Is The Novel 'Football Factory' by John King An Authentic Picture Of British Football Hooliganism?

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Humboldt-University of Berlin, 22 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This essay will focus on the novel "Football Factory" by John King and its main issue: British hooliganism. Since a number critics have called this novel "[...] the most authentic book [...] about football hooligans [...]" (Mark Piggot, Rasp!), it is the aim of this paper to show this authenticity and therefore, to compare features of real life hooliganism in Britain with the British hooliganism shown in the novel "Football Factory." Three aspects of British hooliganism will therefore be looked at closer in order to show the novel's authenticity. Firstly, one will encounter an introductory chapter about the novel "Football Factory" (2.), followed by introductory aspects about the nature of British hooliganism and their characteristic features like the 'alcohol-violence connection' based on sociological studies (3.1.). Secondly, in the main part of this paper, the reader will be made familiar with the phenomenon of British tabloid press coverage of British hooliganism with the help of war comparisons (4.1.) and the representation of the press and its war comparisons in "Football Factory" (4.2.). Finally, the impact of women in general and female supporters on this male dominion of British football culture (5.1.) and the role of women and the making of male identities in the novel (5.2.), before a conclusion (6.) will summarize the results.