Steve Cowans new book

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Ha yeah!
Who wants to meet Chris Wilder, Harry Bassett, Derek French, Kevin Gage, Brian Deane, Tony Currie, Dane Whitehouse, Carl Bradshaw, Mitch Ward, Bob Booker, Curtis Woodhouse, Wayne Quinn, Paul Devlin, Jamie Hoyland, Simon Tracey, Glyn Hodges, John Gannon, Paul Beasley and Keith Edwards anyway??

Especially when Love Island is on.
Don't think Chris wilder will be there, someone posted a pic on twitter of him and his wife sat in an airport
 
I've not said anything to that effect. I'm expressing my own opinion. I'm actually wanting to hear other perspectives.
I read the first book and it was bang average but seemed to articulate an accurate impression of what happened during the height of football violence, in the 80's, which is hard to imagine (thankfully) today. It certainly illustrated that back in the day football supporting had become a fringe activity, that was vilified by the media and many people stayed away. Crowds were low as a consequence and grounds in terrible condition. It was Hillsborough and Sky that changed the downward trajectory for different reasons.
Personally, I think it's useful to have this type of ''literature'' as it is a warning from the past and hopefully, football will remain for families for the future not working class hooligans. Actually is there even a working class now?
In its own way it's social history and must be treated as a snapshot into a murky period of football and society in general. Sure the style of writing was poor but indicative of the man himself and what he and his mates did. Better to discuss it and debate rather than dismiss, it's more dangerous to ignore warnings from history, as that's how it repeats itself in the future.
Can you honestly imagine fans taking stanley knives to a football match in the UK today? No. Yet it happens still in Eastern Europe, Turkey, South America, etc.
It's like racist abuse, I remember Darlington fans throwing bananas at Dion Dublin when he played for Cambridge Utd in the FA Cup 1990. The police were laughing.
A few years later Sunderland fans abusing Deane and Agana. Again the police laughed. Thank God we''ve moved on and we've learned.
 
I read the first book and it was bang average but seemed to articulate an accurate impression of what happened during the height of football violence, in the 80's, which is hard to imagine (thankfully) today.

The 80s wasnt the height of football violence
It was a lot worse in the late 60s and most of the 70s
 
The 80s wasnt the height of football violence
It was a lot worse in the late 60s and most of the 70s
I guess it depends on the criteria, for me the Heysel tragedy represented a peak of hooliganism in terms of fatalities and global impact. It fitted perfectly into the Tory political strategy of deriding the traditional working classes. From this point direct action was the accepted norm, whether exclusion from Europe, higher fences being erected, electric fences, ID cards, etc. What precipitated it was equally mindless but not on the same fatalistic scale. The right wing media cleverly linked football violence to militant politics during the 84-85 Miner's Strike and the Luton-Millwall violence was used to justify strongarm police tactics too. The sixties and seventies were notorious but not given the same media and political attention, as it served less purpose.
 
Were you N20 Blade old enough to go to games in the 60s and 70s ? I presume you wasnt

With regards to Heysel that just wasnt down to hooliganism it was also down to poor policing and a ground that was not fit for purpose should ring some bells over in S6

I cant remember the Miners strike being linked with football violence. Was Arthur a Barnsley a fan ?
I do know the trouble at Orgreave wasnt all down to people employed in the pits

You say the 60s and 70s were not given media and politcal attention but I can assure you it was a lot more dangerous than going to football matches 80s. I would not have dreamed of taking my daughter at the age of five to a game back then. I remember going to games in the mid to late 80s as being pretty safe
 

Maybe a resurgence but nowhere near as dangerous as it was in the 60s and 70s when hundreds and sometimes thousands were involved whether you liked or not
most of it in those days was inside the grounds whereas the 80s and 90s was organised and outside grounds at set places
 
Correct.
Zero segregation in those days.
the segration on the shoreham kop was either a thin blue line of police which was often breached or 2 thin blue lines with a 10 yard no mans land in the middle
 
Someone will have to tell us any juicy gossip if Wilder is there
 
It will be interesting to see whether I'm right but I have a feeling this "book launch" is going to be more about stroking Chris Wilder's ego and slagging the Prince/Board off than any book.

As for the author and that generation of blokes, aren't most of them too busy moaning about Covid passports and Vaccinations to be writing/reading books?

Don't tar everyone of a certain generation with the same brush, mate!
 
I have no idea who Steve Cowen is , got to page 2 before the penny dropped on BBC, but his book certainly is doing what books do; got people talking about it, either good ; bad or , boring.
I can relate to football violence but don't advocate it at all, seen some awful acts of it from the late 60's through the 70's and into the 80's. But saying that someone who writes about it is ; well some of the names been called on here is not on. What next ;do we start burning books we don't agree with?. If it's your interest; buy it; if not I've got the full set of Lee Childs Jack Reacher books you can borrow. These can be on the violent side though.
 
I guess it depends on the criteria, for me the Heysel tragedy represented a peak of hooliganism in terms of fatalities and global impact. It fitted perfectly into the Tory political strategy of deriding the traditional working classes. From this point direct action was the accepted norm, whether exclusion from Europe, higher fences being erected, electric fences, ID cards, etc. What precipitated it was equally mindless but not on the same fatalistic scale. The right wing media cleverly linked football violence to militant politics during the 84-85 Miner's Strike and the Luton-Millwall violence was used to justify strongarm police tactics too. The sixties and seventies were notorious but not given the same media and political attention, as it served less purpose.

What a load of rubbish
 

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