I am using a questionnaire rather than another research method because you can get detailed and varied questions and answers, and they are easier to analyse and present in bar charts, line graphs etc. I am going to do a simple random sample in distributing my questionnaires and will hope to get as many replies as possible.
I am not doing research methods such as an interview, participant observation and non-participant observation because these will take a long time, and will be difficult to do and people may disclose less information, and these will be more difficult to analyse and present in charts and graphs. Also people might not want to do interviews as they take too long.
I am going to be doing an opportunity sample and I will just hand them out to people I see from the groups I mentioned earlier.
I recognise that my topic area is a sensitive issue, and to ensure people are happy to fill in my questionnaire, it will be anonymous and their answers will remain confidential, I do not want people confessing to mass amounts of violence and leaving their names!
Analysis
Question 1
Most of the respondents to my questionnaire were male. I would have preferred the balance of the sexes who responded to my questionnaire to be more equal.
Question 2
The majority of my respondents were aged 16-25. I would have liked to have a more balanced range of age groups to fill in my questionnaire.
Question 3
Most people who I asked said that either they had been part of football violence, or they knew someone who had been. This is interesting because it shows that football hooliganism is a bigger issue than people think, and if 33 out of 50 people have been, or know someone who has been involved in football violence, this shows that the problem is more than just a small subculture of football ‘fans’ that are causing the violence.
I am not surprised by this because a lot of the people who I asked come from working-class backgrounds in a town where football violence is quite a big thing.
Question 4
Most respondents said that they had witnessed football violence personally, however it is only an approximately 60/40 margin. I therefore feel that I have got a balanced view of people’s opinions on football hooliganism because I have got the ‘facts’ of the media and the reality of people who have witnessed football violence personally. I am not really surprised by these results because as I referred to in the previous question, most of my respondents were for working class backgrounds so they probably will have witnessed it personally.
Question 5
Most respondents to my questionnaire stated that they didn’t regularly attend football matches. This was surprising because a lot of people stated that they had witnessed football violence personally, so how could they have witnessed violence at football matches. However, as in question 4 it is pretty balanced between ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Also, most of the people who said ‘yes’ to this question also supported Burnley F.C. This could influence their opinions about football matches, as Burnley supporters have quite a bad reputation for football violence.
Question 6
Most people seem to see ‘football hooligans’ as single-minded, attention seeking idiots, who are bored, and are fighting for “something to do at the weekends”. I am not really surprised by this response, because this is typical of the media ‘propaganda’ that influences the general public opinion. I am, however, a little surprised at the responses because the majority of people stated that they either had taken part in acts of football hooliganism, or knew somebody who had. This therefore makes it seem silly that they see football hooligans as the ‘scum of the earth’.
Question 7
Most people’s opinions of the causes of the violence are alcohol, racial tension, rivalry, boredom and the media. This is not surprising because I stated some of these reasons in my hypothesis and introduction.
Question 8
Most people thought that the scale of the violence only depended on what happened on the football field sometimes. This is interesting because this shows that the people fighting aren’t real fans and would fight regardless of the football, but are just using the rivalry of football as an excuse for fighting, giving a bad name to football fans. I am not really surprised by these answers because most hooligans leave matches early only attend away matches and some don’t even attend the football match.
Question 9
Most people thought that most violence occurs at nationwide level (Division 1,2 and 3) which does not surprise me at all because I also hold the same opinion. I am, however, surprised by the low number of people who answered ‘Internationals’ to this question because I would put International matches on a par with Divisions 1,2 and 3 for bad violence. I am even more surprised that more people said that more violence occurs in the Premiership than in the International matches, because there is usually relatively little violence at Premiership matches.
Question 10
Most people said that most of the violence occurs in the town centre. I am not at all surprised by this because in a lot of cases a lot of the violence does occur in the town centre, and certainly press reports would give people this idea.
I am surprised by how few people thought most violence occurred near the train station. This could possibly be because not as many people see the fighting if it happens in the train station, however, if it occurs in the town centre a lot of people see it happening, and see the damage caused to shop windows etc. Whereas the damage is less obvious to the majority of people who will rarely visit the train station.
Question 11
Most people’s views of football hooligans were 16-30, male, British, white, working class and racist. I am not at all surprised by this, because this is a description of the stereotypical ‘media football hooligan’, however as I said in my introduction, many academic studies have shown the main people causing the violence were older than this, and often from middle-class, reasonably paid backgrounds.
Question 12
Most people thought that violence is increased mainly by drinking alcohol. This agrees with my hypothesis and I am not surprised by this because in many cases the violence is increased by alcohol.
Question 13
Most people said they expected the people who were committing the violence to be wearing the ‘new hooligan costume’ of designer gear, which includes Burberry (mainly hats) and Stone Island. This did not surprise me at all because this is how a ‘football hooligan’ is portrayed in the media, and in actual fact, the hooligans often do wear this costume.
Question 14
Most people said that racism occurs in football violence which I accept it does at International level, however, at most matches the fighting is between people of the same ethnic group, social class etc., so this does surprise me somewhat.
Question 15
Many people were undecided at who were the starters of football violence, but slightly more people suggested that Away fans were the culprits rather than the Home fans. This doesn’t surprise me, and I agree with this to some extent, but who starts the violence does actually depend on the circumstances, i.e. what teams are playing, how far the away ground is from the home ground, how many away fans travel to the match etc.
Question 16
Nearly everyone was in agreement that the media tries to influence people’s opinions about football violence at least some of the time. This does not surprise me, and I am in agreement, and feel the media try and blame young, working-class British males for causing all the football violence, and try to poison people’s minds against these people, and group football fans as one, even though it is only a small proportion of people who are actually committing the violence.
Conclusion and Evaluation
Conclusion
In my research I have found out quite a lot. I have found that people don’t like the people causing the football violence, and they think these people are just ‘single-minded’ and ‘bored’ individuals who need to be locked up. I have also found that people are influenced by the media, or at least the media try to influence people.
I have also found that people think that the violence is mainly motivated by alcohol and to some extent by the result of the match.
In recent years, although media coverage suggests otherwise, the amount of football related violence has actually decreased. I have found in this project that people’s stereotypical views of the people causing the violence are that they are British, working class, male and white. This agrees with what I stated in my hypothesis and introduction.
My hypothesis has partly been proved because I said that I thought some of the reasons for the violence could be drink, big matches, big events, gender, age, ethnicity, social class/background, media coverage and level of competition.
In this project I have proved that violence is increased by drink and big matches. I have also found out that the social class and background of people attending football matches could be influential in the amount of violence happening at individual matches.
I also said in my hypothesis that I thought the majority of people would think that football hooligans are the stereotypical young working class yobs motivated by drink. I was right, and in my questionnaire, nearly all of the respondents held this opinion.
Some of my findings in this coursework are quite similar to some of the background sociology I mentioned in my Introduction. For example, I mentioned in my Introduction that football violence is portrayed as white, working-class males; I have proved this right in my project.
Evaluation
In my questionnaire I think that some people have misunderstood question 11 “What is your typical view of a football hooligan (Social class, age, gender, ethnicity, etc)”, because some people have written in response to this question “age, gender, ethnicity” – this shows a lack of understanding in the question.
I think that some of the people may have answered the questions together, as a few people have provided me with really similar answers. Also I think the media and stereotypical views may have influenced some people’s answers, as they have said that they have never even been to a football match.
The respondent’s age or gender may have influenced their answers, because I have chosen quite a mature topic, and somebody quite young may not be mature enough to understand some of the things I am trying to find out in my research. A respondent’s gender could have influenced their answers, because a male is more likely to attend football matches, therefore he is more likely to have experienced football violence than a female, which could affect his answers.
I found it difficult in filling my sample size of 50 people to fill in questionnaires, it took me a long time to get this many people to fill it in. It was better that I did fill my sample, because if I had a lot less than 50 people, it wouldn’t have been very representative.
I found my questionnaire very useful, and it has produced a big majority of my project, and I am happy with the results I have gained from it.
If I were to do this coursework again, I would try and get a more even range of male and female, and different age groups. If I did this project again, and if I had enough time, I might have considered doing some interviews, and possibly an observation. I think these would be better, because if I did an interview, I might be able to find out more than I did with my questionnaire, and this would also resolve the problem of people not understanding the question.
If I did an observation I think this would be useful because I would bond as a group with people, and understand how the hooligans work, and their motives behind why they commit the violence.
