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Post by dem bones on Jul 12, 2019 14:30:14 GMT
My brother had this book lying around many years ago. So long ago that I hadn't even started reading Pan (and I started way too young!) I remember being scared by the excellent cover (grinning skull in footie kit) and I can almost remember the blurb word for word, something about 'coachloads of Spurs fans' being 'burned alive by Villa fans' which was pretty unnerving considering I was a young Spurs fan growing up in Wood Green (near Tottenham) Has anyone read it? My brother remembers the book but not whether it was any good. I wonder how it stacks up in the light of the pretty graphic modern films on the subject such as 'Football Factory' 'Green Street' etc. Oh, and can anyone reproduce that excellent cover?! Incidentally, seeing as I have strayed into the 'aggro' section, my brother also had an excellent collection (hidden away with his smokes and occasional 'adult' magazine no doubt) of 'Skinhead' and the and those I was reading illicitly at a ridiculously young age. In fact, I remember getting a very peculiar perspective on what might be called foreplay from a book called 'Suedehead' - has anyone got a scan of that cover too? Or am I now just taking liberties? Col "Makes Clockwork Orange seem like a gentle fantasy!" - Time OutDick Morland (Reginald Hill) - Albion! Albion! (NEL, 1976. Originally Faber & Faber, 1974) Blurb: 'IT MAY ALL ONE DAY COME TRUE.’
1982. Two coach-loads of Spurs supporters are burned alive by Villa fans. Football is banned. So the supporters seize the grounds and turn them into arenas where howling mobs hurl Molotov cocktails and spray acid at one another. Parliament is dissolved, the police go on strike. One man comes to fight the fascist terror of the omnipotent fans.It is THE FUTURE again (i.e. circa 1995). Britain is in violent chaos. The police have been on strike since the mid-eighties, and Parliament, dissolved after a wave of anti-Government riots in 1987, is no more. When football was banned banned - seemingly by order of President Richard Nixon - the stadiums and facilities were leased to the official Supporters Clubs in the hope of re-establishing public order. It hasn't quite worked out like that. The country is now divided into four hostile territories and regionally "governed" by the shadowy managers of Wanderers, City, United and Athletic. Each have their own laws, enforced by club footsoldiers, the Strikers. Consequently, Britain is globally regarded as a basket case nation (talk about "science-fiction"! As if that could ever happen!). The EEC want shot of us. The Commonwealth is no more. Relations with the America's are at an all time low. Bankruptcy imminent (no trade partners). Civil War a distinct probability. Something has to change or Britain will die! Our story begins when a criminal gang hijack a flight from Tokyo to Sudan, diverting it to Heathrow. This is especially bad news for passenger Whitney Singleton, an investigative journalist and fugitive from Britain where he is regarded as a "traitor." Since escaping prison and fleeing to the US, Singleton's continued attacks on the four teams system have marked him a dangerous subversive. When the plane touches down he is brutally beaten by security goons and taken to Wormwood Scrubs. Singleton is thrown into a cell with Chaucer, assistant manager of Wanderers - who disappoints the wardens by leaving him be - and Hydrangea, leader of the hijackers, who has been gang-raped by wardens and prisoners. That same night, a band of Wanderers "strikers" spring Chaucer from his cell. Singleton and Hydrangea grab the opportunity to make a break for it, the former saving Chaucer's life in the process. By way of gratitude, Chaucer, realising he'll not get far in prison garb, lays Singleton out with a police baton and steals his clothes. On regaining consciousness, the journalist falls in with four sadistic "Glibs" he initially takes for kindly young women: (according to Middleton's New English Dictionary: British Supplement, 1994, a glib is "Homo-sexual, frequently a member of a transvestite group, frequently violent") He is fortunate to escape in one piece ..... [To be extremely continued - this is terrific!]
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Post by dem bones on Jul 13, 2019 7:57:56 GMT
So ....
Desperate to get off the street, Singleton makes for his old apartment in St. John's Wood, only to find the current resident, a young woman named Nancy Mays, is masquerading as his late wife. A Government spy! Fortunately, his close pal, John Caldercote, still lives next door. Caldercote, working to destroy the Four Club system, introduces Singleton to King, teenage leader of anarchists revolutionary group the Jays, who currently operate from Jesus College. Ms. Mays tips off the Athletic management, whose stormtroopers launch a 300 strong attack on the students. King and Singleton, their skin doused in purple dye, wisely scarper, but Caldercote is not so lucky. The depleted ranks of the Jays remove their operation to Coventry.
Meanwhile Hydrangea, who seems incapable of staying out of trouble, falls foul of rabid Wanderers strikers. Only the last minute intervention of Chaucer prevents her cremation on a rubbish pyre. Singleton also plays his part in her rescue at risk to his own life. Hydrangea shows her gratitude in time honoured fashion which at least cheers him up some (he really is a miserable bastard though, to be fair, of late he's not had much to smile about). Chaucer is no longer "assistant," but full-on manager of the Midland club, albeit still under the authority of Billy Wildthorpe, a star player of the pre-ban golden age. Despite their public pronouncements to the contrary, Wildthorpe and his United, City and Athletic counterparts are working toward an end to the four club system. To this end, they are happy to connive with King and his revolutionaries if and when the occasion demands. In short, they are working against everything their footsoldiers the Strikers and every supporter believes in. It's a dangerous game for sure, but Wildthorpe is confident of keeping the violence junkies onside. No sooner have the Clubs returned the country to a Centralised Government than "the new Albion" will declare war on emerging superpower, Holland!
Wildthorpe, appreciative that Singleton's articles are syndicated across the globe, is keen to recruit him to the cause, exploit his potential as a propaganda tool. The journalist, no longer sure which side he is on, gets to work on a "State of the nation" address ....
[TBC. 40 pages (of 192) to go]
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Post by dem bones on Jul 14, 2019 10:17:50 GMT
As a first step toward re-unification, the devious directors realise they must provide the mutually hostile supporters clubs a common enemy. The Glibs fit the bill just so. Consequently, lynch mobs countrywide persecute the violent trannies until there are so few left a new scapegoat is required. The blacks.
The Wembley Stadium Rally. A two day public festival organised by the Reunification movement. The crowd exceeds the stadium's 100, 000 capacity by a terrifying 20%, but luckily the electrified fences and deep concrete moat should prevent their getting up to mischief. Sheldrake, devious, enigmatic Fuhrer in waiting, the directors of the big four, American ambassador Sam Exsmith, and King's Jays have long colluded on the project, though, as we are soon to discover, each man ruthlessly pursues his own agenda, and one of them just happens to be sharper and better at doing so than the others. Things start to fall apart for the Directors during a rousing terrace rendition of Abide With Me ("... "change and decay in all around I see...") when a rocket launched from the crowd shoots down the helicopter flying in the EEC dignitaries, incinerating them instantly. The crowd panic, tear down the fences and pile into the moat ....
As you've likely guessed, the disaster triggers a countrywide orgy of torture and murder (the worst excesses occur off-page). The fabled silent majority are by now so desperate for some semblance of social stability they no longer care how it's achieved or by whom. With scores settled and all troublesome parties executed, the new order deliver on their promise of a shiny, prosperous Albion. Turned out nice again.
Not quite the novel you'd maybe expect from the slightly sexed-up blurb, but a compelling, ultra-bleak read all the same as the author clinically charts England/ Britain's decline (the two seem to be interchangeable) from her "traditional role of leaders and law-giver" to inconsequential satellite of the reffing U.S.A.
File under: Nostradamus
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