Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs finally available on our online store

At last, the classic book long regarded as essential reading in football supporter circles (and beyond) in the UK has arrived in our store – Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs.

A 28-year-old American journalist, fresh out of Cambridge where he studied on a scholarship, is riding a train from Cardiff. Suddenly a crew of football lads storms in. They’re loud, rowdy and not the kind of people you’d usually approach. His first reaction is fear - but curiosity quickly takes over. Ignoring his survival instinct, the American walks over and starts talking to them.

He ends up spending eight years with supporter crews across the UK, documenting this subcultural phenomenon at its peak in the late 80s and early 90s. The result was the 1990 release Among the Thugs: The Experience and the Seduction of Crowd Violence. One of Barack Obama’s senior advisors even described it as “one of the best books on terrorism - even though it isn’t actually a book about terrorism.”

Buford doesn’t just share stories of the riots he witnessed with these groups. With almost detective-like dedication, he dug through newspaper clippings covering clashes and violence. Most of all, he was there in person - joining Manchester United’s Inter-City Jibbers, getting beaten by Italian police at the 1990 World Cup in Sardinia, and watching fights escalate from drunken brawls to life-threatening violence, even stories as brutal as a policeman losing an eye. He also attended National Front meetings, noting the far-right’s interest in recruiting young, aggressive fans. After eight years immersed in the scene, his report is hardly objective - but it paints a vivid picture of the hooligan movement in the UK.

Buford also admits something else - how much fun he had. The casual, every-Sunday violence of that generation felt like what drugs or alcohol had been for earlier ones: an anti-cultural experience that altered states of consciousness, triggered adrenaline and caused a euphoria that quickly became addictive.

Quoting psychology, sociology and even philosophy (yes, alongside a drunk lad from Grimsby there’s also Plato), Buford cleverly links the world of hooliganism with Britain’s working and middle classes. He shows it’s not just about individuals but about the crowd itself - how being part of a group shapes behaviour. You can read the book as a study of mob psychology, or just as the ultimate story of away days with the lads.