Rebellion....

The inside story of football's protest movement

As anyone who knows anything about the great game will know, football supporters are amongst the most opinionated individuals to be found anywhere.

Sometimes, those opinions will be positive ones -football is after all, the beautiful game. But on all too many occasions, they will be negative. From dictatorial chairmen or inept managers’ right through to inedible pies and expensive programmes, pubs, terraces and living rooms around the country resound with the constant murmur of unhappy fans setting the world to rights.

For many, this is one of the great joys of football fandom. After all, we all like a good moan and football certainly gives us plenty to moan about.

Yet whilst for the most part these complaints will be both personal and futile, every so often a situation will arise where passive complaint is simply not enough – occasions where big business or individual greed set out to exploit those who walk through the turnstiles, or even put the very future of a club at threat. Against these indignations, there will come a point when it is action and not words which is required. Rebellion is about those situations.

Using anecdotes and interviews with the people at the heart of supporter driven movements, as well as ordinary fans, it examines many of the well-known fan protests and looks at how and why certain groups of fans succeeded in their particular battle. Just as importantly, it also looks at why other campaigns failed and how, all too often, those protests simply degenerated into ugly violence, hooliganism and intimidation.

Protests covered include the ‘Back to the Valley’ call at Charlton, the fans taking over at Bournemouth, Wimbledon’s unpopular move to the Midlands, the ITV Digital catastrophe, the pro-terracing campaign, and the ‘No to Glazer’ campaign at Manchester United.

It will also examine the growth of the fanzine network, the birth of both the Football Supporters Association and the Independent Supporters groups and look at the protests currently underway or planned for the future.

The result is a gripping expose of organised dissent and disorganised ruckus. A must for any football fan who has ever been in amongst a crowd letting off steam, Rebellion shows just  what lies at the heart of every club – the extreme pride, passion and sense of justice which lies inside every dedicated football fanatic.

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