The Naughty Nineties

Football has reinvented itself. As television money has poured into the game, the traditional working class fans have poured out. Not by choice but by economic necessity. Their places on the terraces have been replaced by posh seats and those in charge of the game are especially proud that, according to them, the football hooligan has at last been eliminated from the landscape. But how true is this much-vaunted theory?Martin King, author of "Hoolifan", his account of 30 years of being in and around the notorious Chelsea gangs of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, brings his story up-to-date in this book. Ironically, he finds that although football hooligans are now a minority, their maturity, experience and dedication are higher than ever. The firms are smaller but far more dangerous. The style and character of the mobs have changed as has the author, who finds himself evolving from participant to observer as the decade wears on. Despite the picture painted by the media of soccer violence in previous decades, only in the 1990s is it truly highly organized. Most of the confrontations occur away from stadiums, sometimes on days when no matches are being played, so King questions whether "football hooliganism" is in fact the correct description for such activity.