football hooliganism

"Hooliganism" doesn't just happen in Scotland - it happens all around the world. It all started in England around the 1950's but was not recognised by the government until the 1970's with the beginning of football "firms". Most, if not all, football clubs have their own personal "firm" (now known as soccer casuals) who will meet up to cause violence with other firms. The Heysel disaster in 1985, which led to the deaths of thirty-nine fans and a five year ban for all English clubs from all European competitions, just shows the major consequences that hooliganism can bring to the sport.

The gangs normally consist of men generally in their late teens and early twenties following a much older leader. Research has shown most of the people involved with this sort of crime are people in manual or low paid occupations.

Arrests at football matches have risen for the first time in four years, according to the home office figures. Almost 3,800 people were arrested last season - 300 (8%) more than in 2005/06. Public disorder and missile throwing was up, but violent disorder fell. People say this is because of the increase of supporters watching English, Welsh and International games rose by 5% to 38.6 million last year but this is no excuse in my opinion.

Nevertheless, there is action being taken to stop hooligans causing so much violence. The government has taken out banning orders to prevent known football hooligans from causing further trouble at home and abroad.These bans last between 2 and 10 years depending on how much trouble that person has caused. As figures show there were 3,203 hooligans subjected to the orders on 9 August, down from 3,387 in 2005/06, all of whom were prevented from attending domestic and international matches. I personally never knew anything about these banning orders but I was delighted when I found out about them as they obviously work and help prevent many hooligans from attending games.

As a Manchester United fan I was devastated when statistics showed me United had the highest rate of arrests in the whole of Britain last season with 195 followed by Chelsea with 135.

One factor that might explain the recent increase in hooliganism is that they are a lot more organised than they used to be. This is largely due to the fact that technology is improving, with mobile phones and the use of instant messaging over the internet has made it a lot easier for the gangs to arrange fights. Also, they are obviously more cautious and aware of the consequences that they face than they used to be as they now arrange to have the fights away from the football ground and where the police force will be situated so the police cannot disturb them. Despite this, statistics show these people can never be too clever as 57% of football-related arrests took place outside or away from the stadium last season.

Why do people do this? Well as I studied this topic there were three main theories as to why people do engage in football related violence. Many people get involved because it gives them a sense of belonging to the club and inflicting shame on opponents. Many young men do it to try and get a tough, 'hard man' name for themselves and for others the thrill of it being against the law entices them to do it even more to feel rebellious.

Over the years there have been many suggestions and queries into how we can stop this major problem across the world. Some suggestions include; introduce a membership card scheme for all football fans, restrict the movement of the known trouble makers, improve the communication system between the necessary authorities in different countries and, the best one I feel, is to make the kick off time for all games earlier so that people can spend less time in the pub which means less time to get drunk.

Overall, I feel this is a major issue facing most of the world. Politically I feel that the governments should definitely look into this problem thoroughly to try and stop all hooliganism in the great game of football and try and get the bad reputation away from the game. The English national team supporters have one of the worst reputations in the world which means other countries think the whole of Britain is like that and all the people like to fight.

I feel if the police were to catch and arrest any of these hooligans they should be given a life time ban to every football ground around Europe, not just their home ground. I really do hope this problem can be sorted out in years to come as it is badly affecting many people's thoughts and views on not only football but the country that the hooligans come from.

Paul Flecher - Herd

5B

Intermediate Two English

Reflective essay