A wild exploration of crowd violence and nationalism.
This book was so much more and so much better than what I expected. I’m not even interested in football, or soccer, or sport of any kind, but this book was actually hardly about any of that. It was a wild exploration of crowd violence and nationalism, through the lens of English football hooliganism in the 1980s. I was surprised by the relevance all these years later. The timeline of the book was a bit hard to follow, but maybe this is what Buford intended: the violence becomes so routine that it’s hard to even pin a violent event down or differentiate it from any other weekend news story.
Vibes
- crowd violence
- nationalism
- English football hooliganism
- the 1980s
- immersive journalism
Favorite quote
“What principle governed the British sporting event? It appeared that, in exchange for a few pounds, you received one hour and forty-five minutes characterized by the greatest possible exposure to the worst possible weather, the greatest number of people in the smallest possible space, and the greatest number of obstacles—unreliable transportation, no parking, an intensely dangerous crush at the only exit, a repellent polio pond to pee into, last minute changes of the starting time—to keep you from ever attending a match again.”
Would recommend to
Almost any reader, especially those who enjoy thoughtful and immersive journalism, the 1980s, or exploration of class, race, and nationalism.