This study, based on government records, newspaper articles and fanzines, explores the complex interaction between politicians, police and the perpetrators of football violence. Bebber looks at how successive governments tried to impose law and order on football 'hooligans', whilst inadvertently escalating the violence.

In postwar Britain, social anxiety about government repression, immigration and unemployment spilled over into violence and racial intolerance. Much of this tension was vented at football matches, traditionally the forum for working-class diversion. This study, based on government records, newspaper articles and fanzines, explores the complex interaction between politicians, police and the perpetrators of the violence. Bebber looks at how successive governments tried to impose law and order on football 'hooligans', whilst inadvertently escalating the violence. Football is revealed not only as a mirror of society but as an agent of social and cultural change.

This collection of essays addresses research trends in the history of British leisure while also presenting a wide range of articles on cultural conflict and leisure in the twentieth century. It includes innovative research on a number of topics, including television, cinema, the circus, women's leisure, dance, football and drug culture. It provides an excellent entry to leisure studies and history, while addressing the contributions of other disciplines and exploring key historiographical trends. Three broad topics structure the collection; cultural contestation and social conflict in leisure; regulation and standardisation; and national identity embodied in leisure and popular culture. The book will be useful to students and educators of twentieth-century and British history, as it offers accessible and topical studies that pique historical curiosity. In addition, historians, sociologists and cultural analysts of the twentieth century will find it essential for understanding pleasure and recreation in twentieth-century British society. -- .