ROARING RED FRONT TOUR
ROARING RED FRONT TOUR
Co-authors Stewart McGill and Vince Raison have arranged not one but four fabulous launch events in different cities for their compelling new book The Roaring Red Front: The World’s Top Left-Wing Clubs.
For the chance to meet the authors and buy a signed copy of this riveting and highly unusual football book, find an event in a city near you.
Book Launch Events
7 October: The James Connelly Visitor Centre, Belfast
13 October: Dulwich Hamlet FC London (7pm - free entry)
4 November: FC St Pauli Museum, Hamburg (7pm - free entry)
17 November: Saint Luke’s, Calton, Glasgow (7pm - book tickets here)
About the Book
Not many books reference Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci and the cult novelist William Gerhardie alongside notorious hooligans ‘One-Armed Babs’ of Chelsea and Millwall’s ‘Tiny’. But The Roaring Red Front is not your average football tome…
With democracy at its most precarious since the 1930s, the emergence of a global network of left-wing, anti-fascist and anti-racist football fans represents a counter-movement to the world’s lurch to the right – a loud, angry and dissenting voice that faces up to the modern supporters of fascist tendencies inside the game’s stadia and beyond.
The Roaring Red Front is a unique work examining the world's top leftist/antifascist clubs. It straddles football and politics and demonstrates how and why they matter to each other. It can also be read as an entertaining travelogue, transporting us to vibrant and edgy parts of Europe and South America found well off the beaten tourist track.
Inside you will find:
- How Andy Capp became a global icon for leftist football ultras
- Why there is a street in Hamburg's 'liberal' St Pauli district from which women are banned
- Some of the great names of world football – Boca Juniors, Celtic and Liverpool among them – but also vivid stories about lesser-known sides including Detroit City, Velež Mostar of Bosnia, Hapoel Tel Aviv and others
- Skinhead ska fans in Calabria confronting Italy's fascists and singing Millwall songs
- A Palestinian Communist mayor in Santiago de Chile
- The clash of capitalism and community facing Jules Rimet’s historic and romantic institution, Red Star FC, in Paris
- Why the leftist and anti-fascist supporters movement is important and how it can be harnessed, not just by the left, but in the interests of better relations among all our communities
About the Authors
Stewart McGill is a football fan, martial arts instructor, political activist and commentator on the links between sport, politics and the working-class movement. He is also co-author with Vincent Raison of a series of acclaimed articles on leftist football clubs in The Morning Star, which inspired this book. Vincent Raison is co-author of slacker comedy books Today South London, Tomorrow South London (2018) and Shirk, Rest and Play (2022). He has also written for The Guardian, The Independent and Huffington Post.
