Ok, so we are all on here because of a connection with our football team, either birth, marriage, living in the area, or just random pot luck. We all like football, we like to watch football. We support out team through think and thin - home and away. But why does football bring out the worst in people? Just over this weekend, we've had racial abuse of players on social media, booing the Italian national anthem, hooliganism on Wembley Way and other parts of the country. Even if England weren't playing at home, we see increases of domestic abuse whenever they play (26% when they win, 36% if they lose), increased heart attacks after a defeat, etc, etc. This isn't just English-based either - Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, South America and other parts of the globe have similar issues. Although the Danish fans didn't kick off when they lost the semi-final. Why is it football though? We didn't see gangs of drunken men staggering around London on "Super Saturday" at the London Olympics. We won't see racist abuse if a BAME member of Team GB misses out on a medal. The same issues don't hit the news after cricket, rugby union or league, angling or the hundreds of other sports that are popular in this country. I don't know what the answer is - my theory is that it is linked with drink, but fans of other sports can drink - including in the ground - without it kicking off in the same way. Don't get me wrong either - its not everyone, just a small percentage - but its been there for as long as I've lived and it seemed to get better for years before slipping backwards again. The other question is - what can we do to stop it? How can we (in our own way) make things better for the players, for the fans, and for innocent bystanders?
Football has traditionally been the "working class" sport. The 70's the NF infiltrated fans of many passionate teams & that took up to Gascoigne crying to get women & families back into the game. There is still a mass of knuckle dragging racists who still watch the game.
Cricket, Rugby etc are essentially middle/ upper class sports, initially excluding the common folk. Football began with neighbouring villages fighting over a pig’s bladder. No code or rules. Add on provincial pride, absence of voice, social conditions & basically being mugged off by the paranoid control powers (who essentially want an angry, battle ready, cannon fodder, standing army & will stoke that with crap like Brexit & a subliminal hatred of anything ‘other’, to protect their precious, stolen assets ) Fuel it with beer, peer pressure & local & not so local rivalries & BINGO, a ready made hooligan. But we don’t want it at Lords or effing Twickenham.?! Hope that helps your very valid enquiry.
Unfortunately the chosen sport of the masses, which includes the dregs of society, is football. It's the same over most of the world but some seem to think it's only in England. Club football in England is slowly getting there with fewer incidents than there used to be.
This weekend sees Castleford v St Helens in the Challenge Cup final, very much a working class event, many also watch football, will there be any trouble, not much if any at all
For this one we can stop pretending it doesn’t happen, and stop saying it’s only ‘bantz’ and wholly and roundly condemn it when it rears its ugly head. However, this becomes more difficult when the Prime Minister and other ministers such as Pritti Patel make the comments they have about the booing of players ‘taking the Knee’ Disclaimer, I have used the word. ‘We’ as a nation, and not to tar everyone with the same racist brush. I know full well the majority of this country are decent well- intentioned people when it comes to racism.
Cricket, especially in Yorkshire is not an upper class thing. It's not upper class in the villages of Somerset. It may be a more rural thing, but it isn't elitist at all.
To my understanding a lot of teams were community based when they were founded. This means each team has religious and political differences going back hundreds of years. Same type of thing with it being so international, all countries have history too and it brings out the worst in people. Aside from that I think it's just a sports thing in general. I've seen a lot of American football rioting, particularly after a Superbowl loss. There were huge riots in Vancouver in 2011 (hockey) Dumbasses will be dumbasses.
Football is an easy target that gives like minded morons the chance to gather. Tbh I don’t think football has anything to do with it other than providing a meeting point and environment, bit like the idiots who turn up to cause bother and don’t give a **** about the match. By that I don’t think they are football fans as such, you have to have racism in your psyche to start with
Can’t disagree with that, just to add, that many teams were formed by the different branches of Christianity, but many clubs do not have that connection nowadays, save for the obvious ones in Glasgow for example. I like a bit of rivalry, but not to the extent that people either fear for their safety or have actually been harmed in some way for simply going to watch/ support your team.
Because sadly with a lot of football fans it's beer in brains out and it's not just the younger end some who are old enough to know better are just as bad. In our 2 trips to Wembley the other year I witnessed it at first hand and to be quite honest it sickened me. I honestly don't get why some people think that it's acceptable to be off their heads at a football match. Don't get me wrong I enjoy a pint as much as the next man but I don't feel the need to be pissed up and be a complete arse just because I'm at a football match.
Its a great question and I wish I knew the answer, but more importantly, how these absolute bottom feeders could be removed once and for all from this game. I wondered at first if it may be class based. But if you go back to times before hooliganism took root, I wonder if there was ever any trouble at all? Didn't opposition fans used to stand together on the terraces? So is it more generational? And what triggered that change? What made hooliganism find a home in football? And have we ever fully got rid of that ilk? Is it steeped in the worst sort of tribalism and nationalism? A conduit where those who seek division and spill hate can vent it at other nations more readily? Football has a wider opposition base than rugby or cricket which are our next most popular team sports. Rugby League and Union face very few nations, several having spawned from UK. Cricket only has a handful of teams that could be played against too. I'm not sure we'll fully know the answer, but its rooted in the countries fan bases and it is sadly much deeper set than mere ignorance.
My dad told me that he was attacked at Millwall during the 1950s. He was doing National service in the army somewhere near London and went to watch Barnsley. An old guy heard his accent and started attacking them with a walking stick. I think the ‘Skinhead Era’ was the main launch of football violence. Also, remember Jimmy Hill on MOTD showing any instances of trouble on the terraces in the early- mid 70s, this gave the hooligans the platform they desired.
Much more to it than that though. I thought Football hooliganism was rife across the Middle classes anyway
My late Dad and his mates travelled all over the country following the Reds in the late Forties right through until the early sixties and were often stood in the middle of the opposing fans and invited for a drink with them afterwards difference then was there was a national bond between the working classes probably down to the shared war time experiences from both World wars. He told me there was always plenty of light hearted banter and leg pulling but very rarely any trouble because people knew how to behave back then.
