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Bill Buford
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Among the Thugs Paperback – June 1, 1993

by Bill Buford (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 1,218 ratings
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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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  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Vintage Books
  4. Publication date
    June 1, 1993
  5. Dimensions
    5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0679745351
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0679745358
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From the Publisher

NYT Book Review praises book as important, prophetic, and emotionally complex

Newsweek says Brilliant ... one of the most unnerving books you will ever read.

Washington Post Book World says Animated, witty, and so pungent you can taste the stale lager.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A grotesque, horrifying, repellent and gorgeous book; A Clockwork Orange come to life." --John Gregory Dunne

"An important, perhaps prophetic, book ... both exciting and sad at the core.... [Buford is] a superbly talented reporter." --The New York Times Book Review

"Brilliant ... one of the most unnerving books you will ever read." --Newsweek

Like Michael Herr or Ryszard Kapuscinski, Buford has witnessed events which can only be compared in intensity to those of a war ... an unflinching look into the festering soul of England ... a fuckin' great read." --David Byrne

Animated, witty, and so pungent you can taste the stale lager." --Washington Post Book World

From the Inside Flap

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.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Books
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 1, 1993
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679745351
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679745358
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches
  • Best Sellers Rank: #52,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 1,218 ratings

About the author

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Bill Buford

Bill Buford

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Bill Buford was the fiction editor of the New Yorker for eight years, where he first came upon Walton Ford's work to illustrate some of the stories he published. He is now a New Yorker staff writer. He was also the founding editor of Granta and has written two books, Among the Thugs and Heat: An Amateur's Advantures as a Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. He lives in New York City with his wife Jessica Green, and their two sons.

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
1,218 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find this book highly readable and entertaining, with excellent writing and good reportage. The book provides an insightful view into England's hooligan culture and the world of European soccer, with one customer describing it as an exciting story of the firms and hooliganism surrounding English football. Customers appreciate its humor and interesting look at football hooligans, though the violence level receives mixed reactions, with some finding it disturbing.

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ReadabilityResearch qualityStory qualityWriting qualityInsightHumorLookViolence level
48 customers mention "Readability"46 positive2 negative

Customers find the book extremely readable and entertaining, with one customer noting that the first few chapters are particularly brilliant.

"Interesting read. I grew up watching the games in England in the 80's and was unaware of quite the extent of violence that went on...." Read more

"Great read. Very entertaining." Read more

"...I am not into sports of any type, but took his word tht it was good read. WOW! More like a great read!..." Read more

"...It's a great read" Read more

15 customers mention "Research quality"12 positive3 negative

Customers praise the research quality of the book, with one customer noting it provides an eyewitness account from English football terraces, while others highlight its good reportage.

"Well written and in depth book, but definitely disturbing...." Read more

"A fantastic study of both the beautiful game and those who look to ugly it up." Read more

"great reporting actually -- every once in a while i had to ask myself, 'this is true?' -- stunning" Read more

"...He lost me more than once as it came off a bit academic. Would not recommend unless you need a source to write about crowd mentality." Read more

12 customers mention "Story quality"11 positive1 negative

Customers enjoy the well-told story of the book, with one customer describing it as an exciting account of the firms and hooliganism surrounding English football, while another notes its tragic elements.

"Simple story. An American journalist living in Britain decides to chronicle soccer hooliganism by becoming part of it...." Read more

"Extremely interesting, well-told story of the author's experience of the culture of football holligans in the UK...." Read more

"...Such an amazing story has to be read to be believed...." Read more

"...know exactly what I was expecting from this book but it was an interesting story and although it takes a deep look at the violence of English..." Read more

12 customers mention "Writing quality"11 positive1 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book.

"Interesting look into football hooligans. Well written and run read." Read more

"Very well written book on the violence associated with football in Europe. It is very entertaining and easy to read." Read more

"...Bill Buford is a masterful writer and he deeply embedded himself into the scene...." Read more

"Possibly my all-time favorite read. Brilliant writing." Read more

11 customers mention "Insight"10 positive1 negative

Customers praise the book for its excellent view into England's hooligan culture and its exploration of crowd psychology and English football, with one customer noting it provides great insight into European soccer.

"Enjoyed this book. Interesting perspective on the British football fan. Something not seen or understood in the American sports scene." Read more

"...Content-wise, it's an excellent view into England's hooligan culture, as well as English national pride and regional association...." Read more

"...Burford did a great job getting the story together and shining a light on English society I had previously not known about...." Read more

"...The book really helped me to understand the culture in greater detail than any other book I have read." Read more

10 customers mention "Humor"9 positive1 negative

Customers find the book humorous, with one mentioning that Buford's observations are particularly amusing.

"...The book is humorous and fascinating and tragic at the same time...." Read more

"...is the high point, but I find myself rereading every bit of this incredibly funny and disturbing book every year or so with equal enjoyment." Read more

"...The subject matter both horrified and entertained me, which is sort of how Buford described the experience of the ultraviolence of being "among the..." Read more

"...Disturbing to learn about the level of violence. It was an entertaining and compelling read, but ultimately left me a little sadder about human..." Read more

8 customers mention "Look"8 positive0 negative

Customers find the book visually appealing and interesting, particularly for its insights into football hooligan culture, with one customer noting its sociological and psychological perspective.

"Interesting look into football hooligans. Well written and run read." Read more

"fascinating look at what people are capable of under the right/wrong circumstances." Read more

"A fantastic study of both the beautiful game and those who look to ugly it up." Read more

"I accidentally bought the wrong book so I returned this. It looks really interesting, so I sometimes wonder if I should have kept it...." Read more

11 customers mention "Violence level"5 positive6 negative

Customers have mixed reactions to the violence in the book, finding it shocking and disturbing, with one customer noting its epic descriptions of insane violence, while another mentions it becomes gratuitous after a while.

"...A frightening and disturbing book in many, many ways but I enjoyed Buford's writing and his ability to capture people, places, journeys, and events..." Read more

"...Hilarious and terrifying. It foreshadows today, the rise of the right, and the end of democracy." Read more

"Well written and in depth book, but definitely disturbing...." Read more

"Interesting (disturbing!) account of English soccer-fan violence. Buford really situates his readers in the culture and violence...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Books Rock
    5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting intro to fan violence
    Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2025
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Interesting (disturbing!) account of English soccer-fan violence. Buford really situates his readers in the culture and violence. It’s an enlightening and uncomfortable read that raises a lot of questions about fan behavior and larger social reactions to anti-social behavior.
    One person found this helpful
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  • David
    4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read, but author gets too philosophical
    Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2014
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This was an interesting book to say the least. Bill Burford did a great job getting the story together and shining a light on English society I had previously not known about. This book shows that this was way more than being a supporter of a soccer club, but more of a gang looking to cause havoc on society and inflict as much pain and destruction as possible. I enjoyed the graphic detail he went in when describing the incidents. It made it as if I was there standing right next to him.

    However, the one thing I did not enjoy about this book is when Bill Burford would go on these philosophical rants about groups and whatnot. He would start quoting Plato and other philosophers and that is the point where I would tend to get lost of what he is trying to say. Personally, it seemed he was trying too hard to be a sociologist instead of just an author explaining the thug like behaviors of the English soccer fans.
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  • Salt1907
    5.0 out of 5 stars The herd mentality
    Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2017
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    One of the few books I have read that is impossible to put down. Buford has created a book-length study not only of soccer hooliganism, but of the lure of groupthink.

    The book is humorous and fascinating and tragic at the same time.

    I will not try to repeat the thoughts of the other reviewers, but I will point out what I consider the most noteworthy aspect of the story. As Buford got sucked further into the world of soccer, he found himself attracted to the lure of the herd mentality. He briefly took pride when the thug leaders included him in their plans and activities. He found himself acting more antisocial at home after being in the ruckus at a soccer match. He could feel the entire stadium breathing and gasping as one due to the cramped conditions.

    This book provides more than simply Buford's observations of soccer violence. We see also Buford's own journey into and out of the world of the thugs as he tried to put it all into context. This book is essential for anyone who cares to understand mass movements and the motivations for so much of our behavior, regardless of whether one cares about soccer.

    If you are not sure that you would enjoy a book that involves soccer, first try watching any one of the online documentaries about any soccer riot/tragedy over the past forty years. It is very easy to get up to speed.
    15 people found this helpful
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  • Michael Burnam-fink
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Nihilism of Lad Culture Laid Bare
    Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2018
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Among the Thugs stands next The Hell's Angels as an unflinching look at a violent male subculture, in this case the classic English football hooligan of the 1980s. Buford was an American living in England. What he depicts as an idle curiosity about a strange feature of English culture, much sensationalized by the press, became a multiyear sociological study.

    It is an undeniable fact that by all conventional measures, attending a football game in England is a terrible way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Bad weather, hours walking and standing on cement terraces, and being crushed in narrow passageways and too-small cages by a drunk mass, chanting, mass of the lads. There's also a chance of random violence at the hands of supporters of the other team, of the police, or the crowd itself. And then there's the minor problems of no parking, poor transit, and sanitary facilities consisting of 'pee on the people lower than you'. But somehow, thousands if not millions of English headed out to the grounds every Saturday. Football gives the week meaning. In a series of short narrative essays about his experiences across England and the continent, with all sorts of fringe members of "the Firm", Buford explores what that meaning is.

    Buford's first topic is the crowd itself, human individuality compressed into the herd, submerged in the crush, the chanting, the mass of movements. The crowd is the the base of everything else in football, an animal energy that is the true draw, not the action on the pitch. Crowds are fickle things, always an outsider to the body politic. The crowd demands a leader, but one cannot just declare themselves the leader of the crowd, you must be chosen.

    The second theme is violence. The crowd is a means to an end, and "when it goes off", as signaled by someone throwing a trash bin through a window, the crowd becomes animated in mass violence, from throwing stones at riot police, to mass property destruction and semi-random knifings. If being part of a crowd is transforming, being part of a violent mob is ecstatic: Buford describes feeling like he could fly, the electric thrill of chasing and being chased, and he was a journalist maintaining his distance from the event.

    The third theme is racism. The lads are proud to be English, happy to tell you they don't much care for non-white people or foreigners, and delighted to go to another country and be as beastly as possible to the inhabitants. Buford attends a National Front white power disco, a profoundly weird homoerotic punk-rock rave, of shirtless skinheads men jumping up and down in a mass and rubbing each other's heads while their girlfriends look on. While the football firms are gleefully racist, and white power foot soldiers football fanatics, there's not a true alliance between the two, because the mid-80s leadership of the National Front are a bunch of dweebs afraid of the raw physicality of the crowd.

    And of course there's the minor stuff, life "on the jib" to get as much stolen beer and illegal rides out of football as possible. After all, who can compel payment from a crowd? There's the ambiguous relationship between hooligans, the press, and law enforcement. There's the Hillsborough disaster, and crowd control reform. There's the international hustling of 'DJ', a counterfeiter and aspiring photographer from a privileged background.

    But ultimately, this book is about The Lads and their mythos. Buford observes that in England, it is just not done for members of the literati to talk about the working class, and so no one will admit that the true "English working class" has vanished. I quote in full.

    "It is still possible, I suppose, to belong to a phrase-the working class—a piece of language that serves to reinforce certain social customs and a way of talking and that obscures the fact that the only thing hiding behind it is a highly mannered suburban society stripped of culture and sophistication and living only for its affectations: a bloated code of maleness, an exaggerated, embarrassing patriotism, a violent nationalism, an array of bankrupt antisocial habits. This bored, empty, decadent generation consists of nothing more than what it appears to be. It is a lad culture without mystery, so deadened that it uses violence to wake itself up. It pricks itself so that it has feeling, burns its flesh so that it has smell."

    Yeah. You feel that?

    Go Manchester United!
    11 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Russell Courtenay Jenkins
    5.0 out of 5 stars great delivery
    Reviewed in Germany on September 18, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    A great read.
    Report
  • Simon Bourke
    5.0 out of 5 stars Arguably the greatest book about fandom, and the culture of fandom, ever written.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 7, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    I have read several books detailing the heydey of football hooliganism, but none come close to Among the Thugs. As others have stated what makes this book stand out is that it is written from a neutral perspective. It's hard to think of someone so removed from the British working-class as Bill Buford, a scholar and an academic from Louisiana. And it is this 'fish out of water' factor which makes Among the Thugs such an enjoyable read. Buford inserts himself into scenarios and situations in which he has no business being in, often with surprising results. The notion of him running through the streets of Turin with Manchester United fans as they 'take the city' is so ludicrous as to be comical, but his accounts of what he saw unfolding before him are far from humorous. He reports on the violence in a visceral and vivid way, not dressing it up like the hooligans themselves might have, but instead focusing on the human element. Throughout the book we share his abject horror as he watches these 'little s***s' inflict misery upon the lives of innocent, law-abiding members of society, all in the name of England or whatever town or city they hail from. At times Buford digresses a little too much, and his departures into the sociological factors at play are overly long and and somewhat long-winded. But those minor missteps aside this is an incredible piece of writing from start to finish and one that I'd whole-heartedly recommend to anyone with an interest in football hooliganism or indeed, the lives of the young, working-class males of Britain during the Thatcher years.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
    Reviewed in Canada on April 18, 2025
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Great book.
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  • santien1008
    5.0 out of 5 stars Buen libro
    Reviewed in Spain on April 9, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Libro entretenido para entender los movimientos hooligans ingleses de los 80. Entretenido a la vez que duro en ocasiones.
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  • Amazon Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars compellingly violent
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 2, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Furious in its description of violence, that you almost felt like you were there. The crescendo of the book, in Sardinia, was masterfully done. Brutal, mindless fighting. As much as the parade of characters seemed to glean glory from their actions, pain seemed to be the cost of it for others. Hillsborough described so poignantly, horrific to recall
    Report