1312: Among the Ultras

Author: James Montague
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473559650
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
You can see them, but you don't know them. Ultras are football fans like no others. A hugely visible and controversial part of the global game, their credo and aesthetic replicated in almost every league everywhere on earth, a global movement of extreme fandom and politics is also one of the largest youth movements in the world. Yet they remain unknown: an anti-establishment force that is transforming both football and politics. In this book, James Montague goes underground to uncover the true face of this dissident force for the first time. 1312: Among the Ultras tells the story of how the movement began and how it grew to become the global phenomenon that now dominates the stadiums from the Balkans and Buenos Aires. With unprecedented insider access, the book investigates how ultras have grown into a fiercely political movement, embracing extremes on both the left and right; fighting against the commercialisation of football and society – and against the attempts to control them by the authorities, who both covet and fear their power.

Thirty-One Nil

Author: James Montague
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408158841
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
The story of the immense struggle to qualify for the 2014 Brazilian World Cup, Thirty-One Nil roams from American Samoa to Zambia in a remarkable and insightful journey that gets under the skin of world football.

Ultra

Author: Tobias Jones
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786697351
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 439

Book Description
Winner of the Daily Telegraph Football Book of the Year Ultras are often compared to punks, Hell's Angels, hooligans or the South American Barras Bravas. But in truth, they are a thoroughly Italian phenomenon... From the author of The Dark Heart of Italy, Blood on the Altar and A Place of Refuge. Italy's ultras are the most organised and violent fans in European football. Many groups have evolved into criminal gangs, involved in ticket-touting, drug-dealing and murder. A cross between the Hell's Angels and hooligans, they're often the foot-soldiers of the Mafia and have been instrumental in the rise of the far-right. But the purist ultras say that they are are insurgents fighting against a police state and modern football. Only amongst the ultras, they say, can you find belonging, community and a sacred concept of sport. They champion not just their teams, they say, but their forgotten suburbs and the dispossessed. Through the prism of the ultras, Jones crafts a compelling investigation into Italian society and its favourite sport. He writes about not just the ultras of some of Italy's biggest clubs – Juventus, Torino, Lazio, Roma and Genoa – but also about its lesser-known ones from Cosenza and Catania. He examines the sinister side of football fandom, with its violence and political extremism, but also admires the passion, wit, solidarity and style of a fascinating and contradictory subculture.

The Billionaires Club

Author: James Montague
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472923138
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
A compelling examination of football club ownership in the era of the super-rich Once upon a time football was run by modest local businessmen. Today it is the plaything of billionaire oligarchs, staggeringly wealthy from oil and gas, from royalty, or from murkier sources. But who are these new masters of the universe? Where did all their money come from? And what do they want with our beautiful game? While almost cloaked in secrecy, the billionaire owner has to raise his head above the bunker when it comes to football ownership – a rare Achilles heel that allows access to worlds normally off limits journalists and outsiders. In the Billionaires Club James Montague delves deeper than anyone ever dared, to tell this story for the first time. He criss-crosses the world – from Dhaka to Doha, from China to Crewe, from St Louis to London, from Bangkok to Belgium – to profile this new elite, their network of money and their influence that defies geographic boundaries. The Billionaires Club is part history of club ownership, part in-depth investigation into the money and influence that connects the super-rich around the globe, and part travel book as he follows the ever-shifting trail around the globe in an attempt to reveal the real force behind modern-day football. At its heart The Billionaires Club is a football book, about some of the biggest clubs in the world. But it is also about something bigger: the world around us, the global economy, where the world is headed and how football has become an essential cog in this machine. The book discusses the dawn European Super League, and the repercussions for the future of the game.

Soccer Vs. the State

Author: Gabriel Kuhn
Publisher: Pm Press
ISBN: 9781604860535
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
From its working-class roots to commercialisation and resistance to it - this is football history for the politically conscious fan. Football is a multi-billion pound industry. Professionalism and commercialisation dominate its global image. Yet the game retains a rebellious side, maybe more so than any other sport co-opted by money-makers and corrupt politicians. Soccer vs. The State traces its amazing history.

The Outsiders

Author: James Corbett
Publisher: Eye Books (US&CA)
ISBN: 1785632612
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
Lost loves and painful truths against the backdrop of Liverpool's fall and riseLiverpool 1981: as the city burns during inner city riots, Paul meets two people who will change his life: Nadezhda, an elusive poet who has fallen out of fashion; and her daughter Sarah, with whom he shares an instant connection. As the summer reaches its climax his feelings for both are tested amidst secrets, lies and the unravelling of Nadezhda's past. It is an experience that will define the rest of his life.The Outsiders moves from early-80s Liverpool, via Nadezhda's clandestine background in war-torn Europe, through to the present day, taking in the global and local events that shape all three characters.In a powerful story of hidden histories, lost loves and painful truths ambitiously told against the backdrop of Liverpool's fall and rise, James Corbett's enthralling debut novel explores the complexities of human history and how individual perspectives of the past shape everyone's present.

Casuals

Author: Phil Thornton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781903854143
Category : Fashion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Phil Thornton explains how the hooligan firms evolved and describes how the working-class fascination with sharp dressing and sartorial one-upmanship crystallised the often bitter rivalries of crews across England.

When Friday Comes

Author: James Montague
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781845963699
Category : Middle East
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
'When Friday Comes' is an insightful, humorous account of James Montague's journey through the Middle East, during which he encounters a rioting group of fanatical young Jews who do a passable line in mockney, and the Iraqi national team, who strip him and make him dance for them on their team bus.

Grobar

Author: James Moor
Publisher: eBook Partnership
ISBN: 190962604X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
An Arsenal fan is forced to ditch his first love and switch allegiances to a new team. Handed a Foreign Office posting to Belgrade, James Moor gives up his season ticket and looks for a new Serbian team to support. Being a veteran of the Congo and Helmand Province war zones stands him in good stead for what follows. Having chosen Partizan over Red Star, James enters a scene awash with nationalism, xenophobia, and conspiracy theories. He lifts the lid on Serbian fan culture, Partizan's internal disputes, and violence between the club's own Grobari (Undertakers) supporters as well as with their hated local rivals. Moor attends matches among crowds of 50,000 and 2,000, and sees games interrupted by stadium fires at a club permanently at war with itself. And this is before former Chelsea boss Avram Grant takes over midway through a tumultuous season at home and in Europe.

Football, Fascism and Fandom

Author: Alberto Testa
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408132621
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
Not to be confused with the English football 'hooligan', the UltraS are the hardcore subculture of fans at the two main Rome football clubs - AS Roma and SS Lazio. With neo-fascist sympathies, these groups (the Boys at Roma and the Irriducibili at Lazio) are political and well-organised. Following years of work inside the groups and interviews with the leading figures within the organisations, Gary Armstrong and Alberto Testa have written a fascinating expose and examination of the UltraS. Football, Fascism and Fandom is a unique and terrifying study of a group that has not been examined in depth before now.