This book documents a youth culture that had a burgeoning start on the Football Terraces of Liverpool. Being a Season Ticket holder at Anfield in the late 1970s Dave is able to give a first hand account in the re-telling of the culture now known as Casuals. With quotes from fellow supporters, including Farm singer Peter Hooton and author Nicholas Allt, plus an intro from Head of adidas Global Marketing Gary Aspden, the adventurous tales of acquiring the latest trainers and coveted clothing is told in chronological order, from the earliest days of desiring the latest designer jeans from a local market before anyone else, to travelling abroad to get a pair of adidas trimm-trab trainers unavailable and too expensive for the UK market. The book looks at the European experience, a 'rite of passage' for many Liverpool teenagers in the days when Liverpool F.C. were the dominant force in European football. The look defined a Generation and has influenced the High Street to the extent that Sportswear and Trainers are sold in almost every Clothing Store. Sportwear has become Leisurewear for everyday use.
In the late 1970s, a small body of violent young trend-setters exploded out of England's north-west to bewilder, terrify, and eventually enlighten the rest of the country. Their novel hooligan style came to be known as the "casual" movement, with its wedge haircut and obsession with expensive designer clothing and training shoes, but the story of how its original perpetrators emerged from disparate beginnings has never yet been completely detailed. Ian Hough came of age at the epicentre of the explosion, in 1979 in north Manchester, where outsiders branded these unlikely-looking pretenders "Perry Boys", due to the Fred Perry polo shirts they wore with their narrow cords, "effeminate" hairstyles and Adidas Stan Smith trainers. Hough witnessed the sudden ramping up of an age-old rivalry between Manchester and Liverpool's Scallies, as the two cities' football hooligans realised each was a carbon copy of the other, and how they all in turn were embracing a form of organised violence, thievery, and thinking that was yet to see the light of day elsewhere in the UK. As the enlightened tribes of the north-west dug in for the long war, slashing each other with craft knives and engaging in battles involving thousands, the rest of Britain began to pick up the styles for themselves. He describes, in vivid and often humorous prose, how the Perry Boys waged a style-war on their lesser-evolved peers within Manchester, kick-starting a national fashion eruption whose tremors are still being felt today. The book moves confidently through the 80s underground, as the psychedelic fragments of what came to be termed the Rave scene gravitate from the council estates and football stadia of Manchester, into the nightclubs, where the jaded Perry Boys were waiting all along. Manchester's subsequent descent into rampant mayhem, in the form of gangsters, drug dealers, and music, now bathed in the strange purple glow of hallucinogenic drugs like Ecstasy, spawned the "Madchester" scene of modern urban legend. The sense of unreality and optimism which accompanied Manchester United's domestic and European successes later became inextricably dovetailed to the scene in the city, and Hough takes the reader on an intense trip through those heady times. Rounding the book off with the story of how this unlikely new style had proved contagious across the UK, and how its perpetrators proceeded to travel the globe in search of greener pastures, Hough describes the mass exodus of young people, many of whom exported the philosophy of the Perry mindset, grafting and simply travelling for its own sake, around the globe. This book is for anyone who is interested in how things began, whether it was football hooligan culture or the Rave mentality, as the world grew smaller. It is a testament to those who lead, and a mesmerising read for those who have followed.
The #1 New York Times Bestseller One-half of the celebrated Men in Blazers duo, longtime culture and soccer commentator Roger Bennett traces the origins of his love affair with America, and how he went from a depraved, pimply faced Jewish boy in 1980’s Liverpool to become the quintessential Englishman in New York. A memoir for fans of Jon Ronson and Chuck Klosterman, but with Roger Bennett’s signature pop culture flair and humor. Being a teenager isn’t easy, no matter where in the world you live or how much it does or doesn’t rain in your hometown. As an outsider—a private-schooled Jewish kid in working-class, heavily Catholic Liverpool—Roger Bennett wasn’t winning any popularity contests. But there was one idea, or ideal, that burned bright in Roger’s heart. That was America— with its sunny skies, beautiful women, and cool kids with flipped collars who ate at McDonald’s. When he embraced American popular culture, the dull gray world he lived in turned to neon teal—a color which had not even been invented in England yet. Introduced first through the gateway drug of The Love Boat, then to Rolling Stone, the NFL, John Hughes movies, Run-DMC, and Tracy Chapman, Roger embraced everything that would capture the imagination of a teenager growing up Stateside. When he made a real, in-the-flesh American friend who invited him over for the summer, he got to visit the promised land. A month in Chicago, and a life-changing night spent in the company of the Chicago Bears, was the first hit of freedom, of independence, of the Roger Bennett he knew he could be. (Re)Born in the USA captures the universality of growing pains, growing up, and growing out of where you come from. Drenched in the culture of the late ’80s and ’90s from the UK and the USA, and the heartfelt, hilarious sense of humor that has made Roger Bennett so beloved by his listeners, here is both a truly unique coming-of-age story and the love letter to America that the country needs right now.
Nicky Allt was a penniless teenager from the tough Kirkby district of Liverpool who wanted something more, when noone would employ him. In the late seventies that meant clothes, music and Liverpool FC. He joined a young scallywag crew who dressed different, spoke different and met at the Anfield Road End. Their travels would become legend as the Reds conquered Europe. The Road Enders were a bunch of blaggers and fighters to whom every No Entry sign was a challenge and every price tag a joke. They criss-crossed the continent, causing havoc in their wake - and had a whale of a time.
Liverpool was once one of the greatest cities in the British empire but it no longer feels like it is in England, if it ever did. It had retreated as a significant port after the Second World War and by 1979, it was already on the brink. What it needed was support but instead, a Conservative Party with aggressive new ideas allowed it to slide. Thirty-years after the Toxteth Riots, classified government papers revealed that the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was urged to abandon the city and embark on a programme of 'managed decline'. Why did Liverpool's fortunes change so dramatically? Why did it fight back when other cities did not? This is the untold story of what it was like for Liverpool's people and how the period defines who they are.
"This memoir comes at you like a homespun but eloquent and funny missive from another world: the hardscrabble, life of post-World War II Liverpool. Peter Haase came through by riding his wits, humour, fast-talking and toughness to overcome poverty, a penchant for petty crimes and other hardships. My only gripe is that the book ends too soon." --Derek Lundy, author of Borderlands: Riding the Edge of America "A nostalgic treasure, Liverpool Lad is a coming-of-age tale and streetwise portrait of working-class life in post-war Britain's tough industrial north. No wonder many left for a better life in Australia, Canada and beyond. Anyone who watched Coronation Streetor rocked to the Mersey Sound will recognize these butcher-boy depictions of the everyday joys and hardships from Liverpool, the town where Marx failed and The Beatles prevailed. Peter Haase turns memory into melody. Here's the real deal." --Trevor Carolan, author of The Literary Storefront: The Glory Years, 1978-1985 A lively memoir in an authentic and engaging voice of growing up street savvy, the youngest of four boys, in the famous downtown working-class slums of Everton, Liverpool in the '50s and '60s before they were demolished. Our young hero is talented but his valiant attempts to "be good" sometimes fail because of violence, poverty, bullying teachers and other disasters. He loves music and fishing; accidently meets Beatles George and John; wins big on the Grand National; apprentices as a butcher boy; becomes a Mod; digs the Merseybeat, the Cavern Club and tailored suits. Before Liverpool's economic decline deepens, at 16, resilient raconteur and Scouser Peter and his family find a "way out" and emigrate to the Land of Oz.
The collection of essays, interviews and poetry compares and contrasts the work of people such as Adrian Henri and Roger McGough with the new crop of Liverpool poets such as Matt Simpson and Deryn Rees-Jones.
Now also a new documentary film written and presented by Peter Hooton, The Boot Room Boys - BT Sport April 2022. The Boot Room story starts in 1959 when Bill Shankly arrived and converted a 12 x 12 storage room into a meeting place for him and his coaches, a move that had momentous consequences, both for the Club and British football. Fans on the Kop will remember the heart-stopping extra time of the 1965 FA Cup Final, and the jubilation of winning the treble in 1984. But what was the common thread during Liverpool's glory years? It was the Boot Room. Lifelong Liverpool supporter and editor of legendary fanzine The End, Peter Hooton takes us back into that old storage room, where first Shankly, then in succession Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish drank tea, analysed, strategised, selected and deselected, and built the most successful British club in Europe in the 20th Century. Illustrated throughout with over 100 powerful never-before-seen images from the Mirror's forgotten archives, The Boot Room Boys captures the story, as it unfolded, of Liverpool's conquering heroes.
