‘On an average Saturday, some thirty trains carried police escorts of between two and eight officers. Officers sometimes reached the destination with their uniforms soiled with spittle, and other filth, burnt with cigarette ends, or slashed.’ Charting the history of violent acts committed by football hooligans on the British rail network and London Underground, numerous retired police officers offer a frightening, and often humorous, insight into how they battled ‘the English disease’. Rec...

Meet the UK's most notorious football hooligans. Author Andrew Woods has come face-to-face with Millwall's most famous firm and now, for the first time, the Bushwackers reveal all about their bloodiest battles and fiercest rivalries -- in their own words. But among the camaraderie, the battles of wits with the police and the exhilarating toe-to-toe run-ins with the opposition, this book also examines the history of hooliganism and why measures brought in to combat violence have failed. Pac...

Johnny Adair was born in the Shankhill Road area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The youngest of seven children he was raised a Protestant. As a teenager Johnny and his gang would roam the streets looking for Catholics for no other reason then religion and he bears many scars and war wounds from endless street battles. A young Loyalist, Johnny earned his reputation as a paramilitary leader long before he fully understood the politics but quickly came to realise the purpose of the paramilitar...

Faultless - Football365As EURO 2000 approached, attention once again focused on the potential threat posed by the activities of football hooligans. Not just those from England, but also from Holland, Belgium, Germany,Italy, France and even Turkey.Yet as this last year has proven, whilst the hooligans in other nations cause as much, if not more, trouble than their English counterparts, it is the activities of the fans from this country which always seems to attract the great...

John O'Kane delivers a gripping tale of a life dedicated to football violence and gives an unparalled insight into the reality of being a career hooligan. With 33 criminal convictions against him, plus a further 33 cases either dropped or with a not guilty verdict, O'Kane has been remanded nine times including one charge of attempted murder when he was aged just 18. He became rapidly embroiled in a life of violence and was in and out of prison just as many times as he was in and out of a h...

Meet the men who, for decades, have ruled the football terraces. They are the faces behind the biggest firms in football history; behind the rucks, the rules and the respect. They have caused chaos for the public and the press and struck fear into rival fans that have crossed their path. In this book, the men behind the mobs have joined forces to reveal their experiences as key figures in the most notorious terrace fights. From the bovver boys of the sixties and seventies to the football c...

On St Stephen's Day 1960 Dónal Donnelly made his dramatic escape from the prison known as 'Europe's Alcatraz'. Three years earlier, the teenage Dónal had been convicted of membership of the IRA in the first year of 'Operation Harvest'. He was sentenced to ten years. Here he reflects on why he came to be on top of a prison wall risking his life. This is the story of a man who overcame the hurdles of his early years to live a successful, happy life.

Robert Jeffrey, author of the bestselling "Barlinnie Story" and other true crime books, now tells the remarkable story of the infamous Peterhead Prison in Scotland's far north-east. Built in the 1880s as part of an ambitious humanitarian plan to use convict labour to construct a 'harbour of refuge' on the town's wild, storm-battered coast, it became what some call Scotland's gulag. A cold and brutal place, it has held down the years some of Scotland's most violent criminals and most infamo...

On January 6, 1975, Nottingham Forest were thirteenth in the old Second Division, five points above the relegation places and straying dangerously close to establishing a permanent place for themselves among football's nowhere men.Within five years Brian Clough had turned an unfashionable and depressed club into the kings of Europe, beating everyone in their way and knocking Liverpool off their perch long before Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United had the same idea.This...

In 1961, when Don Revie became manager of Leeds United, they were a struggling Second Division club. By 1974 they had won two League Championships, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (twice), the FA Cup and the League Cup; players like Jack Charlton and Billy Bremner were household names.Yet this was a team that inspired neither admiration nor grudging respect, but rather a deep and visceral loathing – matched only by the bellicose devotion of their own supporters. The undeniable artistry ...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FOOTBALL BOOK OF THE YEAR, SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2018The full story of the man who brought unprecedented – and since unmatched – success to Liverpool FC.Bob Paisley was the quiet man in the flat cap who swept all domestic and European opposition aside and produced arguably the greatest club team that Britain has ever known. The man whose Liverpool team won trophies that dwarf Sir Alex Ferguson's achievements, and who remain...

Authors Arnie Baldursson and Gudmundur Magnusson have used their unparalleled knowledge of Liverpool FC to produce this highly readable account of the Anfield giants' history. Since their birth 120 years ago, Liverpool are one of the most illustrious clubs to grace the world game and are the most successful club in English football history