It is widely assumed that we in Britain have largely eradicated football hooliganism, and that far from being an "English disease," soccer-related violence now mainly afflicts Mediterranean countries. The superior attitude of the British media towards the racist chanting recently heard in Spanish games, the violent disposition of some Turkish fans or the frequent disorder at games in Italy is evidence of this new assumption.
Yet a recent statement from a senior British transport police officer shows that hooliganism never really went away and, indeed, appears to be on the rise. The transport police, who monitor the movement of football crowds, have warned of rising cases of "football-related disorder," saying that ever larger numbers of police are being put out to accompany fans travelling to games.
Many football fans know this to be true from their own experience. For instance, when I went last season to see my west London team Brentford play the lowly Telford in the FA Cup, there was fighting on the pitch and in the stands between dozens of supporters. It started when Telford fans, mainly followers of nearby Wolverhampton Wanderers, decided they wanted to give some cockneys a "kicking," and invaded the away end, prompting Brentford supporters to jump the railings and join in the punch-up. When we tried to leave the stadium, we were pelted with bricks outside. Children were screaming and crying. It was a very scary experience. But Match of the Day, which had the cup clash as its featured game later that night, airbrushed out the incident.
This was not an isolated incident. In recent years, I have seen Millwall fans "coin" stewards at Brentford's Griffin Park, Luton fans vandalise a pub outside our ground, and have had friends assaulted by Southend hooligans with bottles. This is not to say Brentford fans are angels: after we failed to beat Reading in a crucial game in 2002, one of our number hospitalised an old man outside the stadium. At an away game in Cheltenham three seasons ago, I even saw Brentford fans fighting each other.
It is a pattern repeated throughout the country. The last couple of seasons alone have seen QPR fans kick an Aston Villa steward to death (an incident only reported in the Midlands press); clashes between Stoke City fans and the increasingly troublesome "QPR Youth" outfit; a riot between Portsmouth and Southampton mobs, which led to 33 people being given custodial sentences; a spate of "coining" incidences in Scotland; clashes between West Ham supporters posing as Bournemouth fans at Cardiff. Such incidents are legion. Non-league football is not immune to this trend. The Coventry Evening Telegraph recently reported a fracas between over 100 Nuneaton Borough and Kettering supporters that left a pub vandalised and a Kettering fan with a broken skull. Minor confrontations are also routine. I have seen them at Wigan, Bury and Southampton—all in the last few years.
So why do most people think English hooliganism is a thing of the past? Partly because it has now become largely the preserve of followers of the lower division clubs. Premiership teams can afford the extra policing and stewarding that the lesser, poorer clubs cannot, and Premiership stadiums are all-seater venues, which makes them easier to control with CCTV monitoring. Many stadiums in the lower divisions have kept terraces, which not only makes it harder to control potential hooligans (they can move about to avoid detection), but it also provides for a more anarchic atmosphere.
Another reason for downplaying hooliganism is that England, by general consensus, has become a more violent place in general and such occurrences appear less newsworthy. Meanwhile, the dominant media stereotype of disorder has shifted to weekend binge drinking. Football hooliganism was to the 1980s what binge drinking is to the noughties: a social phenomenon that convinces us that England's youth have become ungovernable savages.
Perhaps, in both cases, the perception does mirror the reality. Certainly, every away game has its unspoken air of menace about it. You don't go to certain pubs. You don't wear your colours in the wrong areas. You don't go near anyone sporting a Burberry or Aquascutum cap. You don't speak with the wrong accent. And in the case of Cardiff, Stoke or Millwall—whose fans can be particularly violent—you simply don't go at all.
The high moral ground we have adopted towards the Spanish, Turks and Italians is largely unjustified. In England, we like to believe we have cured our hooliganism problem, but we haven't. And the longer we think otherwise, the worse it's going to get.
