Smash hit

Real-life hooligans, predictably, love it. A pirate DVD of the film has circulated and helped it to gain an underground cult status, one boosted by advance screenings especially for firm members, which have attracted criticism from MPs. “Up and down the country I’ve met some really great people. Whether they are the Bristol firm, the Cardiff firm, the Leeds firm, they’ve been such great people and they ’re just thankful that a film has come about that represents them fairly, gets the clothes right, gets the language right, gets the way that men treat each other right,” Love said.

“I tell you what, though — it’s f***ing scary walking out and doing a question-and-answer session with 200 Leeds fans or 200 of the Cardiff Soul Crew standing there.”

Previous releases

VOYEURISTIC enjoyment of football hooliganism through films is not a new phenomenon. The Firm, released in the late 1980s, featured running battles involving knives and baseball bats that led to demands for it to be banned.

The story revolves around an estate agent, played by Gary Oldman, who tries to organise “firms” from various English clubs into one unit that would take on locals at the 1988 European Championship in Germany. It underlined how hooliganism had progressed from spontaneous fights to a kind of organised crime.

Attempts to combat football violence were the basis of ID, released in 1995. Four young policemen go undercover as they try to catch those responsible for orchestrating trouble at one club. One of these, played by Reece Dinsdale, is so convincing to the group he is infiltrating that he seems in danger of becoming one of them. As he joins in the violence, his colleagues have to cover for him.

Last year a short film was released entitled It’s a Casual Life, featuring the monologue of a thug who resents the way hooliganism has changed, with Dougie Brimson writing the screenplay.

One of Brimson’s best-known novels is The Crew, in which a car trader who heads a notorious football gang tries to recreate the riot that occurred in 1995 when England played Ireland in Dublin. His intention is for the event to take place at an England match against Italy in Rome, but a detective with experience in football hooliganism is on his trail, all the more determined because he believes that the ringleader was responsible for the murder of a young police colleague.

Brimson’s sequel to The Crew was Top Dog, in which the same hooligan runs a newly formed security company. Given the chance to make a fortune by helping a football club carry out an insurance scam, he pushes his luck too far with, of course, violent consequences.

HAVE YOUR SAY

Does the film indsutry glorify violence among fans?

E-mail: debate@thetimes.co.uk

Explore Football

• Premier League

• Football League

• Scotland

• European Football

• International Football

• TheGame

• Live Match Tracker

• The Fink Tank

• Fantasy Football