Grass

'You've met Mr Nice. Now meet Mr Big' - Howard Marks

Phil Sparrowhawk is married with a grown-up daughter and now lives quietly in the Surrey countryside. 
 
Martin Knight is the author of Common People and co-author with George Best of Scoring at Half-Time. Martin King is the author of A Boy's Story, The Estate and The South Downs Way. Together, they have co-written the bestselling terrace culture classics Hoolifan and The Naughty Nineties, and have also worked on On the Cobbles with Jimmy Stockin and Ossie, the autobiography of football legend Peter Osgood.

Grass is the incredible story of Phil Sparrowhawk, a working-class boy with gambling in his blood. Like most punters, he enjoyed an incredible run of luck, but finally rolled the dice once too often. 
 
Before he had come of age, Phil had accumulated a small fortune from street trading. He then staked his entire capital on Njinsky in the 1970 Derby - and won. With his now large capital base, he launched a business importing clothes. Enter Howard Marks (aka Mr Nice), who was enthused by Phil's Far East connections and introduced him to the far more lucrative world of the 'movement of beneficial herbs' - or drug smuggling, as it is known to the authorities. 
 
Phil struck out on his own and from his new base in Thailand became involved in many large-scale cannabis deals, whilst at the same time developing highly successful legitimate businesses. Read of his encounters with Greenpeace, Mother Teresa, gangsters and leading politicians, Lord Moynihan, religious cults, former pop singers and many other diverse characters as his life became more and more surreal. 
 
The winning streak came to an end in 1988 when the US Drug Enforcement Agency closed in. Phil's £30m fortune was promptly confiscated and he spent the next four years in two of Thailand's most notorious jails before being extradited to the US, where he served further time in a series of penitentiaries. 
 
Grass details the life of an ordinary young man with a taste for adventure, who ended up on the most extraordinary journey. Sit back, take a deep breath and enjoy.

30 Years of Hurt

Hoolifan

Hoolifan is the story of one man, Martin King, and his experiences spanning three decades with the country's foremost soccer gang. Chelsea have always been at the cutting edge of football violence, and King himself was at the heart of the evolving Chelsea mob for some 30 years. From his first visit to a football ground in the early 1960s, he charts his development from a rattle-waving child through to a fully fledged member of the notorious Chelsea Shed in the 1970s and finally to his exploits as a key player in the most feared football gang of the 1980s and 1990s - the so-called Chelsea Headhunters. 
 
King describes the leading characters of the various eras, not just from Chelsea but from across the country. He also records every clash, ambush and act of revenge in vivid detail, as well as the camaraderie and style of this most infamous soccer gang. 
 
This is not just another book on the well-trodden subject of football hooliganism, as, unlike so many authors, Martin King makes no attempt to distance himself from the violence and leaves readers to draw their own conclusions. 
 
At times provocative, often humorous and always honest, Hoolifan places the phenomenon of football hooliganism in its true social context.

The Revelations and Wild Times of a Young Skin

A Boy's Story

As the 1960's drew to a close, parents across Britain raised a curious eyebrow as their long-haired children suddenly returned home with shaven heads, sporting Levi's jeans and vicious looking army boots, pleading for three quid to buy a Harrington jacket from the market. The skinhead was born and a youth culture stronger and more widespread than any other, before or since, took Britain by storm. Marting King was one of them. Boys and girls alike embraced this new working-class fashion and music - the West Indian reggae sounds of Blue Beat and the strong sense of identity they fostered. For a couple of summers the media would have it that England was under seige, when the young skins paraded at seaside resorts on bank holidays and later on terraces at nearly every football ground acros the country. With his passion for Chelsea FC and their growing reputation as the skinhead club forming a backdrop, King artfully and humorously describes the heady mix of pleasures which were all part of life as a teenager growing up in working-class south London in the late 60's

A Novel

The Estate

Hailed by the authorites as `the future of housing', The Estate in south London was opened with a flourish by the Lord Mayor of London in the late 1960s. The six 20-storey tower blocks were seen as the new way forward for community life in London. However, within a matter of weeks it had all started to go wrong as racial tensions built up and families of ethnic minorities clashed. Based on true stories, THE ESTATE is a novel based around 11 different families living side by side in The Estate, and their perceptions of it. We find out how the Indion family, the gypsies, the gay couple and the landlord of the local pub all deal with new homes and the dynamics of a multi racial community. Building up to a finale at The Estate's Christmas party, this is a poignant and funny account of how life really treated the occupants of the tower blocks.

Football's Coming Home

The Naughty Nineties

Football has reinvented itself. As television money has poured into the game, the traditional working-class fans have poured out - not by choice, but by economic necessity. According to those in charge of the game the football hooligan has at last been eliminated from the landscape. But how true is this much-vaunted claim? Martin King, author of Hoolifan, brings his story up to date in The Naughty Nineties. Ironically, he finds that football hooligans now really are in the minority but they are far more dangerous and committed than ever before.

Jimmy Stockin: The Life Of A Bare Knuckled Gypsy Warrior

On The Cobbles

Everyone is familiar with the gypsy race but few outside their close-knit and ancient community really know what being a gypsy is about -how they live and how they think. This is the story of a gypsy man, Jimmy Stockin, born into a world where fighting is first nature. Whilst football maybe the chosen sport for most British males, bare-knuckle fighting is a passion among gypsies both as participants and spectators. Jimmy was born into fighting family. His father and grand-father before him 'trod the cobbles' and young Jimmy was being put up against other boys on gypsy camps from the age of five. He took on bare knuckle challenges from wherever they came. Before long Jimmy was widely recognised as the champion of the bare-knuckle fighters. On the Cobbles is a rare insight into a community under threat - a community that treasures tradition - and a man who had little choice in becoming a fighter but was nevertheless determined to be the best. Shocking and sad, humourous and brutal, this story opens the door to a different world. The world of a gypsy warrior.

Peter Osgood

Martin King

Martin Knight

A deliciously honest account of a maverick life . . . one of the most enjoyable football books of the year

'Grips the reader from sentence one . . . and never lets go through the binges, birds and bankruptcy

King of Stamford Bridge

In a 16-year career spent with Chelsea and Southampton, goal-scoring legend Peter Osgood made 560 appearances, scoring 220 goals and winning two FA Cup-winner's medals. He was part of the victorious Chelsea side that defeated the mighty Real Madrid in the 1971 European Cup-Winners Cup final and is the last player to have scored in every round of the FA Cup, including the final. 
 
Ossie tells the story of the career and the extraordinary roller-coaster personal life of the man who spearheaded a team that made as many headlines off the field as on. The truth about the hard-drinking and hard-living antics of these Kings Road dandies - Hudson, Cooke, Baldwin and company - has never before been told. Osgood tells of his strained relationship with manager Dave Sexton, which resulted in his and other stars' departures, triggering a decline in Chelsea FC's fortunes that took some 20 years to reverse. He recounts his experience in the Mexico World Cup of 1970 and is brutally honest about the challenges and problems faced by ex-footballers as they attempt to adjust to life in mainstream society. 
 
Peter Osgood was no ordinary footballer and Ossie is no ordinary football autobiography. Like the King of Stamford Bridge himself was, this book is entertaining, outspoken and full of surprises.

Martin King

Praise for Ossie

A deliciously honest account of a maverick life . . . one of the most enjoyable football books of the year

'Grips the reader from sentence one . . . and never lets go through the binges, birds and bankruptcy

Unmissable (****)

A deliciously honest account of a maverick life . . . one of the most enjoyable football books of the year

'Grips the reader from sentence one . . . and never lets go through the binges, birds and bankruptcy

Unmissable (****)

A deliciously honest account of a maverick life . . . one of the most enjoyable football books of the year

'Grips the reader from sentence one . . . and never lets go through the binges, birds and bankruptcy

Unmissable (****)

Books by Martin King

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