The English created the game of football and has a very rich history within the game. England exported the game to other countries and the dominant view is that England did the equivalent with hooliganism and football violence. ‘The English seem to have exported hooliganism much more readily than other countries’ (University of Leicester: 2001)
‘A GOOD OLD ENLGLISH TRADITION: ‘they (hooligans) are a much a part of the English tradition as tea’ The Globalist, 16th June 2002
You can see from the headline that the media support this dominant view; this headline is not from British Press but from The Globalist – an online publication that is read internationally.
The vast majority of the media coverage of football violence is concerned with English fans, especially abroad.
Contesting the dominant views; Football as the English disease:
Football has long been regarded as primarily as English or British disease, yet it has long existed as a social problem throughout the world (Dunning 2002). This dominant view can be credited to the role of the media, or at least as a catalyst for it.
Occurrences of foreign football violence are as commonplace as their English counterparts. In October this year, Argentinean crowd violence caused a judge to ban matches in the capital Buenos Aires for 15 days, after a top-flight match was abandoned after 70 fans were injured. (www.football.com)
In the 1950s, fans of the Kayseri and Sivas clubs fought with pistols, knives and broken bottle for days after the end of a match between the two sides. Before troops restored order, cars were burned out, 600 spectators injured and 42 of them killed, 25 by stab wounds (SIRC 2003).
Football related disorder is not, however, necessarily of the same nature, or influenced by the same causal factors in all the areas in which it occurs. SIRC (2003) believe that even the most dogmatic academics have come to admit that ‘universal’ explanations cannot accommodate all cross-cultural variations. The fact that football hooliganism is not universally the same is often overlooked.
Both the extent and the nature of football-related violence are influenced by different historical, social, economic, political and cultures in different countries. Social Class has been a significant factor in England for example. In Scotland and Northern Ireland it is because of religious sectarianism. In Spain sub-nationalist politics, and in Italy historical regional antagonisms. (Dunning 1988)
However there are cross-national similarities in the stages of football hooliganism development. SIRC (2003) have found there is an initial sporadic violence directed at mainly the referee and the players, followed by a second stage of violence aimed at opposition fans and police inside the stadium, and the third stage is encounters between these groups outside the stadium.
Apart from England, nations experiencing the most significant problems are Italy, Germany, Holland and Belgium. Available data indicates that football violence is roughly comparable with around 10% matches encountering football violence.
Football hooliganism is clearly not an exclusively an English disease. Nor can English hooligans be held entirely responsible for ‘spreading’ the disease in Europe.
Contesting Dominant Theory: “Football Hooliganism is a modern phenomenon”:
It is a general assumption that football hooliganism is a relatively new phenomenon, arising in the 1960’s, and peaking in the 1980’s. However, our research has proven this to be false. Football has been associated with violence since the 13th century. Indeed, Edward II banned football as he felt that the disorder and chaos surrounding matches might lead to social unrest or possibly treason. (Ingle & Hodgkinson, 2001) This early form of the game was played on Shrove Tuesdays and has been described as a “legitimised opportunity for settling old scores, land disputes and engaging in tribal aggression with the youth of neighbouring towns and villages.” The tribal aggression was accompanied by bouts of heavy drinking and injuries to both players and fans. (Dunning et al, 1996) This early form of the game found nothing strange or sinister about the more bloody aspects of spectator violence.
As we moved into the 17th century, games involving teams from Scotland and England were becoming a regular fixture. Often a football match was “the prelude to a raid across the border.” Stadiums’ where often damaged by fighting between rival fans, and many homes and shops where “looted” as control over the fighting was almost non-existent. It is clear that even at this early stage, football fans had gained themselves a reputation for violence and the English authorities “learnt to keep their eyes on the football fans.” (MCM Research, 1996)
Throughout history, there have been many incidents of football hooliganism ranging from football fans destroying a drainage ditch on the Isle of Ely in 1638 to Preston North End fans attacking Bolton Wanderers players and spectators at the end of a game in 1884. In 1740, a football match in Kettering turned into a food riot and a local mill was looted and destroyed. 1886 saw a railway station battle between Preston North End and QPR fans. It was inevitable that the disorder surrounding the matches would attract harsh judgement. In 1829, a Frenchman who saw a football match in Derby asked, “if this is what they call football, what do they call fighting?” (MCM Research, 1996)
Perhaps the most noteworthy of all the incidents of football hooliganism occurred in Glasgow in 1909. The game ended in a draw, and after the officials refused the fans’ in their demand for extra-time, a huge riot occurred as 6000 fans revolted. Fifty-four policemen were injured and the damage to the stadium was extreme. Homes and emergency equipment were vandalised and famously led to “the destruction of every street-lamp around Hampden Park.” (Dunning et al, 1996)
Early football hooliganism was not exclusive to Britain. The game was exported to Europe during the 1800s, and initially the participants and fans adopted the sporting values of the British gentleman. Danish matches were attended by large but, well-mannered crowds and unruly spectator behaviour was absent. However, this soon began to change. In Sweden, fans were segregated into upper class and working class, and the press encouraged “extroverted behaviour” amongst the working class fans. During a match between Sweden and Denmark, the first “organised expressions of feeling” was observed and this was accompanied by heavy drinking and created a cause for concern. Unruly behaviour ensued and the stadium and its surroundings where damaged. The game soon began to gain popularity with the middle and lower classes, and symbolised working industrialist values that were antagonistic to the aristocracy. The game became the “allegory of liberalism,” and under this label, violence in the game in Europe flourished. ()
Finally, it is important to note that the term “football hooligan” was coined in the 1870s as an alternative to “football ruffian.” However, the phrase did not become popular until the press adopted it in the 1960s to refer to the “new wave” of football hooligans that arrived at that time. This evidence only re-enforces the fact that football hooliganism is not a new phenomenon.
Contesting Dominant Theory: “Football Hooligans are the xenophobic lower working class”:
The third dominant theory that we sought to contest was that football hooligans are the “xenophobic lower working class.” This was proven to be incorrect. Mr John Williams of the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research stated, “Contrary to what is commonly believed, hooligans were not a small minority of alienated young people. They are not so young, they come from the mainstream and not marginalised backgrounds, and they are not fascist or nazi.” Huge efforts have been made in order to find a relationship between hooligans and their social background, and yet these efforts have only resulted in one solid conclusion. There is no systematic relationship between vandalism and their social background. Hooligans descend from all imaginable environments and hence, are not pre-eminently unemployed. Hooliganism is not restricted to any city, region or country. (Committee on Culture and Education, 1999)
Gary Armstrong’s ethnographic approach offered further insight into hooligan culture. Ethnography is said to be “telling it like it is,” and looking at the social world of the subject as it is seen “from the inside.” Here, Armstrong observed Sheffield United “Blades,” a group of hooligans over a 5-year period, in search of answers surrounding the composition of the group and their motivation. He discovered that “the Blades were in no way influenced by fascist groups and had no hierarchical structure.” This is further evidence to suggest that football hooligans are not racist and indeed, have no racist motivation.
Armstrong also considered the composition of the hooligans. He came to the conclusion that “the core hooligans were not the working classes of Sheffield. Many were well educated and successful in business.” He found that the “Blades” were a great mixture of people, spanning all classes and ages. Armstrong’s work proves that hooligans do indeed come from all environments and social backgrounds and that the stereotypical view of a hooligan is invalid and a gross misrepresentation of the movement. (Hobbs & May 1993)
The Postmodernist view on football hooliganism:
Critical theorists have concentrated on the media’s influence. Hargreaves (1986) feels that hooliganism is a gift to the media, to the press especially, driven by competition within its own ranks, to find the ‘big bang’ story. King (1997) feels the very dangerousness of the hooligan stimulated a moral panic that made the figure irresistibly fascinating. The fact that the press constructed the hooligan as the liminal figure i.e. beyond what is normal, only fuelled public curiosity.
Newspaper headlines at the time included “Smash these thugs” (The Sun 1976) and “Cage the animals” (Daily Mirror 1976). These became commonplace, and only increased the momentum of football hooligans. The media should be recognised as an integral part of the direction football hooliganism took. This is what Stuart Hall (1978) identified as the 'amplification spiral' that he used to illustrate how this kind of exaggerated coverage of a problem could have the effect of worsening it. It is based around the logic that if a society is concerned about a phenomenon such as football hooliganism, sensationalist reporting, as the only source of information for many, can help to create a widespread and unnecessary panic.
Hargreaves (1986) agreed with Hall’s view and applied it to how the media adds an account worked up in a stereotyped vocabulary, which stigmatises young working class football supporters as animals and lunatics- this process exaggerates the problem, oversimplifies the causes, draws attention away from the question of causation, and concentrates instead on the ‘threat to society’ angle and how repressive the solution should be (Hargreaves 1986).
In the 1980s the media gave maximum exposure, in graphic detail to the Heysal disaster and the Prime Ministers vehement reflection. The motives behind the media’s portrayal was to suggest that football violence is so anti-social, irrational and threatening that the only way to deal with it is tougher disciplinary measures. Hargreaves (1986) felt that when causes of the problem enter this discourse they figure merely as fillers between the drama- it is the solution that becomes the focus of the media’s attention.
King (1997) agrees, and feels that press has fuelled the fire. The way the media has portrayed hooligans as these lunatic and barbaric has only rendered hooliganism more attractive to fans and only increased the fans feeling that they were against society.
The press representation of individuals who were involved in confrontations between the wars is in stark contrast to after the 1960s. Hooligans in the period during the wars were described only as “hotheads” who had failed to adhere to the ethics of sport that they were bound to and had just lost control. After the 1960s, the male fan was now stigmatised and vilified by the use of de-humanising rhetoric that branded their actions as “animalic”, “lunatic” and “barbaric” (King 1997)
Who is marginalised by “Football Hooligans?”:
Hooliganism has had a huge influence on the game of football. Since football began, hooliganism has been a problem that has permeated every level of the game and has affected everyone involved in the football industry, in some negative way. This short overview will examine who is marginalised by football hooliganism, and how they are marginalised.
Firstly, it is true to state that “football hooligans” dictate to some degree where the non-hooligan fans can sit in the stadium during a football match. In “Sport, Culture and Ideology,” Ian Taylor talks of how rival fans’ “take the ends” of the stadium. He states, “what has been a favourite place for spectators who wished to be close to the “goalmouth” was now transformed into a “territory” over the occupation of which rival supporters would do physical battle, prior to, and during the game itself.” The mere threat of the presence of these “hooligans” is enough to persuade the “non-hooligan” to purchase a ticket elsewhere in the ground, where the threat of hooliganism is less likely.
The second issue is surveillance. As football hooliganism reached its peak in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was deemed necessary to introduce “heavy” policing at football matches, and this policing has continued to the same level today. Additionally, CCTV has now been implemented at most football stadia in the world, and as a result all spectators are now watched before, during and after the game. The advantages are obvious; the police and the CCTV both act as deterrents to any form of hooliganism and hence help to reduce “football hooliganism.” However, it has also had an adverse effect. Many football fans have ceased to attend games due to the “big brother” element. The high levels of police, and especially police horses only serve to intimidate many “non-hooligan” spectators at the game and create an “uneasy” atmosphere outside the stadium where spectators are herded like cattle towards the turnstiles. “Not all stewards are properly trained and innocent fans will always suffer from insensitive crowd management.” (Perryman, 2001) There is also the ethical question of whether it is right to film a spectators’ every move at the game. Many of the general public object to being recorded on camera in many different situations, so why should football spectators be any different?
Football hooliganism has played a very significant role in the conversion from terracing to “all-seater stadia.” After a series of well documented hooligan-related disasters in the 1980s, football clubs where instructed to either convert any terracing in their stadiums to seating areas, or build new “all-seater stadia.” The theory is “spectators are controlled much more easily if they seated in a fixed position, as opposed to if they were constantly moving on a terrace.” All seater stadiums have undoubtedly reduced the threat of hooliganism – “their socio-spatial transformation has allowed troublemakers fewer places to hide.” (Perrryman, 2001) However, this improvement in safety has come at a cost. Converting stadia and building new stadiums is very expensive to football clubs and when this is coupled with the costs of CCTV and policing a football match, the financial burden is huge. There is little doubt that these costs of “hooligan-proofing” a football match have contributed to the overall cost of a ticket to watch a game, and hence it is the “non-hooligan” who is marginalised as they either have to pay the extra money or they cannot attend the matches.
Throughout the compilation of this report, it became clear that the media have a huge influence on how the general public views England fans. Selective media coverage of England fans travelling to “away” matches has given “England away” a reputation for football hooliganism. In October 2003, England was due to play Turkey in a crucial Euro 2004 qualifying match in Istanbul. The media had created a “frenzy” based on the rivalry between the two nations and it was considered a “certainty” that there would be fighting between the rival fans. The F.A. reacted to the media “frenzy” and promptly banned all England fans from travelling to Turkey. The Turkish F.A. also issued a ban on England fans entering the country. This meant that supporters who had no history of violence or hooliganism could not travel to the game. Once again the “non-hooligan” suffered marginalisation due to the actions of a few in the past.
As mentioned previously, travelling with England is portrayed as a “mad, bad place to be.”(Perryman, 2001) The fans are constantly referred to as “pond-life” who indulge in “sordid behaviour.” (The Sun) This image does not encourage “non-hooligan” fans to attend England away matches. It encourages “non-hooligans” not to travel with England. The absence of almost any positive messages, images or information to encourage a more balanced sense of what travelling with England is like will inevitably narrow the away support. Many fans would want to travel with England but are marginalised by their fear that if they travel there will be hooliganism.
However, perhaps there is a broader issue. A British council report in November 2000 titled “How the world sees the UK,” specified that the English are viewed by young people in other countries as “arrogant, xenophobic and frequently drunk.” These continental youngsters regard football hooliganism as a negative of Englishness. This reputation is no doubt mostly founded on the behaviour of English football hooligans on their travels. Hooliganism has become a national trait of the English and this has an impact on every Englishman and woman when they travel to foreign countries. The impact can be shown by the following anecdote mentioned by Perryman. An Englishman in Italy travelled to the local bank in order to change his travellers’ cheques to lira. As the cashier recognised he was English he said, “Ahh English, football hooligan.” Hence the world has formed an opinion over time about how English people behave, and this is based on actions of “football hooligans.”(Perryman, 2001) In this example, football hooligans have marginalised the entire nation of England.
Alternatives:
There is no sure set solution or complete alternative to football hooliganism. ‘it is unlikely that football will ever be free of some crowd disorder’ (O’Higgins, P and Pearson, Dr :2001) What we can consider alternative approaches and look at other countries football fans to see how they behave. I’m going to look at alternatives under five subheadings these being
- Roligans and Tartan Army
- Dutch Supporters
- St Pauli
- Positive Media Approach
- Women, Children and Families
Roligans and Tartan Army
The ‘Roligans’ is the comical name given to the Danish football supporters and the Tartan Army the name given to the Scottish Football Fans. Both of these countries supporters are passionate about the game of football and also drink when travelling to an away game but it seems, other countries do not fear them. The host town or city where the football match is to take place often look forward to these supporters coming.
Dutch Supporters
The Dutch supporters are another group of extremely passionate football supporters who treat the game of football as if it were a carnival. This group of supporters are extremely loud, noisy and vibrant in the way they dress. Again they also can be appear quite daunting but do not have the reputation like that of the English Fans.
St Pauli
St Pauli is a German football club but it is extremely different to any other club. In itself it represents an alternative to our own football clubs. The St Pauli supporters are unique in the way that they are strongly anti- racist and anti-fascist. They created MR! Which was the first anti racist fanzine, which existed. As a group the supporters encouraged other fans to support their beliefs and organised peaceful anti racist/fascist rallies and demonstration to commence straight after the game had ended.
Positive Media Approach
The media are often accused of whipping up a media feeding frenzy in concern with the coverage of football matches, especially when England travels abroad. The media have the power to create ‘hype’ around a game which maybe true or maybe completely untrue. If the press predict that there will be trouble at a certain game, in a certain place this will have two significant affects.
- Encourage the real troublemakers to travel to the area where the press have predicted there will be trouble. For the organised hooligans the press is a means of free media – with a huge captive audience to relay information about where the trouble will occur.
- The second effect of this ‘prediction’ of trouble by the press is that it deters peaceful fans from travelling abroad. Supporters in categories such as women, children and even ‘normal’ supporters are put off from travelling abroad to matches because the media have predetermined the troublesome events which are going to happen
As a result of the media coverage and the deterring of peaceful fans when England play away the supporters tend to be a concentration of hard core English and England Supporters fully aware of what trouble there is likely to be.
Women Children and Families
This sub heading is closely linked to the previous one. Another alternative would be to create a ‘family atmosphere’ at football matches. This can be seen in other sports such as rugby, fans from all ages, both sexes and both teams sit and support in the same areas of the stadium. But to achieve this family atmosphere the question of the approach of the press must be addressed, with a more positive approach there will not be a increase in positive supporters.
Reflection:
The purpose of the reflection was to look beyond the horizon of the phenomenon hooliganism, beyond the “moral panic” which was created from the sixties on, as it is such a complex topic with so many aspects to it. So we have to look at the wider picture of football, the influence and meaning it has and had on society.
By doing so, we focused on three main points, football as a form of identity, football as a form of social control and football as a form of resistance.
Ian Taylor’s structural Marxist approach, that hooliganism reflected the resistance of the working class against the changing nature of sport itself is a crucial approach here (Cohen 1979), it overlaps with Stuart Hall’s “sub-culture” theory, he stating hooliganism enabled young working class people to resolve their struggles in life on the terraces (MCM 1996). Peter Marsh’s ethogenic approach said, that football Hooliganism enables young males, with little prospects in school or work to achieve a sense of personal worth and identity through recognition from their peers (MCM 1996). All these approaches look at football as a form of identity, an identity shared by millions who are obsessed with the game and the question must be asked if through the transformation of the football business itself, people have lost their identity and try to regain it through violence.
The next question, which was addressed, is if football is being used by the governing elite, especially through the media, to deflect away from socio-political problems. To answer this, we applied postmodernist thoughts, like the ones from Umberto Eco and Jean Baudrillard towards it, who both argue that football is used by the governing elite to distort and manipulate representation of “reality“ (Levermore 2003), by stupefying the masses (football instead of opium for the masses…); the European Qualifying match between England and Turkey being a good example of this notion. Jürgen Habermas, member of the Frankfurt school goes even further by stating that the “violence” around football has now serious political implications that it tries to mobilise mass support for authoritarian solutions to the predicament of subordinate groups (Habermas 1989) . Looking at these postmodernist approaches, one is sometimes tempted to think that if football violence had not existed it would have been necessary to invent it.
Finally we looked at football as a form of resistance, the history of football and the links which can be made between football and (political) protest; the original folk football often used as an opportunity for settling old scores, land disputes, and engaging in ‘manly’ tribal aggression. In the 15th century it was banned twice, as it interrupted with the by then more “important” military sport of archery, but by the 18th century it became politically more significant; the football match which turned into a food riot in Kettering in 1740 and the riots after a match in West Haddon in 1768 being good examples of it. Recent examples of football being used as political progress we looked at, were the Mayday 2002 protests in London, where folk football was used to disrupt the police lines, as well as street football in Lagos Nigeria, which by blocking streets, enabled the continuation of a general strike.
Conclusion:
There are many stereotypes of hooliganism, often not accurate, which have been portrayed especially by the media. In our presentation we tried to contest these views with critical theory and academic approaches from all angles; with the result that we could not find a dominant reality. Approaches varied from Gary Armstrong, who argues that hooligans are not motivated by racism but rather then by the “buzz” of it, to Ian Taylor, who sees Hooliganism as a resistance of the working class towards the transformation of the game itself and the loss of identity which is the effect of it and results in violence.
We contested some of the dominant views and discovered that Hooliganism is not just an English disease, but is spread throughout the world, actually often much more violent than in England; we also contested the view that it is a new phenomenon, realising that the roots of Hooliganism going back far further then the 1960’s, when it started to get attention by the media.
This was one of the main aims of this presentation, not to question if Hooliganism is right or wrong or where it actually comes from, the immense amount of academic and critical approaches towards these topic show that it is impossible to find a general answer to this, but to look at the “reality” of it, to find out that often the dominant perception of Hooliganism is often not adequate.
We looked at the marginalisation hooliganism has caused, mainly the ordinary fan, who has to cope with immense surveillance and police presence at games, resulting in higher costs for the clubs and therefore higher admission prices, which in the era of all-seater stadia can be quite dear. This in mind we looked at alternatives; different approaches towards hooliganism and football in general; like the Scottish Tartan Army and Danish Roligans. We also recommended a different media approach towards football, which rather encourages people from attending matches than scaring them away with hyped up coverages of violences in the news.
In our reflection we took into account that it is inappropriate to simplify this issue as “mindless violence” as we have to look at the wider picture, and the influence football has on people and society itself. We did this by looking on football as a form of identity, as a form of social control and as a form of resistance. By doing so, we realised how broad football is and in how many ways it is seen, used and perceived by people
It was a very challenging and interesting topic to look at. Due to its complexity it was often not easy to “filter” out specific issues and approaches towards it, without losing important points. Nevertheless we hope we gave a good account of the dominant perspective of hooliganism and by contesting these assumptions showed, that there is much more towards it than just violence and drunkenness. To understand it, we cant ignore Hooliganism in the social History and stereotype them all as “mindless thugs” but look at the wider picture. Hopefully this presentation has shown that.
Reference List:
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Dunning, E., Murphy, P. and Waddington, I. (2002) Fighting Fans: Football Hooliganism as a World Phenomenon. University College Dublin Press.
Hargreaves, J. (1986) Sport, Power and Culture. New York: St. Martins Press
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http://www.football.com/cgi- bin/articycler/localize.cgi?category=Argentina&CID=50&PID=661&HID=1&at=argentina1.shtml&articleTitle=Fan+violence+halts+Argentine+season
www.hooligansfootball.homestead.com
The Sun, 7th October 1976
The Daily Mirror, 21 April 1976
