ANDREW FFRENCH talks to the author of a book that aims to tell the shocking truth about football violence.

WHEN Dominic Utton was just eight years old, his dad, a Southampton fan, took him to an away game at Leicester City.

On the way to the ground, they were forced to take shelter inside a DIY store as two groups of rival fans clashed outside.

“We were in Do It All and all hell was breaking loose outside – it was terrifying at the time,” said Mr Utton, 36, below, a journalist who has confronted football violence around the globe in his new book, The Real Football Factories: Shocking True Stories from the World’s Hardest Football Fans.

The father-of-two, who lives in Osney Island, West Oxford, worked with TV presenter Danny Dyer, who spent 90 days with the world’s worst gangs of organised football hooligans.

Dyer and his film crew met hooligans in countries as far apart as Brazil, Croatia, Argentina and Poland.

He caught up with the Bad Blue Boys, who follow Dinamo Zagreb, and Palmeiras’ Mancha Verde, and found that some of the so-called fans were ready to die for the cause.

Shot at, stoned, glassed and tear-gassed, the film crew survived gunfire in Brazil and a riot in Poland, and were lucky to return home alive.

Mr Utton met up with Dyer and the crew on their return, and the book accompanying the TV series was written following extensive interviews.

The writer told The Guide: “Danny and his team visited nine countries in three months and raced around meeting all these seriously frightening blokes.

“At one point, the windows of their bus were shot out – they were terrified.

“In this country, we have this image of fat hooligans having a ruck outside Smith’s but it is embedded in the culture in places like Croatia and Serbia.

“The first shots of the Balkans war happened on a football pitch.

“With any crime reporting, there is a fine line between trying to paint a picture as colourfully as you can, and showing just how violent the situation really is.

“But Danny and the team were scared – they were terrified quite a lot of the time, and I think that comes across in the book.”

The horrific nature of the hooligans’ violent acts was reinforced for Mr Utton when he was asked to write the book immediately after the birth of his two-year-old daughter.

“I was filled with the joys of new fatherhood, and was writing about the terrible, disgusting things these people do to each other,” he said. “The film crew went on a road trip, so the book does reflect that unashamed excitement, but at the same time I hope readers will learn something about the social and historic backgound of these fans’ groups.”

Mr Utton said football violence was not as prevalent in this country as it once was, but added: “An awful lot of it does go on in the lower leagues.

“You only have to look at what happened at Oxford United the other week when fans surrounded the Torquay fans’ bus.”

Mr Utton’s next book will again feature sport, but in a less violent context.

“I'm hoping to put together a book about great sporting rivalries, Coe versus Ovett, Borg versus McEnroe, or I might even write some children’s fiction,” he said.

After wincing my way through the brutal clashes of The Real Football Factories, I could do with a bedtime story myself.

l The Real Football Factories by Dominic Utton is published by John Blake, price £17.99.