Product Description

A first novel about a seasoned Chelsea Football Club hooligan who represents a disaffected society operating by brutal rules. The story encompasses social degradation, unemployment, racism, casual violence, excessive drink and bad sex - and how they fall into a political context.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258192 in Books
• Published on: 1997-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
'The best book I've read about football and working-class culture in Britain in the nineties. Buy, steal or borrow a copy now' Irvine Welsh 'King's novel is not only an outstanding read, but also an important social document...This book should be compulsory reading for all those who believe in the existence, or even the attainability of a classless society' Sunday Tribune 'The Football Factory will do for hooligan culture what Trainspotting did for Edinburgh housing estates' Select ' Powerfully written and tells you more about the mentality of those who disrupt football matches than all the theses of the sociologist academics put together' Daily Mail 'Bleak, thought-provoking and brutal, The Football Factory has all the hallmarks of a cult novel' Literary Review

From the Publisher
‘Fever Pitch with testosterone and eight pints of lager. Like Fever Pitch, it is not exclusively a novel about football. This is a chronicle of a lost tribe – the white, Anglo-Saxon, heterosexual who is fed up with being told he is crap. It is the story of a flight from fear by a group of Londoners who have seen the present and know it does not work...King writes powerfully with a raw realism and clear grasp of a culture which has been denied but cannot be ignored’ Glasgow Herald

About the Author
John King lives in London. His other novels England Away, Headhunters, White Trash and Human Punk are also available in Vintage

Customer Reviews

Crucial Reading
Interesting and disturbing depiction of a contemporary working-class Londoner. The novel portrays a bleak England which has little to offer its poor, white natives. The central character--who one imagines must be loosely based on the author--is a nasty man, whose one outlet is football hooliganism. A Chelsea fan, he defines his existence not around actual matches and scores, so much as he does around the pre and post-match violence (if any). The book seems to suggest that for him, and his ilk, society has nothing to offer and he must retreat to the camaraderie of his fighting friends to find any release and meaning in his existence. The chapters alternate between focusing on the main character on match days, and peripheral characters (some only barely related to the novel at all) and slices of London life. Despite the very raw descriptions of violence and sex, the writing is too deft, and the message too sharp for the book to be considered a mere cult novel. King's subsequent novels, Headhunters, England Away, and Human Punk are all equally vital--if not as raw--reading. Great non-fiction companions to this book are Colin Ward's classic, Steaming In, and Nick Danziger's Danziger's Britain.

Football stereotypes in the most blunt form possible
This book follows the story of a bunch of working class football fans who follow Chelsea, for whom the weekly highlight consists of a match at Stamford Bridge or an away game, a good punch-up with the opposing fans (before and after the match), a load of beer and a curry. The first sentence really sets the scene perfectly where the narrator (the book’s written in the first person, a clearly very nasty little man) tells you what he thinks of Coventry and their contribution to the war as part of the build up to Chelsea vs Coventry.

The book is racist, offensive, sexist and provides non-football fans with as much ammunition as they want to turn noses up at football fans. For football fans and in honesty non-football fans as well, it strangely gives an insight into being a football fan, what’s behind the bizarre addiction that is Saturday afternoon for 9 months of the year.

I found this book highly entertaining and wonderfully written – there are some bizarre chapters where the chapter is only one very very long paragraph which are a bit odd to read but all in all I think King has done a fantastic job on this book. However, two things which count against this book are the repetitiveness to the overall theme of the book, and the next book which King wrote called Headhunters which I thought was much better.

Also recommended by King is England Away which is in part a sequel to the Football Factory.

Two thumbs up!
I first watched the film, then got interested and ordered the book on their official website.
I must tell you the book is even more humorous and sarcastic than the movie, John King is a very talented writer who can think inside the mind of a Hooligan, a traveller or a pensioner. The sentences are long sometimes, but only to you find out something very funny to read. I´m a football supporter from Brasil into my 20's and it´s fantastic how our lifes aren´t that different from Tom Johnson and his mates. I´m into "England Away" now which I ordered from Amazon and I´m sure I´ll soon order "Chelsea Headhunters". I recommend you to buy the three, and watch the movie, even that I prefer the Tom from the book who have more personality than the one in the screen.