Product Description

Perry Boys Abroad describes a long, crazy journey from British cities and towns to the exotic corners of the world. Smugglers, drug dealers, bricklayers, agricultural migrants and regular travellers on the Magic Bus to Athens all hit the road, during the heyday of casual culture. With Manchester s changing fashion and music scene as a backdrop to the oral memories of those included in this book, Ian Hough explains how the casual revolution pioneered many modern fashions and attitudes. Best-selling authors Colin Blaney and Cass Pennant are among those who tell their own stories of how Britain s designer football hooligans colonised foreign lands and waged war on their terrace rivals abroad. Others provide vivid tales of skulduggery, mayhem and the grafting of counterfeit designer clothes. Perry Boys Abroad illustrates how much times have changed. If you think casual culture was limited to fighting at football matches, think again. Author Ian Hough experienced the casual revolution at firsthand, travelling for long periods and working with other British expats in a variety of circumstances and cultures. Taking in the experiences of the post-rave Brits now living permanently in Australia, Thailand, America and Mexico, Perry Boys Abroad explores their lives, their adventures and their ultimate destiny as a dying breed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #122158 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-08
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
You'll run into them in every bar from LA to Bangkok: Northwest of England grafters, with fingers in every pie. Ian Hough is a terrific writer and our sharpest cultural commentator, and he charts the phenomenon of the clued-up lads-on-the-make abroad. If you're interested in British working-class culture, this is an essential read. --IRVINE WELSH, author of Trainspotting, The Acid House and Filth

About the Author
Ian Hough is from Manchester. His first book, Perry Boys, tracked the casual hooligan trend from its origins on northwest England s terraces to its later metamorphosis into the rave/ Madchester culture. A regular contributor to the Manchester United fanzine United We Stand, he currently lives in the United States.

Customer Reviews

nail biteing ,adventurous book!
this book is a classic which covers the music, fashion,drugs,smuggling,sleeping rough and football hooligans around the madchester scene to the unemployment of thatchers britain where many youths around britain had to leave the shores for employment abroad with classic stories that happened in foreign lands ,many which are quite fascinating and horrible life threatening experiences! this book is full of totally honest stories which is not the usual typical stories of people who always win thier battles in football hooliganism. wrote by 'Ian Hough'it is a must for anyone who is a fan of football storys and hard life growing up in that era!ALSO joined by Ian Hough is Cass Pennant..... author ,publisher,movie consultant, and former hooligan who has more than experienced some of the hardest times as a football hooligan , an EXCELLENT put together book !

A nostalgic odyssey
....once,in a fairly moody bar overseas, a pal of Mr Hough's looked me squarely in the eye and said "there are two types of people in this world Johnny....travellers and tourists", and without a further word or hint of the mayhem to follow, turned the table we were at onto its side....
I was worried that Ian Hough's second book would be like warmed up tater hash, OK, but a less juicy version of the original recipe. How wrong I was. Although there were more contributors, their stories were full of excitement, insight and in some cases tragedy.
If Ian's first book was the adrenaline filled "boy",searching for acceptance, his second book is the emerging man, trying to come to terms with adulthood in a world full of glorious oppotunities & stomach churning pitfalls.
Its fantastic, the human element is genuinely moving, this is a "must read" for anyone intersted in British culture. I am not sure what Ian will follow this up with,perhaps a script?, that would be great, because if he evolves into a northern Guy Richie, he will be able to give me back the fiver he borrowed in 1984.

buy it read it love it!!!
i bought and read perry boys and perry boys abroad. Incredibly, the second book is even better than the first! I didn't think i'd ever read a more honest and accurate book as perry boys but this one just beat it! Completely bang-on, the timeline, the slang, the fashions, everything. From the northern soul crew who wore the Perry, to the "Bowie Boys" with their "funny girls haircuts" and on to the footy mobs who adopted various aspects of the earlier incarnations, this book is a mad slalom down a superfast slope, and the pace never lets up. Lads in Mexico grafting in night-clubs and bricklayers in Germany merge into a kind of montage of trendiness and mayhem that is so true to life!
i keep picking it up and looking at it again and again. love it, totally. i can't wait for ian hough's next book, because on this form it is getting better all the time. keep it coming. Let's have some more stories about the Magic Bus and dope smugglers who were one minute in madchester and the next minute in Marrakech!!
Keep it coming Houghie....