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There is a saying that football (soccer) is the beautiful game in the world. But after watching the extreme violence and brutality of football fans in the movie “The Football Factory”, I was left to wonder if that saying was an irony. This movie unfolds the dark world of British Hooligan culture thats replete with booze, drugs, sex and barbaric bare knuckle fights. Had it not been for the comedic nature of the movie, the gore and savagery in it would have been unbearable.

The main star of the movie, Danny Dyer has recently released a set of documentaries titled “The Real Football Factories”. In this documentary, He goes to the major football firms and interviews the members. For them, a couple of beers, some lines and few minutes of brawl sounds like a healthy British past time. That is when compared to the very recent documentaries released by the same person entitled “The Real Football Factories – International”. This is where everything from the fans exuberant passion to the violence takes a gruesome turn. Guns and knifes are wielded in exchange for punches and death is a very common occurrence during big derbies.

One of the episodes that really struck me was the one on the Hooligan culture of the Balkans. A very sad story about the football firms in the former Yugoslavia whose members not only fought on the terraces but carried weapons and went to full blown war with each other. It was scary to see how hate could run so deep and unrestrained nationalism could lead to ethnic genocide.

The Real Football Factories International – The Balkans (Part 1)

The Real Football Factories International – The Balkans (Part 2)

The Real Football Factories International – The Balkans (Part 3)

The Real Football Factories International – The Balkans (Part 4)

The Real Football Factories International – The Balkans (Part 5)

The Real Football Factories International – The Balkans (Part 6)