 Rise of the Footsoldier follows the inexorable rise of Carlton Leach from one of the most feared generals of the football terraces to becoming a member of a notorious gang of criminals who rampaged their way through London and Essex in the late eighties and early nineties. It is three decades of his life following him from football hooliganism, through to his burgeoning career as a bouncer, his involvement in the criminal aspects of the early  rave  scene and subsequently to his rise to power as one of the most feared and respected criminals in the country. The story concludes with three members of his firm being brutally murdered in the infamous shot-gun slaying at Rettenden.