Local loyalties have to be destroyed if big business is going to operate without restraint, and so it makes sense to undermine any sort of pride or socialist thought. Stamford Bridge Stadium, London, England, UK. The passion of a football crowd shows off the power of the proles, as expressed in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, its rejection of dogma in the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. He fought totalitarianism and saw the horror first hand, knows how fragile democracy can be. It has provided hallmarking services since The Goldsmiths' Company was founded in the 1300s. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Series by cover. To learn more about cookies, please see our cookie policy. In its review of the novel, The Big Issue said: “Brutal, honest and poetic in the way that only a tough guy can be, King loads the gun and shoots us into the lager-filled, lust-fuelled lives of five London lads… Headhunters is sexy, dirty, violent, sad and funny; in fact it has just about everything you could want from a book on contemporary working-class life in London.” [2] Covering Headhunters for GQ Magazine, author John Williams wrote: “The realism and political edge echoes Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff.”, Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://pmpress.org.uk/product/headhunters/, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Headhunters_(novel)&oldid=960736403, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 4 June 2020, at 16:43. The Football Factory Trilogy book. The crushing of Greece by the so-called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – an example of what happens to a country that does not obey Berlin and Brussels? Leaving the EU is by no means the answer to all of the country’s problems, but those in control will have seen their ambitions blocked and there will be a real chance to create something new and exciting, to look forwards rather than back. He is a strong, moral man, and one who believes in cooperation. When I went to my first full season at Chelsea back in 1976 – 77, entrance to The Shed was 50p. 3 likes. It follows that if a system is undemocratic it can easily become anti-democratic. First published in 1997 by Jonathan Cape and subsequently by Vintage, it has been widely translated abroad. With his ‘Football Factory’ trilogy, John King provides us with an unflinching and uncompromising, yet compelling look at the dark world of football related gang violence of Britain in the 1990’s. He is a hero to the likes of Tommy and his friends, even if some of their opinions differ. Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2011. My belief is that it has the potential to become a new sort of dictatorship, with the work of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451) acting as guides to its nature. Headhunters is the second novel by the English author John King and, along with The Football Factory and England Away, it comprises a trilogy of books that challenge the official position on subjects such as class, racism, sexism and patriotism in the UK.First published in 1997 by Jonathan Cape and subsequently by Vintage, it has been widely translated abroad. Earlier forms of surveillance featured in the novel, such as video evidence and some serious prison terms, were essential in controlling the fighting around football, and this has developed into something that is dipping into every area of life. The author revisits the characters from his novel 20 years on and in the context of the EU Referendum, Football stadium image CC Lukas Koster/flickr.com. Tip: If the series has an order, add a number or other descriptor in parenthesis after the series title (eg., "Chronicles of Prydain (book 1)"). 4 items . Top subscription boxes – right to your door, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. But the Loeb Classical Library is a series of editions, not of works. Vignettes from a range of minor characters are also included, among them the story of Vince Matthews, a former hooligan who has broken out of the circle of violence to travel the world. Headhunters and England Away, which followed in 1997 and 1998, take on the themes of The Football Factory, the stories of Tommy and Bill evolving and coming to some sort of resolution in the latter of these books, on both the streets of Berlin and the remembered battlefields of Germany. The high-profile dictators of the past are long gone, replaced by anonymous figures driven by free-market ideology and a love of power for its own sake. The world of books would look very different without Tom Maschler, who died this week. He is seen as a hero by subsequent generations, among them Tommy and various older members of the Chelsea firm, hardcore hooligans such as Dave Harris and Billy Bright. His authors and former colleagues remember him. Today, TV companies and foreign billionaires control football at the top level. These cookies allow you to explore OverDrive services and use our core features. OverDrive uses cookies and similar technologies to improve your experience, monitor our performance, and understand overall usage trends for OverDrive services (including OverDrive websites and apps). To learn more about how we use and protect your data, please see our privacy policy. Again, where is the EU leading? Registered office: 20 Vauxhall Bridge Rd, London. On its release The Football Factory was heralded as a ‘state of the nation’ novel by some reviewers, while others criticised its aversion to political correctness. Book. We work hard to protect your security and privacy. On top of this, given the catastrophic failures of the financial institutions, nobody can know what will happen to their pensions in the long term. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. 4 items . Headhunters is the second novel by the English author John King and, along with The Football Factory and England Away, it comprises a trilogy of books that challenge the official position on subjects such as class, racism, sexism and patriotism in the UK. The people versus the elite: John King on his Football Factory trilogy 20 years on, Industry commitment to professional behaviour. After the war he married a concentration-camp survivor, and is trying to cope with her recent death. The casual use of the ‘racist’ slur is liberally used in order to shut down an argument, just as it was in the past to demonise whole swathes of the population. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. "The people versus the elite: John King on his Football Factory trilogy 20 years on", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Football_Factory_(novel)&oldid=960734540, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 4 June 2020, at 16:30. A global takeover driven by the corporations and controlled in Europe by an organisation where unelected bureaucrats create rules and regulations that become laws that override our own? They perform functions like preventing the same content from reappearing, ensuring ads are displayed and, in some cases, selecting content based on your interests. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our. Equally as important to the novel’s structure is the presence of pensioner Bill Farrell,[3] a former soldier who fought in the Second World War and was decorated for his bravery. The Football Factory trilogy, and books such as White Trash and Human Punk, come together in the arguments against the EU. Looking for a library? Bill Farrell is a calmer voice, but while his more measured reflections present an alternative approach to that of the younger men, he shares their frustrations and feelings of powerlessness. If anything, their alienation will be near enough total. The skinheads were branded ‘racist’, but this was a subculture based around a love of Jamaican music, with most of the London crews featuring leading black and mixed-race faces as far back as the ’60s. This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising.