Product Description

Many of the most shocking incidents in British football history have involved the hooligan followers of one club: Leeds United. For 40 years they have run riot across the country, punching their way to international notoriety - yet they have remained the most secretive of all mobs. Journalist Caroline Gall spent two years interviewing participants from several generations to piece together the first ever history of the gangs, from the Shipley Skins to the youths of the present day. Service Crew is the definitive story of football's most vilified fans.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16548 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Yorkshire Post
A new book chronicling the exploits of one of the most infamous hooligan gangs of them all.

DAILY SPORT
'Explosive, violent and unmissable.'

About the Author
Caroline Gall is a journalist for BBC Online and has written for numerous newspapers and magazines. She is the author of Zulus: The Story of the Zulu Warriors Football Firm.

Customer Reviews

Worst book on football hooliganism I have ever read
This book is very poor indeed. As other reviewers have said it skips wildly from one era to another. I have read countless books on football violence but this is easily the dullest and most disjointed. I thought a serious account of one of the country's most notorious football firms would be told but instead the book is a thousand snippets of confrontations that bare little relation to one another save the fact that football violence is involved. The development of the gangs is barely touched upon.

Instead of trying to piece together the actual story of the gangs all it contains is a simple mish mash of accounts of fights without any apparent flow whatsoever. One Leeds fans description of an incident is followed by another's account of some other fight at an unrelated match, and so on and on and on.

The modern era is narrowed down to a few chapters and one of the most notorious occasions (in Istanbul in the UEFA Cup a few years ago where Leeds fans were ambushed and murdered) is inexplicably limited to roughly half a page. Instead more of the football club's on pitch performances and boardroom errors are highlighted.

Seriously - avoid this book. It's appalling! I hate to think what the Leeds firm members who contributed to this must think.

Finally...the Leeds story is told....
I have just finished reading the Service Crew book and, as someone who saw a lot of it going on in the late 80's and early 90's, can say that as much as some of sounds a bit, "we did them....and then we did them...", the truth is that it is pretty much how it happened.

It also acknowledges the fact that whilst Leeds had the Service Crew, there were always other smaller mobs of Leeds off to one side doing "their bit" as well.

The book describes how Leeds had a massive firm who did the business at home and away, but I like the fact that it sometimes gives the view from opposing fans, as what one firm sees in one place isn't always what the other firm saw. It also doesn't shirk on describing the odd time our firm came off second best.

It seems funny now to see the lads carrying on in big flares and looking like the Bay City Rollers, especially as someone who grew up with the townies and dressers, where designer clothes were the norm, but this book deals with it all the way from the Shipley Skins right up to the present day.

It differs from a number of books on this subject in that it is written by an author who has researched the information, rather than being the "memoirs" of one particular lad, although there is loads of input from various sources within the Service Crew, and later on the VYT and IHS.

All-in-all a good read, and one which lads who enjoy reading about this subject will enjoy. It will obviously sell well in Leeds, where bookshops have sold out already, even at 17 quid a pop, which is a bit steep.

The last word is that it is about time the Leeds story was told. There are so many other firms out there who have told their story, and I am pleased the Leeds firm have finally broken their silence and put pen to paper.

The great white hope
There's some points i would like to clear up .
I think Caroline as done a reasonable job .I wouldn't call it the definitive account of The Leeds service crew to do that the book would have had to have been about 1.000 pages long, .What the book does is gives people a feel for what went on ..The biggest problem with these types of books is the format I.E .How do you do justice to 40 years of follwing a club like Leeds in a couple of hundred pages .

Some one mentioned it was not well researched .I disagree .Caroline travelled all over the country meeting people who were or had been involved at sometime .This took her 2 years .Caroline Had access to around 1.000 pics ,scrapbooks etc , again the format was the problem .She could have done a pictorial book .There's also the valid point the a lot of other people's stories are missing lads from Harrogate,Wakey ,Selby ,Dewsbury,Banbury ,Oxford lads ,as well as many others etc,etc Some people declined & some people had dropped out over the years & others my not have known the book was being made.


Some one questioned why the team was mentioned ?
Well esscentially the majority of The SC were fanatical Leeds United fans or they were when i went to games in the 70's & early 80's
.unlike most other clubs .Leeds wouldn't have been at these places if the team hadn't been there .
Leeds turned at every game home & away ,every season. I have flicked through a couple of these books [which was'nt many ,then it was only the bit about Leeds] always say the same thing about Leeds .We went to Leeds once & didn't rate them.I think the the fact they only ever came to Leeds once tells you more about the truth.
The only one that had a incline of authenticity about it was Liverpool's "boys across the mersey" book .Scally wasn't too bad either although it tended to consentrate on the Glorified violence too much .

The book is a bit disjointed in parts especially the part were Leeds were at their most active late 70's early 80's ,but thats were the bulk of information was from ..3 or 4 people relating incidents from the same game .Caroline had to make it all readable to the reader & again had to edit stories .



A lot of people didn't want Leeds to do a book ,The initial feeling was why do Leeds need to write a book, everyone knows who the SC are anyway.
. also that fact that a lot of these books were written by firms that needed a bit of publicity . but as soon as people realised that it was going to be written there main concern was that it didn't read like all the other "we've done everybody " books.
If it was going to be written it had to be honest as memory would allow .
Warts & all[in fact the Leeds book is probably too honest ].Nobody's invincible ,but reading some of the others you would think they are

Another criticism was the usual lads all evolving through the skinheads ,mods ,casuals scene's etc
That was the natural process for the majority of working class lads .What did you expect a couple of lords ,a politicition & a hippie from Greenpeace who spent most of his time saving the planet then losses it at ER when he 's back home?

As for the book being boring ,well real life is never as exciting as glorified fiction thats why they make crap films about certain London teams .When the truth be told Those teams in particular only ever came to Leeds once untill the premiership started .[with the exception of Millwall who have always come]
40 chasing 700 all the time lol

At the end of the day the book is about a group of lads who loved watching Leeds United & were prepaired to fight for the right to watch them .There were a lot of scrapes ,some great laughs , great frienships & unfortunately a few were lost on the way RIP, MOT!