Phil Thornton’s book Casuals is an insightful cult classic. Easily lost in the midst of waves of football counterculture tales – and fairy tales – that clogged up the sports section shelves when the book trade discovered there was money in selling vicarious thrills to wannabe geezers, Casuals was something apart. It was about a culture created independently and spontaneously, frequently ignored and misunderstood by media style gurus, but which drew on working class traditions of street nous and sharp dressing that date back to Victorian days and mixed with the music and hedonism and wanting to belong that go along with youth cults.
In the 10 years since the book first appeared, casual culture has been annexed by the mainstream, another instant lifestyle available to buy. At the same time, a new generation of football fans is drawing on the casual attitude as part of a reaction to a perceived effort to take the soul out of the experience of watching football. On the tenth anniversary of its publication, the book itself was updated with new contributions from the likes of Kevin Sampson, Jay Montessori and Terry Farley looking at how the scene has evolved. I caught up with Thornton while researching an article on football’s culture wars for Thin White Line magazine and asked him for his thoughts on current events.
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