Players' goal celebrations (especially at away games)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60461226

Trouble at a Leeds v Man Utd game? How could that happen? I only watched the MOTD highlights this morning but it was clearly a hostile environment so that makes it even more important that players of both sides do not make things worse with their infantile behaviour. But that was asking too much. As reported above, the player hit by a missile after scoring a goal against Leeds was just one of many incidents during the game that the police will have got involved with.

What I will never understand though is the mentality of footballers who provocatively run behind the goal, along the crowd line laughing, shushing the home fans etc etc and then doing stupid knee slide in the corner. Look at the photograph in the attached clip showing the player on the floor holding his head and Bruno Fernandes laughing his head off at Leeds fans because his team have scored. Sooner or later - maybe even this season - idiots are going to run on the pitch in response to this kind of thing and inflict GBH on a player. There was that fool at Rotherham the other week who kicked the ball of the penalty spot then cuffed a player as he ran past - a relatively minor incident but just part of the growing problem.

I am NOT condoning the brain donors that infect all football crowds, and always have, but it's not hard to provoke people like this, so why do they do it? Do these idiots on the pitch think it's clever to mock home fans like they do at almost every ground up and down the country? It seems that nothing stops some people running on the pitch to join in goal celebrations these days but, sooner or later, one of these is going to pull a knife out of his pocket to injure (or kill) an opposing player. I know I might be over-dramatising the problem in some people's eyes, but it's coming. As sure as our relegation in the next few weeks is coming, somebody is going to get seriously hurt on a football pitch unless this is stamped out.

Keeping fans off the pitch is one thing - fences or moats maybe? - but players' behaviour is something the clubs can do something about. Surely it wouldn't infringe the poor lambs' human rights if the managers told them how to behave responsibly, especially when playing away in front of a baying mob like that at Elland Road. Sanctions should be brought in against a club every time their players behave in this way, along with heavy punishments meted out to the players themselves. Who knows - they might start acting like decent human beings as a result. Celebrate your goal by all means, but with your own fans and your own players - not in front of a packed home end.

It happens every week and you can see the reaction from crowds when they do it. Thankfully most just throw abuse and make hand gestures. But some throw bottles or other missiles. A plastic bottle is unlikely to cause much damage but they throw much worse things don't they? I'm afraid this is just one of the many things that is making me lose interest in football, week by week. I do still watch highlights, and even live matches sometimes, but I keep asking myself why I do it. It's only a matter of time before I start watching something else instead (like curling ). Ah well, soon be the cricket season. Civilised sport.....

 

Surely you’re not advocating this after the horrible consequences of incidents during the 1980s which lead to fences being removed. I take your point about players goading opposing fans, but the bottom line is all people just have to behave more responsibly.

 

I agree with you. Obviously the idiots throwing things should be dealt with but don't act hard from the safety of a Football pitch by inciting opposition fans when you wouldn't dare do it outside the ground in everyday life.

The Leeds fans on video doing airplane gestures should be banned as well. As should the Man United fans taking Turkish flags with them. Get shut of the lot of them forever.

 

Yes, it's funny how footballers will do things near the touchline that they wouldn't dare do outside the ground. Cowardly behaviour, from both sides, and certainly brain-dead. I know not all footballers are thick but, my God, some just scrape the barrel where lack of thought is concerned.

 

I like Jamie Vardy's celebrations when he scores against the blunts, after the " Wednesday reject " taunts

 

I hated being behind a fence, and especially in a pen at the few away matches that I attended, but at least they were effective (to a point). What happened at Hilllsborough was horrific, obviously, but the fences themselves were not the SOLE cause of it all. They were part of it, but human behaviour from both Liverpool fans and police contributed to all of that.

 

I don't know what you mean but isn't he provoking trouble if he makes gestures or whatever to the home fans?

 

Premier league footballers aren't the greatest behaviour wise and it's filtered down the leagues too these days.
The match itself though was a real throwback to 70s and 80s football. Both sides going for it with no quarter asked or given, all in appalling conditions and a partisan atmosphere.
Made for great watching, even more so as Leeds lost.

 

If fans give it out they can expect it back. If grown men can't control themselves because a footballer laughs at them or shushes them then that's pathetic and entirely on them. So long as footballers don't do anything outright offensive they can celebrate how they want for me.

 

I miss the old shirt over the head, Ravanelli-style. Goading fans is a bit embarrassing to see really. But when players like Lyle Taylor have done it to us, I've never been so angry or provoked enough to feel the need to lob a plastic bottle full of coke (which I imagine is pretty painful when thrown at speed and making the right impact). It's all just juvenile. Players need to grow up, fans need to grow up. People need to stop going on the pitch when they can't take their ale. I miss the old pitch invasions in the 90s when fans couldn't contain their joy at a goal and had to hug a player. Now it's just meatheads either too riled up, or wanting their 6 seconds of fame on social media. Like a lot of football nowadays, the fun's gone out of it. It's all politicised and monetized and today's 'football hooligans' are an absolute embarrassment to the game. At least back in the day those groups - though some of them pure evil - meant it.

 

I'm puzzled by this thread. What on earth is a "goal celebration"?

 

You’re talking about cause which is very debatable anyway, but the effect is different, without doubt, the fence’s prevented the only escape route they had at Hillsboro’ for example. The caged-in fans should remain in the past

 

See 2020/21 season

 

People need to take personal responsibility - this speaks to a lack of control by the person throwing stuff - I'm going to guess alcohol fueled but thats a whole other argument.
Players goading fans unprovoked shows a certain lack of class, but if you're getting called a "reject" or "fat lovely person" from the fans in the stand and you go and stick one in the net then I think its perfectly fine to let them know within reason. To be fair most players don't cross the white line when celebrating and so that's fine, I do think running behind the goal with your fingers on your lips is actually a bookable offense - at the end of the day you left the field of play and behaved in a unsportsman like way - the authorities seem ok with automatically booking a player for taking his shirt off and celebrating with his own players and fans which is just stupid, why not book players for leaving the pitch to celebrate infront of away fans? Its certainly provocative and inciting violence is illegal outside of this setting - if you goad a load of people in the street the police can arrest you.

 

I read an article the other day which claimed that cocaine consumption was the main driving force behind the current upsurge in violence. Apparently the toilets at some Premier League grounds, after games, look like talcum powder has been chucked all over the place!! Certainly never seen anything like that at Oakwell (although I've not been for a few months).

 

To be fair when the lad got hit with a coin he ran to the corner where the man u fans were to celebrate with fred for uniteds 3rd. When he then himself scored the 4th goal he ran behind the goal shushed the leeds fans in that corner who had hit him with the coin.

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...g-as-12-the-new-face-of-hooliganism-rn53v7022

That one?

 

The Ponty End bogs were covered in white stuff after the Conway Out Facebook group had had their "demonstration" in there I heard.

 

It was in the Guardian. I don't read anything associated with Murdoch.

 

Oh come on. Check your Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Go to the index section. Barnsley FC, goals. There will be a tiny reference to it there