Scottish Fitba Books

[TheDeeDon]

Bloody Casuals - Jay Allan

Picked this up in the Library on Saturday, had never seen it amongst the local books before so took it out and gave it a read.

I am sure some on here know fare more about the casuals than I ever did and also assume that some on here that had first hand experience of this. I was/am very much a 'scarfer' and a tad too young for this era. My lack of sartorial awareness would have stopped me being one anyway even if I didn't have a yellow stripe down my back and could fight my way out of a wet paper bag.

Never going to trouble the prizes in the literature awards, but I found it a decent account of a much simpler time. Although the casuals were the reason my Ma wouldn't let me go to the fitba as a kid in the 80s.

The only time I ever came across the casuals were during fights in Guild street whilst waiting for the bus hame with my Ma after being dragged shopping when I was a kid and I would be ****ting myself. I once seen a Jute running over Guild street away from Aberdeen casuals only for him to be knocked down by a car. I remember him picking himself up and trying to get into the saftey of the train station and him being clearly hurt to my 10 year old eyes.

The most surprising thing was reading one or two things I had heard over the years from people I knew or worked with and put it down to them speaking shyte only to read some of these in a book and to see their 'names' in it.

Must have been one of the first books about the subject of football violence, a genre which was very popular in the 90s.

[sbswred]

Vain Games of No Value? -- an epic tome on the social history of the game. It has wider scope than just Scotland, but the chapters on Scottish football are interesting nonetheless and of course there's a fair amount of Scottish influence throughout. Goes into some depth on things like association rules, clubs, professionalism, wartime, women's game, pools, Sunday football, wage caps, etc. Not a quick read and at times not a page-turner, but I found it engaging and insightful all the same