Today I speak to researcher Matthew Tannam-Elgie of . We talk about the man who tried to assassinate US clown president Donald Trump. Tannam-Elgie has uncovered many anomalous data points that have gone largely unreported in the mainstream…

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🚧 RE-UPLOAD DUE TO TECHNICAL ISSUE 🚧

I speak to journalist Joseph JP Patterson (Complex / Trench Magazine). He talks to us about real underground music in the UK and the problem of gang war voyeurism (Trap Lore Ross specifically).

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The majority Muslim country of Kazakhstan is one of the most unlikely places for football hooliganism to take root. And yet, believe it or not, the scene there is growing rapidly. Born from Aktobe’s “13 Sector”, these crews mix British hooliganism, European ultras culture, and ancient Kazakh tradition to create a unique, fully-formed underground counterculture. Forest fights, street patrols, fanaticism—a new scene thriving 3000 miles away from where it all began.

I got unprecedented access to these hooligans, travelling all the way to Kazakhstan to meet them. I followed the region’s most notorious firm in the lead-up to the biggest derby of the year. The result is my new documentary: Thirteen Sector.

To watch the uncensored version, go to https://www.awaydays.tv/raw

Every winter football hooligan firms across Europe send Christmas greetings out into the world. They do this via the underground networks they operate in, using groups on Telegram to communicate with the wider scene. I think it’s great—not only the uniquely scuzzy designs, but the whole vibe of fighting men doing something so light hearted.

These are not one dimensional people. Up top I’ve posted some of this year's best hooligans Christmas cards, from firms of all persuasions, from all over the continent. To be clear though, these are not the kind of firms most people envision when thinking of the average “hooligan”. These men are largely involved in forest fighting—a different discipline entirely. This is not Football Factory style violence.

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Forest fighting is a lot more organised and skilled than the street scene. None of these lads throw chairs into cafe windows or attack random fans at the stadium. There is no “invisible wall” in the forest. Quite the opposite…

For my latest documentary, Thirteen Sector, I did a lot of research on this scene. The documentary is about the most notorious hooligan firm in, of all places, Kazakhstan.

Thirteen Sector drops on the Away Days youtube channel on New Years Day.

Below is an adapted version of the historical context I wrote up for Thirteen Sector. It explains how hooliganism went from pints and lines to equal numbers and no weapons.

Real organised hooliganism began in Britain in the 1960s. For young working class men, it was a hard time. “Postwar prosperity” did not reach their neighbourhoods. As poverty and unemployment rose, the youth sought out commotion. They wanted danger, purpose, tribalism. They found it all, at the football.

Crews of opposing fans began to fight at the stadium. It was chaos. They’d rush each other’s stand, punching and kicking... This spread across the country and grew rapidly throughout the 70s.

By the 80s, hooliganism was its own counterculture. The gangs were now known as firms, and the firms were rampant. A violent underground formed. They created their own fashion, their own lifestyle, their own code.

Televised UK football violence made the hooligan known across the world. Scenes of street battles across England, Scotland, and Wales shocked viewers and terrified politicians.

As the 90s came around, the British government cracked down hard on hooliganism. Heavy policing, banning orders, surveillance… This crushed what was the current wave, but it didn’t kill the scene as a whole. Not at all. It was already evolving into something more structured in mainland Europe.

No one knows exactly when it happened, or who started it, but arranged fights with equal numbers became popular in the late 90s and 2000s. Captains of rival firms organised pre-planned fights away from police and stadiums. This was happening across Poland, Germany, Sweden, Ukraine, Holland, Russia… all over the place

Firms trained hard for these meetups. The violence was different—skilled and technical. Martial arts became essential. There were rules now too: no weapons, no running. This form of hooliganism was a unique departure from the street scene.

Arranged fights moved into secluded fields and woods, and it became known as Forest Fighting. A new hooligan discipline. Proper tactics were developed, firms hit the gym, and the chance of arrest was less likely. This new scene took off in a big way. Arranged fights with scores of hooligans is not uncommon.

The street fighting still exists, but dedicated Forest Fighting has sprung up all over Europe. This style of hooliganism is now a scene within itself. It remains hidden underground, but it’s extremely active.

Stay active, go outdoors, and have a great Christmas. Be sure to catch Thirteen Sector when it lands January 1st.

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Financier Jeffrey Epstein was the head of the largest known pedophile human trafficking ring in history. The rich and powerful were his clients, accomplices, and bait. All under Epstein’s eye. From the mansions of marble and gold leaf to the Little St James island chalets, everything was wired up with closed circuit cameras. An alleged panopticon where the elite class regularly raped teenage girls. Some of the associates: Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz, Leslie Wexner, Leon Black, Glenn Dubin, Ehud Barak.

Big noises in the worlds of banking, politics, tech, media, fashion, and beyond. Rich men with dark souls, happy to turn a blind eye if they’re getting their disgusting fat bellies rubbed. All of them drawn in by a man attached to Israeli intelligence and, allegedly, the CIA. Revolting.

In the past year, thousands of Epstein documents have been strategically “released” or “leaked” by various US government entities. All of them parasites in their own way, publishing each cache for damage control or political influence. Never for justice for the victims. Still though, many of these documents are illuminating if you pick through the scraps.

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In December 2025, the US government’s Department of Justice published 30,000 pages of so-called Epstein Files, all in the pursuit of pretending to be transparent. They failed on that front. The documents are heavily redacted. In the first batch alone, over 550 pages were fully blacked out. Whole stacks of A4 sheets blasted in dark ink.

Much of this was to remove President Trump from the mix, attempting to hide his increasingly obvious connections to the sex trafficking oligarch and his circle of influence. Understand though, that this is not a partisan issue by any means. All sides of the political spectrum are implicated in the Epstein Network—Democrats, Republicans, and everything in between. These high-flying predators are bound together by their shared predilection for abusing young girls.

In the most recent stack of documents released, there are thousands of photos taken inside Epstein’s properties. Each one shows a snapshot of the dead millionaire’s base of operations. Many of these images are outright sinister. We’re talking padlocked cervical collars and bottles of lube next to massage beds. In the context of everything known about the Epstein abuse ring, these images paint a picture of the nightmare the victims were living through.

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So many of these images have not made it onto mainstream platforms for whatever reason. Perhaps they’re too confusing for your average news package. I don’t know. What you’ll see though are essentially retroactive crime scene photos.

Some are eerily liminal: Vast corridors with plain walls and closed doors. Half empty bedrooms with garish decor and cheap furniture. Misplaced objects in uncomfortable positions.

Some are filled with esoteric imagery: Dozens of bronze statues of Egyptian Gods. Bizarre masks attached to the walls of a dental room. Horror themed paintings and strange ornaments that nod to Lolita.

Some are outright Lynchian: A full set of garden chairs and table with an open parasol, all set up in-doors in a room with a high ceiling.

These are rooms and spaces that still hold dark secrets.

THE PHOTOS

I spent days trawling through thousands of these images, picking out the ones I feel are particularly noteworthy for a variety of reasons. I advise you to spend some time zooming in to see the full range of strange shit Epstein kept in his many residences. It’s like he built up a tapestry of objects that all point to the open-secret that was his human trafficking ring. There’s lots of “hiding in plain sight” going on here...

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Today we speak to filmmaker and researcher Thomas Dekeyser from ‪Destructionist International‬. He talks to us about anti-tech activism and why societal destruction might actually be “good”.

(Sorry another episode took a while to upload. I’ve got loads of these filmed, it’s just not the priority to edit and upload them right now whilst trying to finish the next documentary for ‪Away Days.)

I speak to Madeleine Stone from Big Brother Watch. She talks to us about how Britain has become a deeply authoritarian country and what we can do about it.

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Took a minute due to the nightmare that is podcasting hosts, but Hanrahan Live is now available on all podcast platforms. I know some of you don’t use YouTube so much, so you can listen to the audio only if you want.

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I speak to creative director Ben Ditto. He talks about the AI robot he’s developing and asks what it means to have a soul…

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Recently my personal YouTube channel hit 10,000 subscribers for no real reason. I hardly ever upload anything there. What I have put up is just odds-and-ends from various reporting trips that don’t fit anywhere else. Hitting the 10k felt like a push to do something with the channel though. I’m already juggling plates with my various documentary, podcast, and freelance projects, so I wanted to do something interesting that’s relatively low cost and low maintenance.

So I came up with Hanrahan Live. It's basically just a talk show where I chat with people that I find interesting. Outsiders all from a similarly unusual orbit as my own. Everyone and their dog is doing this format now, so I thought fuck it, why not have a go myself?

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These are extensive, unfiltered interviews with everyone from independent clandestine investigators to underground bareknuckle fighters. I hope you like it. If it does well I’ll keep at it. If it doesn’t, at least it was fun to produce.

Watch and subscribe for free: youtube.com/@jake_hanrahan

Episode 01 drops tomorrow at 13:00 GMT.