Product Description

Hull is England's forgotten city. Its East Coast seaport trawlermen and dockers have long prized a culture of heavy drinking and hard fighting. Against this backdrop, the Swinging Sixties left a legacy of skinhead, suedehead and bootboy gangs who roamed the narrow streets and sink estates, warring over turf and for local pride.

Divided by their support for the city's two rugby league clubs, only one banner could bring them together: that of Hull City FC.

More than a hooligan memoir, City Psychos is an extraordinary account of growing up among the tribes of a gang-oriented city in an era when football violence became a national phenomenon.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115832 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 266 pages

Customer Reviews

Perhaps the best of the hoolie-biogs.
There have been many 'hoolie' biogs in recent years, some have been great, others have been... not so great. But in City Psycho's, we have one of the best. This book is simply superb.

It is well written, brilliantly paced and like the wonderful Chris Brown book 'Bovver' evokes memories of times and places that many older fans of the great game will be familiar with.

One of the early highlights is the description of how a 12 year old lad (the author) and his mates skirted around the man firm in a desperate bid to get recognised and ultimately accepted. The scene with the Nivea face cream is genuinely laugh out loud funny.

Whatever you do, buy this book because it should be in everyone's collection.

Excellent read
OK, Hull might not be the most fashionable club in the country but this is certainly one of the best, most honest and genuinely funny hooligan books available. For once the author dosen't portray himself or Hull's followers as an all-conquering army, refreshing and highly recommended.

Great reminiscing and gripping read
As a Hull exile, this book was not only great from a football perspective or even from the authoritative writing from someone who was there, not some nitwit with some grand qualification in criminal violence and psychology who only came close to violence by snapping his pencil in university. Written from the perspective of a lad growing up in hull, the east/west rivalries of the time far removed from today's "east hull tigers/west hull tigers" songs at the shiny new KC, the infamous Albemarle - all these things rekindle rich memories of a youth in Hull.

Whilst naturally concentrating on actions at and around the terrraces, Tordoff succesfully illustrates cultures and subcultures of the times, and dare I even say social issues of the times described. The aforementioned studious nitwit would find this book a rich source of working class feelings, frustrations and exhilarations for whatever taxpayers-funded social studies course they are taking. Meanwhile the rest of us will not be able to put this book down either from remembering the incidents described for ourselves, or recalling similar altercations, fashions, musical influences, and now-demolished haunts where we hung around, watching the older kids with awe.