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October 13th, 2009
Among the Thugs
Among the Thugs by American-born editor Bill Buford, is a horrifying account of the young British men who turn soccer matches at home and abroad into battlegrounds and slaughterhouses. Buford, set out to get acquainted with these football supporters–as their fellow Britons call them in more measured moments–to learn what motivates their behavior. He discovered a group of violent, furiously nationalistic, xenophobic and racist young men, many employed in high-paying blue-collar jobs, who actively enjoy destroying property and hurting people, finding “absolute completeness” in the havoc they wreak. He also discerned strong elements of latent homosexuality in this destructive male bonding. Following his subjects from local matches to contests in Italy, Germany and Sardinia, Buford shows that they are the same wherever they go: pillaging soldiers fighting a self-created war.
