Welcome to the real seventies, where the hair is shaved, the music is funky and the football is violent. Chris Brown was right there in the thick of the action. With his regulation haircut, clip on braces, shrunk Levis and bovver boots, he had the look every self-respecting bovver boy could not be seen without. This is the most amazing story of the most maligned decade in British history. It tells of adrenaline-packed Saturday outings, Tonik suits, aggro on the terraces, funk on the dancefloor and Johnny Rotten inside your head.
Chris Brown looks back on his seventies growing up in Bristol, as a Mod that morphed into one of the 'original skinheads', and Chris found his first place for youthful rebellion on the terraces of Bristol Rovers football club with his fellow skins. The book covers the seventies as football hooliganism run rampant alongside the ever changing fashions from Smoothies, to Disco-boys, from flares to Donkey Jackets, from Ska to the late seventies' skins. Great read, capturing the anarchy spreading across the football watching youth of working class England and Wales and the music and fashion of the times as well. 7 out of 12
‘Booted and Suited’ zostało wydane w 2009 jako uzupełnienie wcześniejszej, na poły autobiograficznej książki - Bovver: My Journey Through Football, Music, Fashion and Violence. Chris Brown zabiera czytelnika w podróż do lat swojej młodości, w których jako młody skinhead zdobywał uznanie i szacunek wśród kolegów kibicującym Bristol Rovers. Autor skrupulatnie opisuje codzienność lat 70 z perspektywy młodego chłopca z klasy robotniczej. Pomimo tego, że tematem przewodnim książki jest piłka nożna i stadionowe chuligaństwo, to nie brakuje w niej barwnych opisów zmieniającej się mody, ówczesnych hitów z list przebojów czy rozterek i problemów z jakimi borykał się nasz dorastający narrator. Jeśli fascynuje cię Anglia lat 70 ze wszystkimi swoimi niedoskonałościami, sięgnij po tę pozycję.
Full of nostalgia for a maligned decade in the UK, the 1970s, this personal memoir focusses in the main on two subjects: football hooliganism and youth culture. The violence is portrayed graphically, but honestly. and the author never tries to hide his unfortunate attachments with the right-wing. Descriptions of music, fashion and nightlife are done well, but readers not familiar with the authors home town of Bristol may not be as interested as a reader from that area.