Product Description

Birmingham's Zulu Army occupy a unique place in the annals of terrace violence: a mixed-race gang. BBC Journalist Caroline Gall was granted unprecedented access to the gang and spent a year interviewing Zulu leaders and footsoldiers. She uncovers their role in some of the worst football-related riots of modern times and looks in-depth at Operation Red Card, the successful police operation against them. Gall also traces their involvement in the rave scene.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18569 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
"At last, a book that deals with football hooligan culture without tabloid sensationalism." --- Knave

Customer Reviews

An interesting and honest book
A good read, well written (it was put together by a BBC journalist) but most importantly honest book. The book is a collection of recollections from some of the main members of the Zulus, how they come to be connected with the zulus and some of the major battles they had. The good thing about this book is it isnt your usual "Went to blah blah ground, only 10 of us, 50 of them gave em a beating" rubbish quite a few times they mention how they were overran by amongst others Spurs, Villa and Milwall.

Another good point of the book is due to the multi racial aspect of the zulus there is none of this whitewash of footballs history in the 70s and 80s they describe well the racism they encountered on the terraces even from their own fans in the 70s. The racism of Milwall fans (my favorite part is when black and asian blues fans taunted Milwall racists by giving nazi salutes back at them) and especially the racism of Liverpool (only tried to change their image after getting Barnes), Everton (The team that wouldnt sign a black player in the 80s, seems they have conveniently forgotten about that one or the fact that after that no black British player would play for them and they ended up having to sign a Nigerian player) and Leeds fans, some of the worst for racism. Interesting they mention Villa as having a strong racist element, never knew them for that.

One thing I should point out though is I wish at some point someone would bother to read up a little bit on the geography of an area where a football ground is before writing a book as it just comes across as embarrassing, take for example Liverpool and Everton. Now to get to Anfeild from lime street train station why the hell would you cross Stanley park when its on the other side of the ground? Going back from Evertons ground after a match (Black Danny goes on about this in his book "Villains") How bad it was being attacked in Stanley park by knife wielding scousers (Well why didnt you just walk down the main road then to the city centre which is right next to the park? Its not rocket science!) Or how about this one, "The council estate next to Evertons ground" Er which council estate is that? The streets around Goodison are all terraced streets that have been there for years, same goes for Anfield. Maybe this was thrown in for the U18 audience to make it all sound very "1980s recession"

Also covers a lot of the violence the beating that were given and taken by the zulus over the years how people have been hospitalised on all sides. The laughs that they had over the years, the pubs they trashed, the people and places they have had off.

Good read, read it in a day. Take it on a train journey or on holiday. Decent book probably one of the best you can get.

Grim Birmingham
I was looking forward to reading this book being a Birmingham City fan but it's really not very good. The same stories are frequently repeated throughout the book and there is little timeline or structure to the events. I understand the nature of those involved means they will be thugs, but the main protagonists really are unreconstructed yobs. Skinheads, children, scumbags....that's all they are. The talk of hanging round the Bull Ring, Boogies nightclub and other dives in and around Birmingham actually paint a pretty depressing life of 1980s/1990s Birmingham. In fact, these particular Birmingham fans sum up all that was wrong with Birmingham in those decades, subways, concrete and really bad pubs. It's just grim.

excellent
i think caroline has done an great job of telling it like it was back in the day - the fashion, culture, and everyone's thoughts and feelings all come across really well and you can see they were a tight and true firm. it could have explained why they did what they did a bit mroe but it was rife up and down the country and so many people were involved maybe that speaks for itself. numbers and people's versions of event always differ don't they? fights are seen differently depending where u were at the time. i think the NEC, rave and early days chapters are the best but all in all a good read and look back at brum and its scene. nice one zulu warriors...