The Football Factory [Paperback]

'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.

'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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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.

‘Fever Pitch with testosterone and eight pints of lager. Like Fever Pitch, it is not exclusively a novel about football. This is a chronicle of a lost tribe – the white, Anglo-Saxon, heterosexual who is fed up with being told he is crap. It is the story of a flight from fear by a group of Londoners who have seen the present and know it does not work...King writes powerfully with a raw realism and clear grasp of a culture which has been denied but cannot be ignored’ Glasgow Herald --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

John King lives in London. His other novels England Away, Headhunters, White Trash and Human Punk are also available in Vintage. (20040315) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.