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The Football Factory [Paperback]

John King
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (1 May 1997)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099731916
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099731917
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.8 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 289,005 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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John King
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Product Description

Review

'The best book I've read about football and working-class culture in Britain in the nineties. Buy, steal or borrow a copy now' Irvine Welsh 'King's novel is not only an outstanding read, but also an important social document...This book should be compulsory reading for all those who believe in the existence, or even the attainability of a classless society' Sunday Tribune 'The Football Factory will do for hooligan culture what Trainspotting did for Edinburgh housing estates' Select ' Powerfully written and tells you more about the mentality of those who disrupt football matches than all the theses of the sociologist academics put together' Daily Mail 'Bleak, thought-provoking and brutal, The Football Factory has all the hallmarks of a cult novel' Literary Review --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

A raw, powerful first novel, THE FOOTBALL FACTORY centres on Tom Johnson, a reasoned 'Chelsea hooligan' who represents a disaffected society operating by brutal rules. We are shown the realities of life - social degradation, unemployment, racism, casual violence, excessive drink and bad sex - and, perhaps more importantly, how they fall into a political context of surveillance, media manipulation and division. Graphic and disturving, occasionally very funny, and deeply affecting throughout, THE FOOTBALL FACTORY is a vertiginous rush of adrenaline - the most authentic book yet onthe so-called English Disease.

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Customer Reviews

24 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (24 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars People who have given this book negitive reviews, just don't want to believe this world exists anymore!, 23 Aug 2011
This review is from: The Football Factory (Paperback)
From the exclusive corporate boxes, to the high-rise tower blocks, young Asians to elderly white men, this book covers all the angles which surround the communities, which in turn, surrounds the football stadiums.
It isn't about Football as such, even so this is at the centre of most of the stories, it is about the community which once supported it, but has now been priced out, and left behind.
From old skinheads, to punks, socialists,'mindless' thugs, and men who landed on the Normandy beaches in forty-four, this book leaves no area unturned, and confronts the issues of sexism, racism, and working-class culture, bravely and honestly.
John King doesn't shy away from how 'real' people talk, and how 'real' people think. For many of us it is the language we hear in pubs every Saturday, but rarely hear on mainstream television or film. Whch has for too long, tried to deny that some of these thoughts still exist amoung the average male in the country.
This book is as important as Alan Sillitoe's, Saturday night and Sunday morning, because it has given a voice in contemporary literature to a section of society which didn't have one before.
I hope it will be remembered as a cult classic, which inspired a film which didn't even attempt to cover half the subject matter the book does.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Good football fiction for adults, 15 Aug 2010
This review is from: The Football Factory (Paperback)
Most football fiction for adults is rubbish. This is great. I read it the week it came out when I was a bookseller and no book has ever surpassed it.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Crucial Reading, 11 Jan 2001
By 
A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Football Factory (Paperback)
Interesting and disturbing depiction of a contemporary working-class Londoner. The novel portrays a bleak England which has little to offer its poor, white natives. The central character--who one imagines must be loosely based on the author--is a nasty man, whose one outlet is football hooliganism. A Chelsea fan, he defines his existence not around actual matches and scores, so much as he does around the pre and post-match violence (if any). The book seems to suggest that for him, and his ilk, society has nothing to offer and he must retreat to the camaraderie of his fighting friends to find any release and meaning in his existence. The chapters alternate between focusing on the main character on match days, and peripheral characters (some only barely related to the novel at all) and slices of London life. Despite the very raw descriptions of violence and sex, the writing is too deft, and the message too sharp for the book to be considered a mere cult novel. King's subsequent novels, Headhunters, England Away, and Human Punk are all equally vital--if not as raw--reading. Great non-fiction companions to this book are Colin Ward's classic, Steaming In, and Nick Danziger's Danziger's Britain.
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