THE INTER CITY JIBBERS. WHERE UNITED WENT, THEY FOLLOWED. MAYHEM WAS NEVER FAR BEHIND.The Inter City Jibbers were the most notorious Manchester United hooligan crew of the last thirty years, and Colin 'Beaner' Blaney was up to his neck in it. His years as an ICJ and Wide Awake Firm (WAF) footsoldier saw him blacklisted as an 'Undesirable' by Interpol for smuggling Ecstasy, tearing through gangland warfare with rival crooks, and carrying out daring jewellery thefts as far afield as Taiwan and South Korea.Spurred on by the overwhelming acclaim for his first book, Grafters, Blaney's latest account includes stories originally deemed too risky to tell. This shocking, searingly honest new work from the core of the Inter City Jibbers tells of four attempted jailbreaks, and describes members of the ICJ's experiences in numerous hellish overseas jails. These include the gang rape of one WAF member in a Pakistani prison, a brutal time spent in a county lock-up in Virginia and a stint in a Yakuza-filled Japanese jail, as well as run-ins with gun-wielding foreign thugs. Above all, this is a chronicle of twenty-five years of life as an Undesirable, stealing anything that wasn't nailed down.

Updated with new photographs. Colin Blaney's "Grafters", originally published in 2004, was a ground-breaking exposé of the links between criminal gangs and football hooliganism. In the intervening period the book and the phrase have become part of the lexicon, defining a generation of professional thieves who used the cover of their fellow football fans to earn a fortune. Eight years on author Colin Blaney returns with an updated version of his criminal memoirs and recounts his experiences as a personality in the murky media world that accompanies public relations -- principally his shady dealings with tabloid journalists, TV producers and researchers. In Colin's words he was thrown in at the deep end to "Swim with the sharks". It's all a far cry from Colin's adolescence in the council fl ats of North Manchester. As a child he burgled warehouses and factories. As a youth he joined the bootboys of Manchester United's Red Army, rampaging across the country. As an adult he learned to dip with the Scouse pickpocket gangs, sell dope to Rastas in the Moss Side shebeens and sneak-thieve from shop tills with his mad Collyhurst crew. But Continental Europe offered the greatest lure. The gang moved to Amsterdam which became their HQ for the next twenty years. They stole Rolex watches in Switzerland, peddled Ecstasy in Spain, kited credit cards in Belgium, flogged bootleg tee-shirts in France and snatched designer clothes in Holland. Blaney and his Wide Awake Frim served time in half the jails in Europe and then went back for more. They were on a riotous, non stop roller-coaster ride -- until they finally hit the buffers.

In Football and Accelerated Culture, Steve Redhead offers a new and challenging theorisation of global football culture, exploring the relationship between sport and culture in a rapidly shifting world. Incorporating cutting-edge concepts, from accelerated culture and claustropolitanism to non-postmodernity, he reflects on the demise of working class football cultures and the rapid media globalisation of ‘the people’s game’. Drawing on international empirical research and a unique and ground-breaking study of football hooligan memoirs, the book delves into a wide array of disciplines, examining fascinating topics such as the relationship between music and football; hooligans and ultras; the rise of social media and anti-modern football movements; and ultra-realist criminology. Football and Accelerated Culture offers a new way of thinking about sporting cultures that expands the boundaries of physical cultural studies. As such, it is important reading for anybody with an interest in the culture of sport and leisure, social theory, communication studies, criminology or socio-legal studies.

Geoffrey Pearson, who died in 2013, was one of the outstanding social scientists of the post second world war era. His work spanned social work, social theory, social history, criminology and sociology. In particular, his work has had a huge impact upon studies of youth, youth culture and drugs. This collection is made up of contributions from scholars producing empirical work on some of the key areas upon which Geoff Pearson established his reputation. All of the writers in this collection have been profoundly influenced by his scholarship. This collection focuses on urban ethnography, race and ethnicity, youth, and drugs. It includes chapters on: women working in male boxing gyms; understanding the English Defence League; Black male adults as an ignored societal group; drug markets and ethnography; and sex, drugs and kids in care. The result is a cutting edge collection that takes readers into social worlds that are difficult to access, complex, yet utterly normal. Overall this is an exciting and fittingly challenging tribute to one of the UKs most important scholars. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of criminology, sociology, social history and research methodology – in particular ethnography.

We explore why the idea of the criminal class came into being. Starting with garrotters lurking in dark Victorian alleyways, the fiend Jack the Ripper stalking London’s streets to the menace of violent gangs, the ‘Scuttlers’, Peaky Blinders, and Liverpool’s High Rip, all the way through to 1970s joyriders, 1990s ravers, and the modern drug trade that brings guns and knives to our streets. It describes the actions taken to control the hard-core group – increasingly harsh punishments, executions, floggings, long prison sentences and the ways that society learns about crime, dangerous areas, and the people who habitually offend against society. How do we know what dangers apparently lurk in the inner cities? What part did the newspapers, authors and social investigators play in sensationalising some crimes, and were they right to do so? The book compares real-life criminals (and their lives) with fictional accounts, such as the Artful Dodger, Pinkie in Brighton Rock, and the scenes that social investigators such as Henry Mayhew dragged back from the criminal rookeries to entertain and frighten respectable people. Perhaps most importantly, the book shows which groups have been targeted as the criminal classes, particularly the young, as well as ethnic and racial minorities, and concludes by asking, “Who are the new criminal classes likely to be?“

In the mid-1980s, one young man from a tough Manchester estate exploded onto the soccer hooligan scene. Known to all as Hotshot, he had been introduced to drugs and violence at an early age, joining a teenage gang at just ten years old. By the age of fifteen he was attending drug-fuelled all-night raves and committing serious crimes to finance his partying. But not even ecstasy or acid compared to the buzz that he got from fighting. He became addicted to terrace violence and was determined to follow in the footsteps of the older United thugs of the notorious Red Army. Hotshot soon put together a gang of his own, leading them into battles up and down the country and taking them abroad on organised looting and shoplifting sprees. This was the heyday of hooliganism, and his crew clashed with the likes of West Ham’s Inter City Firm, the Chelsea Headhunters, the ‘Yids’ of Tottenham and the Service Crew from Leeds. They also fought repeatedly with their derby foes from Manchester City, meeting in city centre pubs and nightclubs in a long-running battle for supremacy. As the years went by, the hectic lifestyle took its toll. Hotshot was arrested in a massive police operation against United’s gang, became addicted to alcohol and cocaine and saw his best friend develop a heroin habit. The days of wanton violence were replaced by a battle for survival. With contributions from fellow United hooligans from the early days up to the current Moston Rats, Hotshot reveals the highs and lows of a rollercoaster race in the fast lane.

Since the early 1990s Aston Villa Hardcore has been arguably the most prolific football hooligan gangs in the UK. Described by the police and press as one of the worst two hooligan firms on the England international scene. There are currently 80 Villa Hardcore members subject to football banning orders and sentences totalling over 80 years have been handed out to participants in a series of high profile incidents.Gang member Michael Lutwyche reveals how Villa Hardcore - led by Category C football hooligan Steven Fowler - became one of the most highly organised and notorious football hooligan gangs in the country. Known to police forces the world over Fowler first came to the notice of the world media when he was thrown out of France during the World Cup in 1998. He is now subject to one of the longest banning orders in British football.

For almost 25 years, Tony Sullivan has been a member of some of the most violent gangs following Manchester City. He has also toured Britain and Europe as a professional 'grafter'. Sullivan ran with the Mayne Line Motorway Service Crew in the early 80s. Here he details how they gained a fearsome reputation nation-wide. From St James' Park to Upton Park, the Mayne Line ruled British football, the most fearsome football mob during, hooliganism's 'Golden Age'. Now, with his hooligan career at a close, 'Sully' looks back on this violent era and relives the good hidings handed out and the kickings received. He also details some of the stunts he and his mates pulled - using the cover of his fellow fans to 'earn' a living in an era before extensive CCTV surveillance, often with unexpected results. Along the way he contrasts the exploits of the various supporters groups he encountered -- the scouser's well known propensity for using a blade, the United supporter's unwillingness to take part in a fight unless they were certain to win it and the craziness of a typical away day in Newcastle city centre in the early eighties. Later, as police cracked down on hooliganism, many left the scene and the Mayne Line disbanded. Still Sully carried on regardless, the violence and buzz still a 'drug'. Unfortunately, several custodial sentences curtailed his career including, in 1991, an incidental involvement in the Strangeways Riot and its aftermath. The 1990s also saw a slew of hooligan memoirs hit the nation's bookshelves, often written by people with tenuous connections to the incidents described. Others sought to celebrate hooligan culture as some-kind of weekly fashion parade. Sully has little time for either as he explains: "Over the years I have been beaten, stabbed, had bottles cracked on my head and had lads threatening to come round my gaff -- but you won't hear me complain. This book is a true account of those years, devoid of sensational bullshit."

Aston Villa is one of the biggest and best-supported football clubs in Britain, the giant from England's second city with a long and distinguished history, culminating in an unforgettable European Cup victory in 1982. The story of their terrace army, however, has never been told - until now. Like all major clubs, Villa have had their hooligans and hardmen, and have been involved in some of the fiercest battles of the past four decades. VILLAINS traces their gangs from the 1960's up to the present day. Through first-person testimony, it reveals for the first time the antics of the Steamers, who achieved nationwide infamy, led by a band of colourful and fearless characters such as Pete the Greek, who famously once headbutted a police horse and took on the Millwall leader in a one-on-one brawl. Eventually they were superseded by the C Crew, a multi-racial gang who brought together youths from different areas of Birmingham during the 2-Tone era. This was the heyday of hooliganism, and the Villa Park faithful clashed with the toughest and most violent mobs around, often led into battle by co-authors Paul Brittle and "Black" Danny Brown, who was jailed in 1981 for one of the most infamous football-related attacks. They went on riotous trips to Europe, fought at service stations and in nightclubs, and conducted bitter rivalries against foes from across the Midlands and beyond. The story is brought up to date with tales of the Villa Youth and accounts of the notorious Battle of McDonalds Island against their Birmingham City rivals the Zulus.

Portsmouth's 6.57 Crew, named for the time of the train they took to away games, were the most talked-about casual football firm of the 1980s and 1990s. Labelled 'the worst in the land' by the police, this is pompey's true shocking story. For the first time, the firm's insiders reveal the truth behind the tabloid headlines. Cass Pennant is the best-selling author of Want Some Aggro?, Congratulations You Have Just Met the ICF, and a hugely successful autobiography, Cass. Rob Silvester tavelled on the 6.57 train many times and became a part of the notorious group of fans. As a no-holds-barred look into a world of turmoil and violence, this is an unsurpassed book. It's required reading not only for football fans, but also those who want to know the amazing facts about a social phenomenon that changed the face of British culture.