Among The Thugs

The definitive guide to hooligan culture * joe.co.uk *
Superbly written ... darkly exhilarating ... a sort of rollercoaster chamber of horrors * Guardian *
Compelling, intelligent and fully engaged -- Martin Amis
[Buford] gatecrashes a social world that most of us have spent some portion of our lives avoiding and brings it to life on the page with a ferocious relish that only someone who was a foreigner to soccer could manage, or stomach -- Jonathan Raban
Buford's reportage is vivid and racy, dropping you in the thick of the madness with a Wolfe-like immediacy * Daily Telegraph *
The excellence of his writing takes the reader to the centre of the mob... His words have the fragmented accuracy of a hand-held television camera in a war zone -- John Stalker * Sunday Times *
Possesses something of the quality of A Clockwork Orange * The Times *
This is an absorbing read, and another winner from Buford, who writes so very, very well * Buzzfeed *
Among the Thugs is, by some distance, the best book ever written about football violence. Intelligent, succinct, and always in the thick of it, it reads as a blood-fuelled ode to English football, and as a primer for what will be when Russia hosts the World Cup. It grabs the readers attention like a headbutt to the cakehole. * Tony Parsons *
Sizzling writing to rival the best of white-heat gonzo journalism * New Statesman *
An extraordinary and powerful cautionary cry. * Kirkus *
Brilliant. . . one of the most unnerving books you will ever read * Newsweek *
Buford creates with the majesty of a Tom Wolfe the ultimate price paid by so many for this footballing fever - the Hillsborough disaster, recalled with electrifying eloquence and power * Time Out *
A grotesque, horrifying, repellent and gorgeous book; A Clockwork Orange come to life. * John Gregory Dunne *
A very readable, often funny, book. * The Economist *
His prose is tough and vivid * ID *
Buford pushes the possibilities of participatory journalism to a disturbing degree . . . Among the Thugs does severe damage to the conventional wisdom that England and Europe are bastions of civilization. * New York Times *
Buford's book is important in that it offers a far more compelling explanation for the football violence than any offered by the pundits of Left and Right . . . Had Buford's account been written by a tabloid reporter or an academic sociologist it might be more easily dismissed. That is comes from a highly intelligent observer, and a neutral outsider with no axe to grind, makes his book all the more powerful and yet troubling. -- Michael Crick * Independent *
Buford’s accounts of the thugs he moved with are by turns amazing, repugnant, stunning, horrid and exhilarating. * Howler *
The defining book on England’s hooliganism -- Simon Parkin * Guardian *