NME: from the Bender Squad to the Gremlins: Inside Newcastle's Football Hooligan Firm

The Newcastle Bender Squad, The NME and The Gremlins are three of the most notorious firms in Newcastle United’s football hooligan history. They have created match day violence home and away over the last five decades and, in recent years, The Gremlins have become household names in the North East as an infamous gang of thugs with a thirst for fighting, with stories in the press fuelling their fierce reputation.

These firms have been mentioned in many books over the years and now it’s time to put the record straight. This is their time to tell their own story...

With over 40 contributors, this book is an intimate no-holds-barred account of Geordie Aggro, from the perspective of those that were and still are active. This is a social history of anti-social behavior, looking at social change in our region and the evolution of gang mentality over the last 50 years.

This book lifts the lid on Newcastle’s closely-guarded hooligan firms for the first time. Forget what you've heard on the terraces; forget what you've read in the press and forget what you think you know... this is the real history of violence on and off the terraces in Tyneside.

The fashion and haircuts may have changed but the violence stayed the same.