These are the crews who think nothing of using tear gas, meat hooks, home-made bombs, and worse to make their point--these gangs of organized hooligans for whom their team is their life can be found globally: in Brazil and Croatia, Argentina and Italy, these soccer fans are everywhere. Meet the fans prepared to go to the furthest extremes to defend their team's honor. Actor Danny Dyer, star of the hit film The Football Factory, took a film crew with him to meet all of these gangs, and this is the full story of what happened when he did. Join him on a journey around the hooligan world in 90 days, visiting nine countries in 12 weeks to meet the nastiest, naughtiest European soccer hooligans on the planet. Shot at, stoned, glassed, and tear gassed, they survived gunfire in Brazil, a riot in Poland, and the opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with the foreign teams as it all goes off. Full of spine-chilling encounters, extraordinary characters, and brutal clashes, this book shows that soccer hooliganism is alive and kicking--all over the world.

Publisher Description

A look at soccer superstar David Beckham, the Real Madrid team he joined in 2003, and at how this combination has forever changed the face of the world's most popular sport.

Since the 1960s, professional football has been America's most popular sport. This book explores the culture of football from the inside-from the players' perspective-the game the fans never see. Conversations are with eight top athletes, men who played in the National Football League for at least ten years, and with another who coached football for forty-five years. The players analyze the mental, physical, and emotional experience of the game at the high school, college, and professional levels, and at nearly every gridiron position. The author chooses his subjects carefully and finds articulate interpreters of this hard-edged experience. The author and the players discuss in depth a wide range of topics, including masculinity, injury, and pain, big-time college recruiting, college athletes and academics, relations with fathers and coaches, encounters with Jim Crow and desegregation, and strikes and labor relations in the NFL. Yielding full pictures of their lives and careers, these athletes go on to explore aging and their adjustments to retirement.

The story of the creation of Britain's national game has often been told. According to the accepted wisdom, the refined football games created by English public schools in the 1860s subsequently became the sports of the masses. Football, The First Hundred Years, provides a revisionist history of the game, challenging previously widely-accepted beliefs. Harvey argues that established football history does not correspond with the facts. Football, as played by the 'masses' prior to the adoption of the public school codes is almost always portrayed as wild and barbaric. This view may require considerable modification in the light of Harvey's research. Football's First One Hundred Years provides a very detailed picture of the football played outside the confines of the public schools, revealing a culture that was every bit as sophisticated and influential as that found within their prestigious walls. Football, The First Hundred Years sets forth a completely revisionist thesis, offering a different perspective on almost every aspect of the established history of the formative years of the game. The book will be of great interest to sports historians and football enthusiasts alike.

{The KING-SIZE EDITION CONTAINS ALL MAN RULES FROM VOLUMES 1-5.} It is said that there are unwritten MAN RULES, which all Men abide by. Now these rules are written in one guidebook which clarifies what those rules are. The ComMANdments tells all the do's and don'ts Men need to know in basic life situations. For example, is it alright to sing in a public restroom? Can a Man hug another Man? Does the toilet seat go up or down? What is a wingman and what are his responsibilities? When can you call Shot-gun? The answers to these questions can be found in this Man Rule Guide Book along with Personal Space guidelines, Appearance and Hygiene, The Road Trip Man Rules, the Man Rules that will apply to the typical "Guy's Night Out," and many other Man Rules dealing with situations Men come across during their daily routine and situation yet to come like the Zombie Apocalypse. This KING-SIZE EDITION is what every Man needs in order to complete his quest to become a better Man!

Soccer is the world's most popular sport, which makes it the most multicultural of sports. From this it should follow that the multicultural movement here in America would strongly support soccer. But instead of embracing the sport of the "Other," the movement has ignored sports, and while younger multiculturalists may be soccer fans, the older ones have generally clung to America's own sports. Soccer in America has ended up being a sport for those in the middle or even on the right rather than for those on the left. The people who show up at soccer games include fraternity jocks, sorority girls and members of the military, none of whom are thought of as multiculturalist or open-minded by those on the left. This book is about sports in America and the rest of the world. The many topics it explores include soccer's place in the world, a comparison of the sports environments in America and England, a critical examination of America's sports, the history of prejudice against soccer in America, and the failure of many of America's leftists to overcome that prejudice.