Football fiction, Hooligans and Dougie Brimson

Green Street Hooligans (just Hooligans in the UK), Frodo Baggins ferocious break away from hairy backed hobbit love was inspired by the actions, notions and imaginations of Dougie Brimson.

It’s a tight, tidy, fiercely violent film about an American fish out of water falling in with a West Ham crew. Froddo finally gets the doing he deserves. Instead of crying to his sidekick Sam about it, he takes it on the chin. While the film’s links to football are less exposed than his numerous black eyes and split lips, they are in there. It’s also a subject very close to Brimson’s heart.

On the back of 12 books in as many years it would seem that Dougie is one of the UK’s most prolific authors, let alone football writers. Currently being held up as a leading light for ‘lad’ culture, Brimson’s site http://www.brimson.net/ shows he has a bit more on his plate, and in his mind, than yer average knuckledusted, fightin’ for the phukin’ buzz minded ‘lad’.

Easy to read, accessible and entertaining, he’s one of the few football fiction writers to turn his love for the game into a highly successful writing career, well at least one that goes beyond writing about fighting – ’cause let’s face it you don’t write 10 books about football hooligans without some level of passion for the rougher edges of pugilistic artistry.

Though, now he’s into the film industry it might be a different story from here.

I’ve now read a couple of his non-fiction thuggery anthologies and all three of his fictional works The Crew, Top Dog and his wee comedy number Billy’s Log. The books are all similar to Green Street in that they aren’t so much about the football in so much as they are about fans. Football serves as a backdrop for more visceral foreground shenanigans. Namely graphically brutal and well-choreographed scrapping.

Billy’s Log (the exception) is a light-hearted look at a single fan’s search for lager and love. The other two are diamond rough and ready, organised crime, perfect for tv, thrillers.

In the The Crew, protagonist Billy Evans is motivated hard man with a plan, a dodgy car business and a nice, if dangerous, little earner up his sleeve. In Top Dog Evans continuing story centres around his firm taking over security at Upton Park, EPL team West Ham’s stadium. It’s a Hammers house of horror take on the lunatics looking after the asylum.

I have a couple of close friends, life-long West Ham supporters, who especially appreciated the story as well as the sentiment.

His non-fiction back catalogue, from what I’ve read of it, are reasonably, and sometimes questionably, argued accounts of football thuggery which perpetuate the questions Government keep asking of their own security systems and problematise the systemic horizontal violence brought on by the Government decisions which created the issues in the first place.

There are many books about football hooliganism or ‘polarised fans’ (an expression I learned recently (thanks jt.)) their inclusion or perceived merit as football fiction will be discussed in a future blog. Brimson’s place in football fiction however is well established and one to be considered if you’ve an interest in the game at all.

...millions of 'em and mostly bad...

There are lots of books about football. Like millions. Not all of them good. In fact very few of them are good. Seriously how can they be when people like Wayne Rooney have already published an autobiography. It’s in pretty colours and there are plenty of pictures, (thankfully not too many of him), he even got a chance to learn his abc’s, but he’ll never have McIllvanney concerned though will he?

It hasn’t even got the same notoriety of Cascarino’s or that equally shy and retiring wee man, Merson. Merson's, of course, reads more like Blow than a football autobiography, it’s still not something I’d count as a good football book.

Maybe you do. And each to their own. My old man used to say that opinions are like arseholes. Everybody’s got one. Some are just bigger than others. Still that’s why we’ve got blogs innit? Save talking the ears of people in the boozer.

I’m interested in reading good football fiction. I don’t care what kind of story it’s hung out on, or badly cemented into, so long as it’s good.

The Damned United by David Peace for example is a feckin’ belter. Des Dillon’s Return of the Busby Babes isn’t. Nothing more to say on that one.

Peace’s book, on the other hand, is undoubtedly the best book about football there’s been in a long time. Read it in one sitting. Couldn’t put it down. I’ll do a full review in a future entry - I’d like to feature quality football novels as a regular thing, my only concern being that there won’t be enough of them to make it last.

I’ll be concentrating on fiction, but I don’t mind the odd non-fiction number. In Sun and Shadow by Eduardo Galeano is a blissful run through some classic football moments, Jeff Connor’s Pointless follows East Stirling, the worst team in Scotland, at through another dismal season. It would be magical, if it wasn’t so heartbreaking. And Joe McGinnis’ book The Miracle of Castel Del Sangro is a pasta-fuelled Italian job, played in hail, rain and shine under the shadow of the mob. A good read considering Joe’s relatively late introduction to the game.

If you’re interested or you’ve read something you thought was worth picking up, I’m looking for recommendations. by returning the favour, I hope to help you cut to the chase too.

10 rules to rule them all?

The same ten rules, devised by a fella called Thring in 1857, have assisted and inspired the development and governing of the four very popular sporting codes in Australia.

Aussies call three of them football. The game some people call soccer is the one I'm most interested in. It's football to me and a lot of other people - predominantly immigrants mind you. But c'mon. A game you play with your feet? Makes sense to call it football doesn't it.

Not here obviously. And in a country notorious for simplicity in the naming things, I struggle to understand why.

A redback spider is called a redback spider because it's got a red back.
A blue tongue lizard is called a blue tongue lizard because it's got a blue tongue
75 mile beach is called ... well let's just say you don't need a measuring tape.

But three out of four codes - that's rugby league, rugby union and australian rules - are called football. Like a wise cartoon of johnny cochrane once famously said in an episode of South Park - that don't make no sense! Yes, before you ask, it is true Union, League, Aussie Rules and proper football have all developed from the same set of rules. Yet, the one that seems to be the least popular is the one the national team are no good at. Coincidence?

I'm looking for a response. I want to understand it better. 'It' being football in Australia. I'm writing to help me get my head round it.

And I'm really struggling to get my hands on some proper football fiction. Of any description. I'd appreciate any help.