Football Hooligans

Nigel Cawthorne is the author of Military Commanders and Vietnam - A War Lost and Won. His writing has appeared in over a hundred and fifty newspapers, magazines and partworks - from the Sun to the Financial Times and from Flatbush Life to the New York Tribune. He lives in London.

His son, Colin Cawthorne helped to compile the fi rst-hand accounts that make up this anthology. They have previously worked together on The Mammoth Book of the Mafia.

First-hand accounts of football violence, from infamous Millwall to Man U. Once dubbed 'the English disease', British match-day thuggery has spread right across Europe and beyond. Here is the inside story of that phenomenon from those that were there, taking part in the mayhem.

'Yob Laureate' Dougie Brimson and his brother Eddy offer a compelling description of match-day madness; Colin Ward goes steaming in, while other pieces detail the irresistible aggro of the local Derby, the tragedy inside Heysel Stadium and the violence surrounding England's 1998 World Cup match against Tunisia. Finally, Dougie Brimson asks if the police are not just another 'firm', simply participants in the violence.