The Young Team cover art

The Young Team

Soon to be a BBC Drama, the groundbreaking Scottish coming-of-age novel

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The Young Team

By: Graeme Armstrong
Narrated by: Graeme Armstrong
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About this listen

This audiobook is narrated with stunning authenticity by the author, Graeme Armstrong.

The Times Top Ten Bestseller
A Granta Best of Young British Novelist

Trainspotting for a new generation’Independent
‘An instant Scottish classic’The Skinny

2005. Glasgow is named Europe’s Murder Capital, driven by a violent territorial gang and knife culture. In the housing schemes of adjacent Lanarkshire, Scotland’s former industrial heartland, wee boys become postcode warriors.

2004. Azzy Williams joins the Young Team [YTP]. A brutal gang conflict with their deadly rivals, the Young Toi [YTB] begins.

2012. Azzy dreams of another life. He faces his toughest fight of all – the fight for a different future.

Expect Buckfast. Expect bravado. Expect street philosophy. Expect rave culture. Expect anxiety. Expect addiction. Expect a serious facial injury every six hours. Expect murder.

Hope for a way out.

Inspired by the experiences of its author, Graeme Armstrong, The Young Team is an energetic novel, full of the loyalty, laughs, mischief, boredom, violence and threat of life on these streets. It looks beyond the tabloid stereotypes to tell a powerful story about the realities of life for young people in Britain today.

‘A swaggering, incendiary debut’The Guardian
‘Dialect that fizzes off the page’The Observer
‘One of the most admired young voices in British fiction’ – The Times

Scots Book o the Year
Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award & Betty Trask Award


Listeners are loving The Young Team:

'Absolutely fantastic. Enthralling from beginning to end'
'Seriously the best audiobook I have listened to!'
'This book is outstanding . . . Graeme Armstrong’s narration brings the characters to life'

Biographical Fiction Coming of Age Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Urban Biography Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

A swaggering, incendiary debut . . . The non-standard English forges a dazzling poetry of its own . . . pitches Armstrong straight into the first division of Scottish writers. (Jude Cook)
The Young Team is a landmark in Scottish literature. It reminds me of Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby. (Damian Barr, author of Maggie & Me)
Armstrong’s hard-hitting novel is Trainspotting for a new generation.
Raw and lyrical . . . written in a voice that recalls Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner – dialect that fizzes off the page.
[A] gripping debut novel . . . he is quite a phenomenon . . . one of the most admired young voices in British fiction. (Mike Wade)
A riveting debut novel . . . it crackles with teenage energy . . . has already engendered a buzz that many other debut novelists would kill for.
It is Trainspotting meets Clockwork Orange in this depiction of gang life in North Lanarkshire . . . it gives us a voice from a place - geographically and socio-economically - we don’t often hear from. (John Self)
The Young Team is a book full of guts, power, humour and humanity. (Kerry Hudson, author of Lowborn)
Bright, brittle and boiling with immediacy . . . His work is vivid, dynamic and sharp as a whip. (Janice Galloway, author of The Trick is to Keep Breathing)
Phenomenal. It’s been ages since I read a book so funny, visceral, or powerful. (David Whitehouse, author of Bed)
All stars
Most relevant
The young team is a journey of a ned, I grew up knowing and watching these guys . Track suits and bucky, pills and grass....and Gangs.....It wasn't my path but I know many who lived and died on that road. This book is perfect it gets it spot on the language, the fight not just on a Friday full of it but the fight to get out, to escape but that won't be for all. Its sublime I'm sad it had to end listen to it without judgement, listen to a life lived by many well done graeme on a wonderful story ya bas........


Sublime, tough, deep and true.

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Was recomended this by a friend who raved about it and I now understand why.
Only disappointment is that I listened to (binged) it so quickly and now its done.
Had been sceptical about an author narrating rather than a professional narrator but my scepticism was totally unfounded. Armstrong had me hooked from start to finish.

Binged in two days.

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By far the best audiobook I've listened to. Very funny intelligent heart warming story.

Tremendous

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So nostalgic of times gone by, canny whack listening to it in a recognisable scottish voice. Loved it.

Fan-fuckin-tastic

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Having grown up nearby and at a similar age, it was good to listen and relate to the narrator. I found the book enjoyable, it is sadly, a true reflection of the schemes some of us are raised in.

YT

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