I feel that every piece of information in this match day order is relevant to my study, therefore it would be senseless for me to write it all down.
From Leeds united I received an information leaflet on policing football matches from West Yorkshire Police’s website.
The most relevant and interesting part of this leaflet is the “frequently asked questions” section on the second page which answers such questions as “is drink or drugs a factor?” and “why do young men get involved in football violence?” It also details all legislation covering football events such as The Football Spectators act and The Football Disorder act. The last three pages of the leaflet contains three graphs titled “Attendance for Leeds united home matches 1970-2000”, “Arrests at Leeds united home matches 1970-2000” and “Arrests as % of attendance Leeds united home matches 1970-2000” the second graph shows that Leeds united regularly have over 100 “supporters” arrested each season.
From Everton I received a booklet with a comparatively small section referring to football hooliganism, which talks about exclusion orders and CCTV.
From Newcastle united, I received a letter detailing the match day operations explaining the fact that they employ 590 stewards on match days. It also states that 91% of their stadium is season ticketed therefore it’s a lot easier to spot the offenders of hooliganism by their seat number.
From Liverpool F.C. I received a booklet explaining their policy on football hooliganism, additional causes of football hooliganism and the governments influence on football hooliganism.
From west ham united I received a letter telling me how football hooliganism had been largely removed from football stadia over the past 15 years, however the main reason for this is that the hooligans are now meeting before and after matches to have organised fights.
From a football hooliganism website I found a page containing the total number of arrests from all four English leagues from 1992-1999.
From Wimbledon F.C. I received a letter telling me that “I regret to advise that we shall not be able to accede to your request.” They went on to say that they can’t deal with everybody’s requests and to wish me good luck in my project.
They also enclosed a membership form to join the club’s membership scheme.
I also wrote a letter to Graham Rodger who was at the time the football in the community officer asking him if he wouldn’t mind being interviewed on football hooliganism, I got a reply very quickly saying that he would be more than happy to give an interview, my questions and his answers are at the end of my project.
My Questionnaire
I made a questionnaire to gather primary data, by making this questionnaire I hoped to find out the publics opinions on football hooliganism.
I chose to use closed questions because the results would be easier to put into graph form, I didn’t use open-ended questions because I knew I would only have around an hour to complete the questionnaires and considered them too time consuming.
At the time of completing the questionnaire I thought football hooliganism was getting out of control because of organised gangs meeting before and after matches primarily to fight.
I chose to complete my questionnaire outside of Blundell Park, home of first division Grimsby Town F.C. because I thought it would be a good idea to ask people who go to football matches as they mat have had a better experience of football hooliganism.
I intended to speak tot the first 40 people who passed me by asking them the questions and ticking off their answers on my questionnaires.
I wanted to get an equal split of 20 men and 20 women, However, finding 20 women outside a football ground was a very difficult task.
I managed to get 14 women and 26 men.
My Questionnaire Results
I have completed my questionnaire and these are the results I got in graph form:
This questionnaire is simply to see how many people I asked, and from which age ranges:
As this graph shows, I asked more men than women, the main reason for this was that I conducted the questionnaire outside of a football ground and finding 20 women as well as 20 men was not an easy task.
Have ever witnessed football hooliganism?
This graph shows that more men than women have witnessed football hooliganism.
What do you class as football hooliganism?
As you can see from this graph, everybody questioned, apart from 2 people said they class physical violence as football hooliganism, the ratio of male-female is about the same showing that both sexes have the same views on the matter.
How many times have you witnessed football hooliganism?
As you can see, most females have only witnessed football hooliganism 1 to 3 times, whereas the majority of men have witnessed it 4 to 9 times.
This could mean that a lot of women don’t go to football matches very often, therefore there experience of football hooliganism is limited.
What do you think should be done about football hooliganism?
The graph shows that a high percentage of men think the offenders of football hooliganism should be fined and/or banned.
What percentage of football hooliganism do you think is related to alcohol consumption?
It was very interesting to see that so many men thought between only 0-25% of football hooliganism was related to alcohol consumption.
Do you think football hooliganism is the English disease?
The graph shows that women in general don’t believe that football hooliganism is the English disease,
whereas a lot of men seem to think it is.
Which countries do you think suffer most from football hooliganism?
As shown in the graph, a large amount of people think England suffers the most with football hooliganism, but in some cases this may not be right as many people haven’t witnessed football hooliganism abroad, and may just be making assumptions.
In my opinion my questionnaire worked very well because I think I got almost all the answers I expected, the only answer that I didn’t really expect was 21 people saying that they thought football hooliganism is the English disease.
After my questionnaire
I think my most successful question was “what do you think should be done about football hooliganism?” the majority of people thought that it would be best to fine/ban the hooligans, although 3 people said we should ignore football hooliganism and hope it goes away.
The only question in my questionnaire that caused anybody problems was the question “How many times have you witnessed football hooliganism?” this caused problems because people had to think back to how many times they had witnessed football hooliganism.
I don’t think that, if I was to make another questionnaire I would change anything, as the one I made didn’t cause too many problems and mostly gave me the answers I expected.
To carry out the questionnaire, I planned to stand outside of Blundell Park, Cleethorpes and survey the first 40 people who walked past, preferably 20 men and 20 women, this was the only difficulty I found in completing my questionnaire, I simply could not find 20 women outside a football ground.
As far as my hypothesis is concerned, I got both the possible answers from my questionnaire, my original hypothesis was “Is football hooliganism the English disease?”, this was answered in both aspects; firstly just over half (21) of the people questioned said that they though England suffered more than other countries from football hooliganism, but over half (15) of the people said that they didn’t think football hooliganism was the English disease.
The results of this questionnaire haven’t changed my opinions of football hooliganism, I still think that it’s a matter that needs addressing a lot more than it is being.
Gathering secondary information
I chose to write the following letter to 20 English clubs to request any information they could give me, I did this to gather some secondary information.
The letter I sent out:
Dear …………,
I am a year 11 student at Havelock school in Grimsby, as part of my G.C.S.E. course in humanities I am doing a personal research study on football hooliganism and would be grateful if you could provide me with any relevant information.
Yours faithfully,
Jack Kirwin.
I sent a copy of the letter to the following football clubs:
- Barnsley F.C.
- Blackburn Rovers F.C.
- Bolton Wanderers F.C.
- Chelsea F.C.
- Coventry City F.C.
- Crystal Palace F.C.
- Derby County F.C.
- Sheffield Wednesday F.C.
- Southampton F.C.
- Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
I only received replies form the clubs which have a
Overall, the replies I did get were of a very high standard and all had good content so I would call this letter writing exercise a huge success.
If I were to write some more letters I would possibly write to the English Football Association and the Scottish Football Association.
Evaluation of sources used
I fell that the most useful piece of information I received were the results from my questionnaire, these were the most useful because they gave me the public opinion on football hooliganism using primary data.
The information from the results both supports and opposed my hypothesis.
The supporting factors were:
Over half the people said that they thought Turkey and Spain suffered most from football hooliganism, with Germany and Italy also receiving a high percentage of the votes.
And:
62.5% of people questioned said that they didn’t think football hooliganism is the English disease, which gives the public opinion for my hypothesis, which was “is football hooliganism the English disease?”
And the opposing factors were:
Over half (21) of the people questioned said that they though England suffers most from football hooliganism.
And:
37.5% of people said that they though football hooliganism is the English disease, which is not the majority of votes but still very high.
I don’t feel that my questionnaire results were biased or one-side in any way.
Conclusion
I feel that on the whole, the information I collected disagreed with my hypothesis, the only piece information I received which did not agreed with my hypothesis were my questionnaire results, but they also agreed with it.
The secondary information I collected neither agrees nor disagrees with my hypothesis, as it was not specific enough.
Completing this project has not changed my mind, nor as it made me feel any different on the matter of football hooliganism.
To answer my hypothesis I do NOT believe that football hooliganism is the English disease because many countries have serious hooliganism problems, in December 2000 four French premiership matches and to be abandoned because on rioting, in the game between Metz and Strasbourg it was also reported that a lit firework was thrown at the at one of the linesmen.
In Italy, hooligans groups have clashed with rival groups and with the police on many occasions.
One time, a cocktail bomb was thrown at the Inter Milan team coach be their own fans after a heavy defeat by their local rivals, luckily nobody was on the coach at the time as it caught fire and exploded.
In Greece, AEK Athens were banned from playing at their own stadium by UEFA after fans threw bottles and stones and invaded the pitch in a match against rivals Olympiakos
Whilst in Eastern Europe and South America it is very common for fans to invade the pitches and assault players and officials, the reason being, there is very minimal of no security in place stop this happening.
In Turkey, two Leeds United fan travelling to see the match Vs. Galatasaray where murdered during fights after the game.
Overall evaluation
I feel that my methods of carrying out the project were very successful, and that I got a lot of information from a wide range of sources.
If I could, I would of liked to of surveyed 100 people in my questionnaire as this would probably have given me a wider range of results an possibly would have been more accurate.
I think that I did enough research; I got information from four sources:
- Questionnaires.
- Letters received from football clubs.
- Information from the Internet.
- My interview with Graham Rodger.
I feel that I could have managed my time a lot better.
The part of the project I enjoyed most was completing the questionnaires as it gave me a chance to find out the public opinion.
The only problem I encountered during this project was leaving it until the last minute to complete it.
As I previously stated, I would of liked to have handed out 100 questionnaires to gain a wider range of results.
I would also have written to all 92 English league football clubs, but this would have been both time consuming and expensive.
In all honesty, I think I could of done a lot better in this project, but if I were to do another project I would still choose the same topic but I think I would have chose a different hypothesis, as I couldn’t get a lot of information on the one I chose (is football hooliganism the English disease?), I would probably have chosen something to the effect of “Do you think hooliganism still plays a major part in football today” I feel this would have been a lot easier to answer.
By Jack Kirwin
