Product Description

Andy Blance is the most dedicated football hooligan Scotland, perhaps Britain, has ever produced. The facts speak for themselves. He has more than fifty convictions for violence, and has been tried three times in the High Court on very serious charges. Such was his notoreity that one rival firm even put a £5,000 bounty on his head. One of the first members of the Hibs Capital City Service, he has been right at the heart of every CCS encounter for the last twenty-five years, apart of course from those he missed while in prison. Blance is something of an enigma. To one newspaper he is the 'axeman thug'; to the police he is a serious criminal; to those who know him best he is a loyal friend; to his fellow Hibbys he is a true fan who never misses a Hibs game, home or away. The book begins with an account of his troubled childhood, his first gang fights and his initial experience of life behind bars. He moves on, becoming a skinhead on the streets of Edinburgh and, inevitably, gets involved in football hooliganism. Blance then becomes a casual and joins up with the CCS as they battle Celtic, Rangers, Hearts and Aberdeen, helping them to become the number-one mob in Scotland. Then, at their peak, Blance and thirty of his fellow gang members were drawn into an incident that would change his life forever: the attack on the Kronk, a rave organised by a rival gang. It was without doubt the most daring, and bloodiest, attack ever perpetrated by a gang of casuals. And the results were devastating not just for those in the firing line but also for Blance, who got five years for his part in the raid. Blance also blows away the myth that the CCS and other casuals were just boys out for a fight at the football or adherents of an innocent youth cult. In fact, as he explains, the CCS was a serious criminal gang heavily involved in drug dealing, extortion, shoplifting, punishment beatings and street robberies. He reveals his friendships with many of Scotland's leading footballers, some of them internationalists, who were no doubt attracted by his notoreity. Blance has paid a heavy price for his activities over the years. It is not just the fines, prison sentences and the savage beatings in police custody but also the devastation that has been wreaked on his family and personal relationships. This is admittedly a violent and often brutal book but it is also a moving one. One that everyone with an interest in football and its darker side will want to read. Above all it is an honest book, stripped of artifice and exaggeration. It is the truth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6217 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-24
• Released on: 2009-09-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 232 pages

Customer Reviews

Should be re-named-The memoirs of a violent thug
The front cover sums up Hibs in a nutshell,big fat violent old men.The CCS or the family as they liked to be known were/are Scotlands top mob but this vile rant from a violent man is shockinly bad.From reading it you quickly learn that Blanche was not a casual who loved the scene ie,the clothes,the trainers,the music,the mobbing up but infact he was just a violent man who enjoyed hurting people.Also the stories about the BJ queens and the shoplifting are truely cringeworthing.A bad,bad book written by a violent thug and common thief.
Dykes 'These Colours dont Run' was far the better book.
This book does Hibs no favours whatsoever.

What honour, what integrity, what courage...
Andy Blance writes how his CCS mates were livid when Dumfernline (or Dundee or some such) went to his, house; you jsut don't do that sort of thing...and soon he laughs at how life was made miserable for Jambos when CCS used to even go to their houses to squeeze money out of them.

Andy Blance calls Rangers and Jambos bigoted c..nts because they have sectarian views and sing sectaruian chants, and soon tells how he hates all Weegians (Glaswegians) and Jambos (Heart fans) with a vengeance...because they are from Glasgow and support Hearts, subjectively.

Andy Blance calls Celtic casuals cowards because they attacked him from behind, and then proudly narrates how, when at Celtic, he hid in doorways and attacked "unsuspecting fans".

Andy Blance claims the casuals only fight other casuals that are also looking for it, no hurting innocent bystanders, and tells how his mate is brilliant when he stabbed 16 students because he hates students.

I kinda got the picture that the code of honour is not quite the same when applied to Andy Blance and the CCS, and when applied to anyone else. The book takes turns in Blance getting righteously indignant about wrongdoings and then Blance upping the ante by doing just the same, only more of it.

The man would be the only surviving brain donor if he ever had anything to donate in the first place.
Yet, the book is actually an entertaining read, and I don't regret buying it.

Not bad but could've been better
Not a bad read as the author has led an active life. I was particulary interested in the attack on the Dunfermline club as I remember all that from the newspapers of the time. However there is a major inconsistency in the book which leads me to concur with one of the other reviewers that the Hibs firm really did not abide by the honour of the football casual and were no more than bullies. The issue I am referring to is - when the author explains the build up in hostilities between him and the Dunfermline Firm which culminates in the battle at the club he mentions one occasion when the Dunfermline Casuals turn up at his home. He correctly states that this isn't what Casuals do. Later on in the book when talking about the Hearts Casuals he boasts about how Hibs done Hearts everywhere including when they were out at clubs, at work and at home!! Now bearing in mind he has already said that this isn't what Casuals do...so what does that make Hibs? There is also the contradictions around the use of knives. Hibs apparently were never known for this then through the book there are numerous references to them using knives.

I can't make any comment about the accuracy of his accounts with other firms as I wasn't a Casual (too old) but he was accurate when he says that the Gorgie Aggro were the guvnors in their day.

So, in summary the book was fairly entertaining, well written but with huge contradictions which lets it down