Football Hooliganism

Steve Frosdick, Peter Marsh

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134038787
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book provides a highly readable introduction to the phenomenon of football hooliganism, ideal for students taking courses around this subject as well as those having a professional interest in the subject, such as the police and those responsible for stadium safety and management. For anybody else wanting to learn more about one of society's most intractable problems, this book is the place to start.

Unlike other books on this subject it is not wedded to a single theoretical perspective but is concerned rather to provide a critical overview of football hooliganism, discussing the various approaches to the subject. Three fallacies provide themes which run through the book: the notion that football hooliganism is new; that it is a uniquely football problem; and that it is predominantly an English phenomenon.

The book examines the history of football-related violence, the problems in defining the nature of football hooliganism, the data available on the extent of football hooliganism, provides a detailed review of the various theories about who hooligans are and why they behave as they do, and an analysis of policing and social policy in relation to tackling football hooliganism.

Part I

Introduction

Sports spectator behaviour has been for many years a major cause for concern, not only in the UK but also throughout Europe. Violent supporter behaviour has been labelled as ‘football hooliganism’ and is sometimes referred to as ‘the English disease’. Chapter 1 examines three popular fallacies about such behaviour: that football hooliganism is new, that it is a uniquely football problem and that it is an English phenomenon. These fallacies are refuted with examples from history, from other sports and from countries around the world. Examples are also given to illustrate that football hooliganism remains a contemporary problem.

Chapter 1 concludes with an overview of the remainder of the book, which is structured in fourteen chapters in four main parts. Part I is the introduction and Part II deals with defining football hooliganism. Part III is about explaining the phenomenon, whilst Part IV looks at tackling it. The book has three clear aims: to provide the first holistic view of football hooliganism and so provide a ‘course reader’ to support the teaching of the subject; to present a clear, unbiased but critical review of the literature on football violence in Europe; and to examine and evaluate the various approaches to tackling such violence.

Chapter 2 shows how spectator violence has its origins in medieval folk-football. The game of football has been associated with violence since its beginnings in thirteenth-century England. Medieval football matches involved hundreds of players, and were essentially pitched battles between the young men of rival villages and towns — often used as opportunities to settle old feuds, personal arguments and land disputes. Forms of ‘folk-football’ existed in other European countries (such as the German ‘Knappen’ and Florentine ‘calcio in costume’), but the roots of modern football are in these violent English rituals.

Chapter 2 continues by looking at the historical development of modern ball games, particularly soccer, emphasizing the ongoing link between sport and violence. The much more disciplined game of football introduced to continental Europe in 1900s was the reformed pastime of the British aristocracy. Other European countries adopted this form of the game, associated with Victorian values of fair-play and restrained enthusiasm. The chapter then considers the different phases through which football-related violence has evolved. Only two periods in British history have been relatively free of such violence: the interwar years and the decade following the Second World War. The behaviour now known as ‘football hooliganism’ originated in England in the early 1960s, and has been linked with the televising of matches (and of pitch-invasions, riots, etc.) and with the ‘reclaiming’ of the game by the working classes. In other European countries, similar patterns of behaviour emerged about 10 years later, in the early 1970s. Some researchers argue that a similar ‘proletarianization’ of the game was involved, but there is little consensus on this issue, and much disagreement on the extent to which continental youth were influenced by British hooligans. Finally, Chapter 2 concludes by noting the lack of direct causal connection between spectator violence and stadium disasters.

1. Introduction

Football fan behaviour has been for many years a major cause for concern throughout Europe, particularly in Germany, Holland, Italy and Belgium, as well as in the UK. Substantial disturbances at football matches have also been witnessed in Greece, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Austria and Eastern Europe. Debates in the European Parliament and at national government level in many European Community countries have highlighted a growing sense of frustration about our apparent inability to curb or redirect the anti-social behaviour of a minority of football supporters which constitutes the problem.

The popular media in Britain, with their unique penchant for hysteria and sensationalization, have waged a war of words on the ‘mindless thugs’ and ‘scum’ who have populated the soccer terraces since the mid-1960s — reserving their most extreme vitriol for the reporting of events involving English fans abroad. Violent and anti-social behaviour amongst football fans is referred to as ‘football hooliganism’, or sometimes as the ‘British disease’ or ‘English disease’. These populist terms have been used by the media and by politicians (see Dunning 2000) to label the deviant behaviours which have become associated with (particularly) English football from the 1960s onwards. But these labels are based on three popular fallacies: that the violence is something relatively new; that it is found only at football matches; and that it is an English phenomenon. None of these claims stands up to scrutiny.

Spectator violence is nothing new. On the contrary it is an ancient and historical problem, going back at least to when there was disorder between the ‘Blues' and the ‘Greens’ — the supporters of different chariot-racing teams in Ancient Rome. As we shall see in Chapter 2, many modern ball games — such as rugby, hurling, American football, Gaelic football and Australian Rules football — are derived from the medieval folk-football played in England since the thirteenth century. This was an excuse for fighting which regularly featured violence, death, injury and damage (see Elias and Dunning 1971).

Whilst they may not be as widely reported in the media, incidents of spectator violence have occurred with some regularity at sports such as rugby league in England, rugby in France, cricket worldwide and baseball, basketball, ice hockey and American football in the USA. In fact the USA has a substantial history of spectator violence (see Murphy et al. 1990). Whatever examples we cite from our scrapbooks will be quickly out of date; however, in March 2002, a rugby league Challenge Cup match between Leigh and Wigan was ‘in danger of being abandoned after the bottles were thrown in the second half, with the crowd being warned three times' (Daily Telegraph, 19 March 2002). In October 2001, at French rugby side Montferrand, ‘three Scottish match officials were physically and verbally abused by French fans’ (Daily Telegraph, 8 October 2001).

American football saw serious disorder at a Cleveland Browns match in December 2001, when sustained missile throwing forced the players to leave the field (Daily Telegraph, 18 December 2001). In Columbus, Ohio, police used tear gas and made 50 arrests from a 50,000 crowd as rioting continued all night after a College American football game (Daily Telegraph, 6 December 2002). In November 2004, Indiana Pacers players and Detriot Pistons fans were involved in a mass fight in the stands at a basketball — rather neatly described as ‘basketbrawl’ — match (Daily Telegraph, 22 November 2004). Even at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in February 2002, the police fired tear gas to disperse disorderly crowds after the finals of the bobsleigh competition!

In English cricket, the 2001 tour by Pakistan was marked by crowd problems at several grounds. The Daily Telegraph (8 June 2001) reported how one match ‘ended in utter chaos last night after a crowd invasion by several hundred Pakistan followers’. At a second match, The Times (18 June 2001) told how ‘Pakistan supporters flooded onto the pitch at Headingly attacking a steward who was kicked in the head and stomach’. In 2003, Lancashire County Cricket Club launched an inquiry after ‘more than 1,000 people ran onto the Old Trafford pitch to celebrate Pakistan's day-night victory against England’ (Football and Stadium Management August/September 2003). In January 2002 in Melbourne, Australia, a one-day cricket international was held up whilst more than 200 cricket fans were ejected and about 10 arrested after objects were thrown at the New Zealand players (Daily Telegraph, 12 January 2002). On the very day of writing this chapter, the Daily Telegraph (21 February 2005) reported that ‘The New Zealand cricket authorities are to review security after Australia's captain stopped the match several times when his players were pelted with plastic bottles and debris during the one-day international in Wellington’.

Even minor sports are not exempt from hooliganism. Yahoo News (16 June 2003) reported at least 20 persons injured when ‘rampaging Serb water polo fans stoned the Croatian embassy in Belgrade and tore down its flag after a violent European championship final’.

Disorder has also affected virtually every country in which football has been played. Again our examples will be quickly out of date, so a few cases from 2002 to 2005 must suffice to make the point. In Scotland, an Aberdeen v. Rangers match in January saw missile-throwing and fighting inside the ground (Sunday Telegraph, 20 January 2002). An Internet news items reported that the 2002 UEFA Cup Final between Feyenoord and Dortmund involved fighting outside the ground and in the city of Rotterdam; whilst the close of Spain's end of the 2001/2 season saw fighting inside and outside grounds, together with attacks on players and officials.

Also in Spain, Barcelona fans stormed the directors’ box and broke windows after losing to Valencia (Daily Telegraph, 20 January 2003). Notwithstanding that their team was playing thousands of miles away in Osaka, Russian fans rioted in Moscow after they were beaten by Japan in the World Cup (Daily Telegraph, 10 June 2002). In a European championship qualifier, Macedonian players were pelted with missiles by Turkish supporters (Daily Telegraph, 12 June 2003). The UEFA website (8 December 2004) also reported how missile-throwing marred a Valencia v. Werder Bremen match. As a final example, AS Roma were required to play their remaining homes games in the 2004/5 Champions League behind closed doors after their game against Dynamo Kiev was abandoned at half-time, the referee having been hit in the face by a coin (The Times, 22 September 2004).

But the problems are not confined to the countries included in the above examples. As the Head of the Sports Department at the Council of Europe put it, ‘Spectator violence and misbehaviour is still a problem all over Europe’ (Walker 2000). And the problems are not confined to Europe either. For example, following the previous suspension of the Argentinean League because of crowd violence, renewed problems in the 2001/2 season included the abandonment of a derby match between Boca Juniors and River Plate. The worst incident the authors have heard of came from the island of Mauritius on 23 May 1999. Following a soccer match between two teams named ‘Scouts Club’ and ‘Fire Brigade’, there were riots in the capital, Port Louis, during which seven people were burned to death (Vuddamalay 2002).

So right up through history, we find clear examples of spectator violence in sports other than football and in countries other than England. But it is right to say that the sorts of behaviours we shall be examining in this book have particularly come to prominence since the 1960s, particularly in a football context, and particularly involving the English — at home and abroad. It is ‘football hooliganism’ rather than spectator violence in general which has received academic attention, which has provoked special policing and has led to specific legislation. So ‘football hooliganism’ inevitably provides the focus for our book. And there is no doubt that spectator violence — or ‘football hooliganism’ — remains a current concern in English football. Co-author Steve Frosdick keeps large scrapbooks of press cuttings and media reports on football hooliganism, adding to them on an almost daily basis. By way of illustration, we shall begin by giving three examples from the 2001/2 season. In January 2002, an FA Cup-tie between Cardiff and Leeds was played in a very hostile atmosphere. The match was disrupted by persistent missile-throwing and concluded with a large-scale pitch incursion (Independent, 7 January 2002). In May 2002, serious fighting outside the ground marred the end of season play-off between Millwall and Birmingham City. Some 47 police officers and 26 police horses were injured by fans throwing paving stones, bricks and explosives in disturbances which lasted an hour and a half (Guardian, 4 May 2002). Notwithstanding the absence of problems at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, English fans were reported as involved in trouble abroad on at least one occasion. In May 2002, 123 Manchester United fans were deported from Germany after clashes with police in the old town area of Cologne (Daily Telegraph, 2 May 2002).

And the reports of English football hooliganism continue to the present day, with two widely reported incidents during the week when this chapter was being written. In the FA Cup fifth round, ‘Wayne Rooney's return [to Everton] in Manchester United colours prompted angry supporters to throw coins, a mobile phone and a bottle’ (Sunday Telegraph, 20 February 2005), as a result of which Manchester United's goalkeeper needed treatment to a head wound. Outside the ground, fighting between rival fan groups resulted in 33 arrests. Also in the FA Cup, the Burnley v. Blackburn Rovers match featured ‘three separate pitch invaders and a coin thrown’ (Daily Telegraph, 21 February 2005). Again in the FA Cup but not repor...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• About the authors
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Part 1 Introduction
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Football violence in history
• Part II Defining Football Hooliganism
• 3. The nature and extent of British football hooliganism
• 4. Levels of football violence in Europe
• 5. European fan profiles and behaviour
• Part III Explaining football hooliganism
• 6. An overview of British theories of football hooliganism
• 7. British theoretical perspectives in detail
• 8. Theoretical approaches from Europe and beyond
• 9. The media and football hooliganism
• 10. Football violence and alcohol
• 11. Racism and football fans
• Part IV Tackling Football Hooliganism
• 12. Policing football hooliganism
• 13. Repressive social controls
• 14. More proactive and preventive measures
• References and selected bibliography
• Useful Websites
• Index