This is one example of how a significant number of peoples’ lives can be affected through acts of football hooliganism on a large scale.
- In ways considered undesirable.
On a smaller scale, it is a regular occurrence after a Rangers v Celtic match in Glasgow for public house windows to be ‘smashed in’ by away supporters, for supporters to urinate in peoples’ back gardens, for supporters to drink in the street and litter the area with their empty beer cans, for supporters to fight and cause general disorder in the neighbourhood of those who may have no interest in football whatsoever affecting their ‘quality of life’.
Hardly what you would call desirable behaviour!!
- About which it is felt something can be done through collective action.
Extra (and more professional ) stewarding over the past decade, increased police presence, undercover intelligence have all gone some way to reducing acts of violence and disorder in and around stadiums. The Football Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) have also gone a long way in the prevention and detection of so called hooligans at home and abroad.
As you can see ‘football hooliganism is most definitely a social problem as it is social in origin, definition and treatment.
Methods of Research
When studying a subject such as football hooliganism it is important to be wary of sociological methods of research.
This is because these methods are limited scientifically.
The data that sociologists accumulate is either qualitative or quantitative and these are often open to highly subjective interpretation and distorted conclusions.
Qualitative research designs are those that are associated with interpretative approaches, from the informants’ point of view rather than measuring discrete, observable behaviour. Qualitative methodologies are strong in those areas that have been identified as potential weaknesses within the quantitative approach, e.g. the use of interviews and observations to provide a deep, rather than broad set of knowledge about a particular phenomenon such as “football hooliganism”.
Quantitative research designs are characterised by the assumption that human behaviour can be explained by what may be termed “social facts”, which can be investigated by methodologies that utilise “the deductive knowledge of the natural sciences” (Horna, 1994, p.121). Quantitative investigations look for “distinguishing characteristics, elemental properties and empirical boundaries” (p. 121) and tend to measure “how much”, or “how often” (Nau, 1995). They are appropriate to examine the behavioural component of football hooliganism such as the number of arrests made at football matches.
How Long Has Football Hooliganism Been Around?
Although the fighting, disorderly conduct, and destructive behaviour of those who attend football matches has blossomed over the past thirty years, it has been around contrary to popular belief for a considerable longer time:-
“Despite impressions to the contrary, football hooliganism has a long history. It was described by the local press in the Millwall area as a ‘creeping paralysis’, for example, as far back as 1920”. (Williams, 1995, p.3).
This apparently evidences that this phenomenon is not a recent product of society.
What Makes a Person a Hooligan?
In researching this topic, an area which is of importance is that of the stereotypology which has attached itself to the football hooligan over the past two decades, approximately, that the typical football hooligan is: male, lower working class, often unemployed and between the ages of 18-22. (Zani & Kirchler, 1991).
57 stewards from the English Premiership, 1st and 2nd Divisions were asked in their opinion, what was the average age of persons involved in football hooliganism. Remembering that these people deal with football hooligans week in, week out, the results make for interesting reading:-
Fig 2 - Stewards estimation of ages of hooligans (R =Respondent)
Of the 57 respondents only 4 gave an exact number. What is obvious from the table is that the majority of the self created age ranges identified tend to be quite large, e.g.:-
87.7% of the respondents submitted an age range spanning ten years or more.
70.1% of the respondents submitted an age range spanning 15 years or more.
70.1% of the respondents submitted an age range where the upper figure was at age 35 or over.
Incredibly there was not a single range predicted in the 18-22 bracket!!
Howard Becker (1963) argued that groups such as the above age bracket are targeted not so much because they are involved in a higher rate of offending, but rather because of stereotypical perceptions held by others, i.e. they are labelled as being more likely to be capable of deviant (see later) behaviour.
Up until the mid 80’s the image still remained of the hooligan representative of the 70’s and early 80’s. The skinhead appearance, the ‘bover’ boots etc... The media went a long way to promoting this image, yet evidence suggested that this was not the case.
The ‘casual’ is discussed by Redhead and McLaughlin (1985) compared to the skinhead,
“the casual is constantly changing, emphasising expensive clothes, with competition among rival ‘fighting crews’ over who is the most stylish. Respectable dress allows these fans to travel to away games undetected by local police. Buying expensive seats is also fashionable because it allows access to less heavily policed seating areas among rival fans. The casuals’ quest for style has helped the evade attempts to control hooliganism”.
(p. 227)
At a football conference at West Yorkshire Police training school, Bishopgarph, UK, in conjunction with the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) held in 1998, it was made clear it was made clear that although expensive clothing had taken the place of ‘bover’ boots and club shirts, the hooligans had picked specific labels and current styles/popular fashion, which makes them equally distinguishable, “some of these clothes reach prices of £350 for one sweater”, (Spencer, M. 1998)
It is difficult to speculate on what makes a person become involved in football related violence because there are so many possible causational factors. It is impossible to claim that all ‘football hooligans’ are of a certain age or class. At a basic level, most become involved because they enjoy fighting and enjoy the excitement of being involved in football riots. They will use any excuse for a fight, be it heated rivalry between two neighbouring football teams (e.g. Manchester United v Manchester City), or bigotry (Glasgow Celtic v Glasgow Rangers – Catholic v Protestant). In addition, many are under the influence of alcohol when they become involved in crowd violence.
Football hooliganism was one of the first issues to attract academics to the study of football, with sociologists, historians and psychologists developing hypotheses explaining why football hooliganism continues to occur. Some of the differing theories on the causation of football hooliganism are listed here:
-
Cohen, S. ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics’, in Images of Deviance, 1970, Harmondsworth: Penguin
- Ingham, R. et al, ‘Football Hooliganism: The Wider Context’, 1978 London: Inter-Action Inprint
- Kerr, J. ‘Understanding Soccer Hooliganism’, 1994, Buckingham: Open University Press
- Marsh, P. (1978) ‘Aggro: The Illusion of Violence’, London: Dent
Are Football Hooligans Deviants?
Howard Becker (1963) defines a deviant as someone who persistently breaks social rules, especially important ones such as laws. Whether a person is committing a deviant act or not depends on how others in society view their actions.
For example, we, in our ‘western society’ would view a bigamist as being a deviant whereas it is common in Saudi Arabia for a male to have 3, 4 or considerably more wives, thus it would not be considered as an act of deviancy.
Fighting in a boxing ring is not considered in our society to be an act of deviancy, disorder at an anti-nuclear protest, although many would class as being wrong would not necessarily be classed as an act of deviancy as people are fighting/demonstrating about something that they believe in/have strong feelings about.
In general most people in our society can accept/understand the aforementioned actions.
What our society cannot accept is mindless fighting, verbal abuse and group disorder. The type of behaviour common to ‘football hooligans’ which serves no purpose whatsoever other than giving the hooligans an ego boost and making life a misery for others. In general, deviant behaviour.
Do People Remain Hooligans for Life?
I remember being at school about 15 years ago, just at the time of the emergence of the ‘football casual’. This ‘gang’ who all wore the same designer clothes were renowned for going out at the weekends to football games, not because they had much interest in the sport itself, but to fight with other ‘casuals’ from the opposing team’s fandom.
Where are they now?
Just recently I met with one ‘ex-casual’ who had been slashed twice during two separate incidents at football matches causing permanent disfigurement to his face. He is now an ‘English Teacher’ at a secondary school and in his own words stated ‘I have grown up’.
On the other side of the coin, during the most recent England v Scotland match (2000) another of the ‘casuals’ from my school days had his picture displayed and was named as being a ‘key player’ in organised football violence by one of the national newspapers.
At some point in our lives people we have to make choices. As we are all individuals and have our own perceptions of what is right and wrong we will make different decisions. Some people will decide to ‘better’ themselves whereas there are those who will remain ‘hooligans’ or even ‘football hooligans’ for the rest of their lives.
Can Football Hooliganism be Defeated?
It is unlikely that football will ever be free of some crowd disorder. Whenever large groups of people get together, often under the influence of alcohol, there is the potential for disorder, regardless of whether there is a football match taking place or not. All manner of legal means and policing tactics have been tried to control hooliganism, including deterrent sentencing, introduction of new legislation and the creation of the Football Intelligence Unit. During the perceived height of football hooliganism in the 1970’s and 80’s, successive governments implemented a series of aggressive policies that contained little evidence of an understanding of hooliganism. Many served only to worsen the problem, create an increasingly confrontational attitude between fans and the police, and merely drive the violence away from the immediate environment of the football ground. This culminated in the proposed I.D. card scheme that was described as ‘using a sledgehammer to crack a nut’ by Lord Justice Taylor, and abandoned after Hillsborough. Attempts to prevent hooliganism have seen draconian legislation such as the Football (Disorder) Act 2000 introduced to prevent suspected hooligans travelling abroad. Such moves obviously have serious civil liberation consequences for innocent fans.
Conclusion
Have we as a society created the social problem of football hooliganism?
The sport of football is enjoyed by many people throughout the world; it is part of our society. There is nothing ‘bad’ about the game of football or about being ‘fanatical’ about it.
It has, however created the ‘by product’ of the football hooligan.
We have to accept that in this day and age social problems exist and we are not going to totally eradicate them. Football gives a lot of people enjoyment. If we had no football these ‘hooligans’ would only emerge in some other form in order to vent their deviant behaviour.
References
Horna, J. (1994). The study of leisure. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Nau, D. (1995, December). Mixing Methodologies: Can Bimodal Research be a Viable Post-Positivist Tool? The Qualitative Report
Redhead, S. and McLaughlin, E. (1985) “Soccer’s Style Wars”, New Society, 1181, pp. 225-228
Spencer, M. (1998, November). Speaker at conference on “Football Hooliganism and the Policing of”, Bishopgarph Police HQ, Wakefield: NCIS, West Yorkshire Police
Williams, J. (1995. “In Search of the Hooligan Solution”, press release for the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research, p. 3
Zani, B. and Kirchler, E. (1991) “When violence overshadows the spirit of sporting competition: Italian football fans and their clubs”, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 1 pp. 5-21
