As a football team, Wimbledon FC represented the last mob in town. Having hurtled through the amateur divisions into English football's top flight during a ten year run from 1976 to 1986, 'The Crazy Gang' assaulted the game's elite and cracked heads with a spirit that too often resembled a kamikaze attack. Anybody brave enough to stand in their way was quickly elbowed aside in a long-ball stampede towards First Division security and, later, the most shocking FA Cup Final upset in memory when Wimbledon steamrollered Liverpool in 1987. But by the turn of the 21st century, financial turmoil had long consigned 'The Crazy Gang' to painful memory. The Bulldog Club reveals, for the first time, what really happened during their bloody rise to notoriety and messy tumble from superstar status.
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" ... suit-burning, booze-laden, street-brawling antics ... A worthy study of an unforgettable era." -- FourFourTwo magazine, September, 2005
"Book of the week ... a top read." -- The Sunday Times, December 24, 2006
"FLASH, FASH & BASH. Don and dust-ups with craziest gang in football history that would still shock today." -- Daily Mirror, September 3, 2005
"Book of the week ... a top read." -- The Sunday Times, December 24, 2006
"FLASH, FASH & BASH. Don and dust-ups with craziest gang in football history that would still shock today." -- Daily Mirror, September 3, 2005
About the Author
MATT ALLEN is a freelance journalist. His writing has appeared in FourFourTwo, MOJO, Q, Total Sport, Soccer America and Men's Health.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As an adoptive South Londoner since the mid 1970s, I followed Wimbledon's progress with incredulity; I started by doubting the realism of the "Dons for Div 4" campaign, and less than 30 years later friends were enthusing about AFC Wimbledon as the true heirs of the Crazy Gang. The saga is perhaps best summarised, ironically, by the title of an earlier book about Crystal Palace, "There and back again". Or, as they would say north of the Gap, "clogs to clogs" (not a happy metaphor, in view of the Dons' combative playing).
This book offers an enthralling and entertaining romp through the Crazy Gang's crazy story, both on and off the pitch. I have no idea how much is original research, but Allen has made the best possible use of his sources. He convincingly argues that, after the advent of the Premiership, such a rags to riches story could never happen again. (The book was published in 2005, while the foreign takeovers of Premiership clubs were still gathering momentum, but Wimbledon was clearly a flaky pilot for this.)
The undoubted stars of the story, apart from their maverick players, are the larger-than-life Sam Hammam and his faithful trio of managers - Bassett, Gould and Kinnear. Allen paints an evocative picture of the club spirit, devoting a whole chapter to the weekend of the 1988 Cup Final.
Each year the market is flooded with more and more sports books written about safe, popular subjects, and it is refreshing to find a book such as this which - like its subject - isn't afraid to bloody a few noses.
This book offers an enthralling and entertaining romp through the Crazy Gang's crazy story, both on and off the pitch. I have no idea how much is original research, but Allen has made the best possible use of his sources. He convincingly argues that, after the advent of the Premiership, such a rags to riches story could never happen again. (The book was published in 2005, while the foreign takeovers of Premiership clubs were still gathering momentum, but Wimbledon was clearly a flaky pilot for this.)
The undoubted stars of the story, apart from their maverick players, are the larger-than-life Sam Hammam and his faithful trio of managers - Bassett, Gould and Kinnear. Allen paints an evocative picture of the club spirit, devoting a whole chapter to the weekend of the 1988 Cup Final.
Each year the market is flooded with more and more sports books written about safe, popular subjects, and it is refreshing to find a book such as this which - like its subject - isn't afraid to bloody a few noses.
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