Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual

Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual tells Riaz Khan’s colourful account of growing up as the son of strict Pakistani parents in the multi-cultural city of Leicester. Riaz finds refuge from the pressures at home to stay true to his cultural roots, when he becomes involved in the football ‘casual’ culture, and joins Leicester’s infamous ‘firm’ of football hooligans, the ‘Baby Squad’. Decked out in the latest designer gear and ready for a brawl with the rival firm on match day, Riaz and his friends unwittingly create a multi-cultural gang advocating racial tolerance, where the only labels that matter are on the clothes. But as the years go by and the casualties of football firms around the country mount up, Riaz soon discovers the true price of belonging to a subculture of violence. Set in the 1980s, Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual explores the development of the hybrid youth culture of the time, which developed within a shocking culture of violence.