Before Running with the Firm came Among the Thugs - the bestselling classic account of football violence in English football.
Bill Buford has been a writer and editor for the New Yorker since 1995. Before that he was the editor of Granta magazine for sixteen years and, in 1989, became the publisher of Granta Books. He is also the author of Heat and Among the Thugs. He was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, grew up in California, and was educated at UC Berkeley and Kings College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Marshall Scholarship for his work on Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. He lives in New York City with his wife, Jessica Green, and their two sons.
The definitive guide to hooligan culture * joe.co.uk *
Superbly written ... darkly exhilarating ... a sort of
rollercoaster chamber of horrors * Guardian *
Compelling, intelligent and fully engaged -- Martin Amis
[Buford] gatecrashes a social world that most of us have spent some
portion of our lives avoiding and brings it to life on the page
with a ferocious relish that only someone who was a foreigner to
soccer could manage, or stomach -- Jonathan Raban
Buford's reportage is vivid and racy, dropping you in the thick of
the madness with a Wolfe-like immediacy * Daily Telegraph *
The excellence of his writing takes the reader to the centre of the
mob... His words have the fragmented accuracy of a hand-held
television camera in a war zone -- John Stalker * Sunday Times
*
Possesses something of the quality of A Clockwork Orange * The
Times *
This is an absorbing read, and another winner from Buford, who
writes so very, very well * Buzzfeed *
Among the Thugs is, by some distance, the best book ever
written about football violence. Intelligent, succinct, and always
in the thick of it, it reads as a blood-fuelled ode to English
football, and as a primer for what will be when Russia hosts the
World Cup. It grabs the readers attention like a headbutt to the
cakehole. * Tony Parsons *
Sizzling writing to rival the best of white-heat gonzo journalism *
New Statesman *
An extraordinary and powerful cautionary cry. * Kirkus *
Brilliant. . . one of the most unnerving books you will ever read *
Newsweek *
Buford creates with the majesty of a Tom Wolfe the ultimate price
paid by so many for this footballing fever - the Hillsborough
disaster, recalled with electrifying eloquence and power * Time Out
*
A grotesque, horrifying, repellent and gorgeous book; A Clockwork
Orange come to life. * John Gregory Dunne *
A very readable, often funny, book. * The Economist *
His prose is tough and vivid * ID *
Buford pushes the possibilities of participatory journalism to a
disturbing degree . . . Among the Thugs does severe damage
to the conventional wisdom that England and Europe are bastions of
civilization. * New York Times *
Buford's book is important in that it offers a far more compelling
explanation for the football violence than any offered by the
pundits of Left and Right . . . Had Buford's account been written
by a tabloid reporter or an academic sociologist it might be more
easily dismissed. That is comes from a highly intelligent observer,
and a neutral outsider with no axe to grind, makes his book all the
more powerful and yet troubling. -- Michael Crick * Independent
*
Buford's accounts of the thugs he moved with are by turns amazing,
repugnant, stunning, horrid and exhilarating. * Howler *
The defining book on England's hooliganism -- Simon Parkin *
Guardian *
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |