Among the Thugs

by Bill Buford

book data

884 ratings, 4.03 average rating, 169 reviews (more data...)

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published

June 1st 1993 (first published 1990) by Vintage

binding

Paperback, 320 pages

isbn

0679745351 (isbn13: 9780679745358)

description

They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin' Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the Queen, football clubs (especially Manche...more

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09/10/07

Anders rated it:

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in September, 2007

recommended to Anders by: jason cons
recommends it for: Jacob, to whom I have already lent it

A stunning work of non-fiction, Among the Thugs chronicles Buford's attempts to understand the English phenomenon of soccer hooliganism by immersing himself into its characters, events, and lifestyles. He starts as an outsider, an American living in London for many years without ever attending a soccer game. Intrigued by the stories of violence and lawlessness the games ignite in the supporters of the teams, he sets out to understand how and why so many young and working-class people are continu...more A stunning work of non-fiction, Among the Thugs chronicles Buford's attempts to understand the English phenomenon of soccer hooliganism by immersing himself into its characters, events, and lifestyles. He starts as an outsider, an American living in London for many years without ever attending a soccer game. Intrigued by the stories of violence and lawlessness the games ignite in the supporters of the teams, he sets out to understand how and why so many young and working-class people are continuously worked into a fervor attending soccer games.

But the deeper goal of this book, and this is where it gets interesting is: what are the societal factors which have produced this demographic? Buford comes to the conclusion that the problem is that England's former working class, which has a strong sense of cultural pride attached to it, is no longer the working class. Their income now puts them in the middle class, and the awkwardness of this shift has left them disaffected, in need of the jolts of adrenaline that rioting produces. When they riot, they riot against everything and everyone: their dreary suburban lives, as they randomly assault passersby and destroy property; state power, as they provoke, outsmart, and attack police forces which seek to contain them; and even each other, as they reserve their most vicious attacks for the fans of competing soccer teams. They riot to feel on top of the world, even for only a few minutes, in spite of the danger.

Bill Buford is living the good life. As a highly successful non-fiction author, he puts himself in reality-show-like situations which place him in a lot of potential bodily harm. In Among the Thugs, Buford is often in sketchy situations without a safety net-- in this book he participates in a number of soccer riots, attends a white power party in a pub in England, makes friends with the sketchiest thugs he can find. Basically, he gets your heart pumping from time to time. And not surprisingly, these situations render increasing returns. He gets your attention for when he schools you with the social insights.

In the hands of a lesser writer, this book could've been a lot more annoying. The premise-- studying the soccer hooligans by "becoming one," inasmuch as that is possible-- is a little X-treme for my tastes. But Buford really makes it work, as he seamlessly and realistically combines an interesting, compelling story with his spot-on insights into the English working class.(less)

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12/20/08

Eric_W rated it:

bookshelves: current-affairs

Read in January, 1999

Bill Buford, an American export to Britain, began an exploration of sports violence after he had the misfortune to take a train that was being systematically destroyed by hundreds of Liverpool soccer team supporters - the police seemingly unable to control the riot, indeed as afraid as the other passengers. There is a particularly savage image of a drunk "supporter," as Buford calls the hooligans, throwing lighted matches on the shoes of a well-to-do businessman riding in first-class, ...more Bill Buford, an American export to Britain, began an exploration of sports violence after he had the misfortune to take a train that was being systematically destroyed by hundreds of Liverpool soccer team supporters - the police seemingly unable to control the riot, indeed as afraid as the other passengers. There is a particularly savage image of a drunk "supporter," as Buford calls the hooligans, throwing lighted matches on the shoes of a well-to-do businessman riding in first-class, perhaps hoping to set the man's pants on fire, the man trying to ignore the barbaric gesture. To Buford, this act became symbolic of the revolt of the unemployed and uneducated against class distinctions: sports fans "determined to break or destroy the things that were in their way."

Buford's English friends were not surprised; this was normal behavior for the "lads." What did surprise them was that Buford had never been to a soccer match. So they took him. It was quite an event:
spectators urinating on one another, fighting, manhandling the police, wrestling for their seats. Buford decided to investigate "them."
Some of the behavior Buford attributes to the design of English football (soccer). The spectators become crowds. There are not enough seats for all; most stand to watch and are pressed together in a remarkable intimacy during the game. When they leave, the observers must exit through narrow gates and are forced to herd together in a fashion Buford could only describe as a stampede. Indeed, they are fenced in (often with chain linked fences topped with several rows of barbed wire curved ill towards the spectators) during the match in conditions much like a stockyard. Buford recalls one match: "the single toilet facility overflowing, and my feet slapping around in the urine that came pouring down the concrete steps of the terrace, the crush so great that I had to clinch my toes to keep my shoes from being pulled off, horrified by the prospect of my woolen socks soaking up this cascading pungent liquid still warm and steaming in the cold air. The conditions are appalling, but essential: it is understood that anything more civilized would diffuse the experience."

Unfortunately, the type of fan that enjoys this experience is also one that the British National Front, the neo-Nazi party, believes is most responsive to its race-baiting, jingoistic, xenophobic literature and propaganda, and they do their very best to enlist cadres of football fans into groups that revel in violence and class hatred.

The truly scary revelation of this book is Buford's discovery of how easily he became part of the crowd and began to act just like them. Crowds are mindless. Crowds are primitive, barbaric. childish, fickle, unpredictable, capricious, dirty. and vicious. Crowds kill. They killed Jesus and Socrates. They murdered at the Bastille, in Mississippi, and in front of the Wmter Palace. People in crowds are typically those who have "abandoned intelligence. discrimination, judgment. " They are "unable to think for themselves, are vulnerable to agitators, outside influences, infiltrators, communists, fascists, racists, nationalists, phalangists, and spies."

Why have people adopted this manner of behavior? Is it biological, innate to our species, or does it result from environmental conditions, overcrowding and poverty? Buford theorizes that the English working class has essentially disappeared, that most jobs are "service" or white collar. "This bored, empty, decadent generation consists of nothing more than what it ap~s 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, bums its flesh so that it has smell."

(less)

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3 comments

04/12/08

Roy rated it:

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: anyone who thinks Europe is perfect

The English disease in all its gory. This book does a wonderful job of reporting and commenting on the horror of soccer crowds. For me, this comes after a six month fascination with soccer violence. There is very little to explain why hooligans do what they do, but what interests me is that this is a problem that seems to effect most western "civilized" nations except the good old U. S. of A. In discussing this issue with a friend, we both expressed surprise. Surprise not in the p...more

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11/10/07

Jessica rated it:

bookshelves: groups-of-people, kind-of-depressing

Read in January, 2002

recommends it for: hooliganologists

Topical this week!

I know this is a terrible thing to say, but I do take some perverse comfort in knowing there is at least one bizarre, violent social problem occuring in modern industrialized nations, that the United States does not have.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

4 comments

06/30/09

Jennifer rated it:

bookshelves: newsweek-what-to-read-now

One of the few books I remember clearly from my undergraduate years. I loved the reading list for Jim Kincaid's class on the "other" and our perspectives on perversion.

The scene where the hooligan SUCKS OUT THE EYE FROM ANOTHER PERSON still sticks with me.

Definitely a topical book - in a time where people react with such violence to seemingly ordinary things like football games, Buford tries to explain motivations.

I saw this on a list of books tha...more

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12/27/08

Will rated it:

Read in January, 2009

This was a page turner for me. I found it hard to put it down at times. I picked it up mostly because of my interest in soccer. I found it to be about so much more. Buford does an excellent job of describing the violent situations he encountered. His writing reminds me of Bill Bryson. I found the book to be particularly interesting given that the Bart Shooting/Faux Riots were taking place. Buford observes that it is never the intention of the group to become violent. It is always the fault of a ...more

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05/27/09

Robert Baird added it

Buford, an American sportswriter, gives a first hand account of European soccer culture in the late 1980s, when hooliganism was at its peak and the game's commercial modernization was just a few years away. He witnesses the tragic events at Heysel and Hillsborough, the brutal quarantine of English fans in Sardinia during the 1990 World Cup, and the weekly episodes of mob violence on English streets. This book is graphic, and is full of human depravity, but is also an excellent memoir of a time...more

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07/09/08

Idiosyncratic rated it:

Read in July, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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06/03/08

Ryan rated it:

Read in August, 2008

Disturbing. Disturbing subject matter, disturbing information gathering, disturbing little details. In researching crowd violence--with an emphasis on the riots and mayhem surrounding British football matches at the time--Bill Buford treads the gonzo line by befriending violently patriotic vandals and outcasts (one of whom, when visiting a match in Italy, thinks the opposing team name is the name of the city he's in), getting drunk with them, and getting swept up with them into late-night bouts ...more

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08/29/07

Kara rated it:

recommends it for: you.

i wrote a review of this book for the lit mag Lonely Seagull. it went something like...

"Among the Thugs is the true story of an American journalist, Buford, who slowly makes his way into the surprisingly organized world of football hooligans in order to find out why English football supporters, Manchester United fans in particular, are among the most violent sports fans in the world. His question is simple: what makes these men and boys act the way they do? Buford makes the assu...more

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07/14/07

James rated it:

Read in June, 2007

As a closet English football - soccer in the USA - fan (and no, I don't believe MLS is as good as European football even with the addition of David Beckham) and with an interest in male development & gender role issues, I was intrigued by the recommondation from a friend to read this book. If I had grown up in England, I think it could have been very probable to find me every saturday at some football stadium drunk on lagers and chanting away for the team of my choice. I settle for Philadelphia ...more

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02/05/08

Steve rated it:

Read in January, 2006

Buford's account of his immersion into the world of football fans is self absorbed but very entertaining. He often belittles the lads who befriend him but his excitement when facing down opposing club fans or the encroaching police is the allure of this book. He wants to get violent - the mob mentality sweeps you up and absorbs your frustrations which then explode. This happens all over the world but why it's excessive in the UK is a good question.

Ultimate fighting, fight clubs, hoc...more

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04/15/08

Brian rated it:

Read in February, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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05/25/09

Mando rated it:

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in June, 2009

I got about halfway through this book, when I hit a point of not wanting to read it anymore. I'm a stubborn person, however, and I was determined to make it to the end. I got really sick of hearing about violence among football supporters; it was all so repetitive and pathetic.

By the time I got to the end of the book I realized the point of all that. I had experienced all the feelings the author had. At first I was fascinated by the phenomenon, then I found it blaise, then I un...more

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05/17/09

Jonathan Beams rated it:

Read in November, 2008

A first person account of the seductions, banalities, and shocking horror of football hooliganism as experienced by the author. A coming of age story, a cultural anthropology, and a voyeuristic spectacle of the triumph of tribalism, rage and hedonism over the willing individual. At turns grim, hilarious, and revelatory - it may change how you think about groups, grunts, and the Boston Red Sox.

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05/04/09

Justin Craig rated it:

Read in January, 1999

Fascinating, an American author visits the UK and on seeing a football match is intrigued by the antics of the hooligans. 7 years later he had gone fully native; a member of the notorious Manchester Utd Red Devils gang, and the national front. He then somehow emerges as a rational human being to write this book, an extraordinary exploration of the darkest dreggs of mainstream British culture.

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06/23/09

Aengus rated it:

Bill Buford, editor of the English literary magazine, Granta, took a leave of absence to spend a year with soccer hooligans. These aimless thugs are the filter Buford uses to examine British society and the demise of it's working class. It contains one of the most harrowing, perceptive first hand accounts of the phsycology of mass violence written.

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07/04/09

Jared rated it:

Anything soccer related, I'm a sucker for... It's a couple of lengthy experiences strung together... An American hanging out with soccer hooligans in England... However, it busts it's nut too early... My favorite moment in the book is only a few chapters in, and then after that are moments that are good, but not as viscerally enjoyable...

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02/01/08

Liz rated it:

bookshelves: biography-memoir, british, hobbies, non-fiction

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: anybody who liked <i>Green Street Hooligans</i>

I enjoyed this book, but I don't quite feel it lived up to my expectations. I'd read excerpts of this book through other sources, most recently The New Kings of Nonfiction, and enjoyed those; I've also read and enjoyed other things Buford has written. As a whole, I felt the book trailed off towards the end.

The book may also have suffered a little bit over time. Published in the early 1990s about Buford's experiences with football in the late 1980s, it was slighted dated in both tech...more

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05/25/07

Kristin Little rated it:

Read in October, 2003

Required reading for my "Sports and Society" class. Despite it being required, it was really very interesting, and something I would recommend for the non-academic who has a morbid curiosity about the violence of sports and a really strong stomach. This book chronicles a reporter's time with the football (soccer) thugs of Manchester United. If you think post sporting event riots in this country are out of hand, be thankful you don't live in Europe, where these guys (some of which aren'...more

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"All this intelligent and careful work revealed a man of great forethought. Yet you could see in Mr. Wicks's eyes--as he stood in the shade of the terminal awning, all that tweed and education waving to us, as one by one each bus pulled out for the noisy drive into the city--that he had failed." More quotes...