The Rose Villa

Hardcore

Since the early 1990s Aston Villa Hardcore has been arguably the most prolific football hooligan gangs in the UK. Described by the police and press as one of the worst two hooligan firms on the England international scene. There are currently 80 Villa Hardcore members subject to football banning orders and sentences totalling over 80 years have been handed out to participants in a series of high profile incidents.Gang member Michael Lutwyche reveals how Villa Hardcore - led by Category C football hooligan Steven Fowler - became one of the most highly organised and notorious football hooligan gangs in the country. Known to police forces the world over Fowler first came to the notice of the world media when he was thrown out of France during the World Cup in 1998. He is now subject to one of the longest banning orders in British football.

The Rose Villa

From the French Riviera between the wars to a terrifying endgame in World War 2 Occupied France, a gripping story of doomed but triumphant love from the author of A Wedding in the Olive Garden. High above the Mediterranean, on the French Riviera, stands a beautiful pink stucco villa. Once a playground for the rich and glamorous, now - in the aftermath of World War 1 - it is a convalescent home for sick and wounded nurses. Here Scottish Flora Garvie is recovering from four traumatic years on the ambulance trains. And here she will meet again charismatic but troubled Kit Carlyle, a regimental chaplain who no longer believes in his calling and certainly doesn't believe himself worthy of Flora's love. Their dramatic rollercoaster of a story will take them through death, separation and war, until a terrifying game of cat and mouse in Occupied France seals their fate.

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