Among the Thugs

This paper reviews contemporary scholarship on football subcultures which may be described as `new ethnographies'. The key authors discussed are Gary Armstrong and Richard Giulianotti. It is argued that their studies of `hooligans' articulate with other current ethnographic work, and provide insights into the social identities of supporters which have not been visible within scholarship to date. This is not to dismiss the value of other research but to highlight the innovative nature of Armstrong's and Giulianotti's contributions. The paper also argues for the importance of recognizing the distinction between academic ethnographies and `native' accounts when studying football subcultures.