the Author

In 1997, Dougie Brimson received a phone call from the writer Lynda La Plante asking him if he would meet her to discuss a project.

During this meeting, she informed him that following on from the success of a pilot television drama called Stand And Deliver, her production company, LLP, had been commissioned to develop a TV series based around an undercover police unit. Her idea was to write one of the episodes about an operation targeted at a gang of hooligans who were becoming involved in criminal activities away from football. Dougie, as a recognised expert on the subject, was offered the chance to bring his expertise to bear on the plot. An offer he gladly accepted.

However, as discussions continued, it became clear that the initial ideas being developed were totally unrealistic and so Dougie offered to go away and develop a plot line on his own. After a few days, he returned with an outline for an episode entitled The Crew.

The response from the production team was astonishing and the idea was immediately accepted and submitted for acceptance by the ITV network controllers. However, although the series was commissioned, Dougies idea was rejected, officially on the basis of cost. Unofficially, the real reason was because the plot involved elements that were simply too controversial for network television.

Initially disappointed by this, Dougie received a huge boost when he was contacted by the head of development at LLP productions who told him that she was hugely impressed with his work and made him promise that one day, he would turn this idea into a book.

That book became the best-selling, The Crew. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Headline Paperbacks (May 4, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0747263043
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747263043
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,986,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Having written 14 books and a multi award winning feature film in under 15 years, former serviceman Dougie Brimson has emerged as one of Britain's most prolific writers.

After 18 years service with the Royal Air Force -including both the Falklands and Gulf War 1- the ex-Sergeant engineer's literary career began in 1996 when he co-wrote a book based on his experiences as a soccer casual entitled Everywhere We Go.

This groundbreaking work examined the culture of soccer fandom from the inside and has become essential reading for anyone with an interest in the game and its supporters. A further 13 books have followed ranging from controversial non-fiction to fictional comedy and their success has established the author as one of the worlds leading authorities on the issues of both the game and lad culture.

His latest book, The Art Of Fart, is his first e-xclusive and takes him back into the world on non-politically correct comedy!

Widely acknowledged as one of the games most vocal anti-violence and anti-racism campaigners, Dougie has acted as an advisor to both the British governments working group into soccer disorder and the European commissions' soccer group. He has also written extensively for various magazines, newspapers and websites including The Sun, The Times, The New York Times, The Guardian. Loaded, Four-Four-Two magazine, About.com and Soccer 365.

In 2003 Dougie made the move into screenwriting first with the critically acclaimed short movie IT'S A CASUAL LIFE and then with his first full length feature, the Hollywood funded GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS starring Elijah Wood. Following its release in September 2005, the film won numerous awards including:

Narrative Jury Prize - SXSW Film Festival
Narrative Feature Audience - SXSW Film Festival
Best of Festival - Malibu Film Festival
Jury Award (feature) - Malibu Film Festival
Official Selection - Tribeca Film Festival

After a successful worldwide cinema release, the movie went on to sell over 80,000 DVD units during its first week on sale in the UK alone.

TV and radio credits include Sky News, BBC News, BBC News24, NBC, CBN, ESPN, Talk Radio and Radio 5 Live whilst Dougie has also produced and presented two motorsport series for Granada Television as well as working as a presenter for Bravo TV. In 2007, he also produced a motorsport series for Channel 5 in the UK covering the sport of BrisCA Formula One Stock Car racing.

The fact that he has been so prolific has not gone unnoticed within the media industry and this has led to an increasing number of requests to input ideas into creative projects including two major internet projects one of which was the first ever on-line soap opera for children.

Dougie is currently working on a new hooligan based movie for a major British production company whilst ongoing projects include screenplays for the forthcoming Brit-zombie flick Killerweed (currently in pre-production), Mister One Hundred (a biography of Welsh darts legend Leighton Rees. Currently in pre-production), Wings of a Sparrow (a football based comedy), Soldier, Soldier (based around the war in Afghanistan) and an adaptation of his own novel, Top Dog.

 

Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A Surprisingly Decent Page-Turner, September 2, 2002
This review is from: The Crew (Paperback)
British hooligan authority Brimson turns his hand to fiction in this surprisingly readable bit of pulp about a top hooligan and the policeman with a sworn vendetta against him. The plot is fairly simple, DI Paul Jarvis of the National Football Intelligence Unit watched a fellow policeman die a few years previously in a hooligan rampage orchestrated by Billy Evans. Fast-forward a few years and Evans is a top man and a semi-respectable used car dealer. Jarvis discovers Evans is planning something big in conjunction with an England game in Italy, and tries every means possible to find out what. Part of that means putting the screws on those trusted by Evans, and soon enough, Jarvis has got a grass to go along with the undercover officer already on the scene. The story builds nicely to the climax in Italy, and has a really well setup twist at the end that'll leave you shaking your head. I didn't expect much from this book, and to be sure, it's not of the same quality as John King, but it does deliver a page-turning punch of a read.
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4.0 out of 5 stars A Ruck of a Book, January 23, 2012
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This review is from: The Crew (Paperback)
I thought I had an understanding of British soccer hooligans, but Dougie Brimson's "The Crew" is an in-depth novelization of the hooligan life and the police response to it. This topic seems to have dominated Brimson's writing career since 1997. Hooliganism is an odd-subculture of sport, which we we've only seen in diminutive form in the United States - small riots when teams win; small riots when they lose; the occasional fight at a baseball or football game. But British hooliganism, and European hooliganism as far as that goes, is fighting for the sake of fighting, territorialism in the extreme, more like American gang culture. Perhaps it's the popularity of football, the xenophobia of the hooligan class, and the geographical proximity but historical separation from Europe that makes British hooliganism abroad legendary. That's also what forms the framework for "The Crew." From street fights among hooligan crews in Britain, the book broadens out to fears of a hooligan invasion of Rome - on behalf of an Italian fascist group - to interrupt an England-Italy international match. With an informant inside a British hooligan crew, England's National Football Intelligence Unit (NFIU) works to reign in the hooligans, stop an international incident, and connect hooligan leader Billy Evans to an incident years earlier that resulted in the death of an NFIU officer and the near-fatal beating of NFIU Detective Paul Jarvis. Throughout the book, Jarvis and Evans match wits as the England-Italy match approaches. Brimson maintains the suspense throughout, from beginning to the surprising end. Don't worry if you don't like football (soccer); that's not what the book's about.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, January 5, 2012
This review is from: The Crew (Kindle Edition)
This is a very well written book. Don't be put off if you aren't an English soccer fan. This is basically a crime novel. But not the usual sort at all. The actual crime can't even be proved to have happened, and the related crime remains forever a who-done-it by the way it's solved. Truly original!!!
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