We must learn from England’s hooligan shame

Columnist

By Davidde Corran, 28 Aug 2009 Davidde Corran is a Roar Expert

Tagged:: Boleyn Ground, EPL, football, Millwall, West Ham, World Football

Related coverage

British police officers in riot gear surround soccer supporters, not seen, outside Upton Park stadium, London, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009. A fan was stabbed during large scale violence before an English League Cup game between West Ham and Millwall on Tuesday while the match was interrupted by a pitch invasion. AP Photo/PA, Dominic Lipinski

This was meant to be an article about the Champions League draw. It should have been a chance to lick our lips in anticipation ahead of the return of Europe’s toughest tournament. Instead, the turmoil at the Boleyn Ground on Tuesday evening has overshadowed everything.

Between the clichés, media sensationalism and the genuine sadness of such an event it’s hard to understand exactly what went wrong.

How do you make sense of something so senseless, anyway?

Such hooliganism is so unacceptable it doesn’t even need to be denounced (though it certainly has been). Instead, quite appropriately, questions are being asked. Of the police, of West Ham’s preparations and of the perpetrators involved.

I don’t believe that Tuesday’s violence will have a crucial effect on England’s World Cup bid. If such incidents were regular and went unpunished then maybe, but England is hardly alone in it’s troubles either.

Germany still has a strong underground hooligan movement (that even looks up to the English hooligan groups of the 70s and 80s) but that didn’t stop FIFA granting the Germans the right to host the 2006 World Cup. Not to mention the hosts of the 2014 World Cup, Brazil.

The problem for the England 2018 bid team though is that hooliganism and crowd violence will now be, in the media at least, a key talking point of their campaign.

There’s a fascinating article from Cass Pennant on The Guardian website. He’s a former member of a firm linked with West Ham United and has been involved in such incidents in the past.

He makes the point that “Today (hooliganism) is very much underground and those who meet via websites and mobile phones really are a small minority.

“The arrests from these groups are no more than you get at pop concerts, carnivals or any event where crowds gather.”

Pennant makes a good point.

In Australia we should spend some time considering Tuesday’s events. So far the A-League has only been marred by sporadic crowd trouble but further incidents are inevitable. What Football Federation Australia can do is dictate how such cases are handled and minimised.

After having spent so much of our lives as football lovers under siege by the mainstream media and fans of other codes, I’ve always felt that we in the Australian football community tend to duck for cover when these incidents happen.

Rightly or wrongly, there is a real fear that any trouble at a football game in Australia will be met with so much condemnation and media coverage that the effect on the sport could be lethal.

Even when they occur overseas we tend to play down these incidents, but we shouldn’t. Instead we must learn from them.

The biggest concern for the football authorities in England is not the violence we saw at the Boleyn Ground on Tuesday night. It’s the continued fracturing between football fans and the authorities that administer the game they love.

Football Federation Australia have got a great many things right in its brief life span but unfortunately they’ve not been so effective in their relationships with supporter groups.

Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland have all had trouble with administrators at their clubs or the national body itself.

The attempts by Football Federation Australia to make A-League games as supporter friendly as possible are laudable but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of active support.

Strong and healthy relationships between all stakeholders in the game, including fans and supporter groups, will help to prevent the A-League having it’s very own ‘Boleyn Ground’ incident.

As one reader, Mr, here on The Roar has already stated, “Passionate, active, colourful, violent. Which one doesn’t belong?”

Enjoy sports? Enjoy a bargain? All Sports Online has your favourite sporting brands at up to 70% off. Online only, premium quality sporting goods and merchandise at discounted prices. Get a deal now.

The Crowd Says (8) | Page 1 of Comments

Kurt said | August 28th 2009 @ 4:59am | Report comment

I’m a bit confused. I thought the only news coverage of soccer-hooliganism was from the dark, sinister, anti-soccer cabal of Australian Football and Rugby League conspirators running our media, afraid of the inevitable rise of soccer to become our dominant football code within 20 years? Looks like they have taken over the British media as well.

Reply
- Luke W said | August 28th 2009 @ 10:25am | Report comment
  
  Britain is the king of sensationalist media. It’s probably where we get it from…
  
  Reply
  - tracey said | August 28th 2009 @ 5:27pm | Report comment
    
    Self awareness never an Aussie strong point; you own our media, it’s an Aussie creation in its present form.
    
    Reply
whiskeymac said | August 28th 2009 @ 8:55am | Report comment

Kurt being “confused” on a football thread? Not so much confused as cynical. IMO Football has the most publicised issues but the themes are not specific to football. The best sport is always compared to theatre but no one wants to go to a stadium and here polite clapping. they want chants, banners, drums, passion. They dont want the passion to overun into chaos. Administrators want only the positive aspects of creating a tribe – loyalty, support. Where the hooligan elements differ is that they want the chaos and use the theatre as an excuse to meet up. Is it the code or disenfrnachised/ violent young men and alcohol? is it about lighting fires on trains or supporting a club? if there wasnt football for them do you think that their tendencies would just evaporate because they watched cricket or took up scrabble?

I like the proposition that the FFA, like in any other code, needs to allow a workable balance between fans expressing themselves but only to a point where unwanted elements are minimalised or controlled. There were some suggestions,a nd i may be wrong here, that the FFA’s pursuit of family friendly was a bit draconian as it sanitised tot he point of neutralising a lot of the vibrant support that can make the game an experience.

Reply
whiskeymac said | August 28th 2009 @ 11:08am | Report comment

Sensationalist especially when – allegedly – 0.01% of all supporters are considered worthy of arrest. David Conn’s recent article in the Guardian talks about hooliganism and he enlightened us this far:

“Official figures buttress the experience of diminished violence at football. In 1988-89 there were 6,185 football-related arrests in England’s four professional divisions; in 2007-08, among crowds vastly larger, there were 3,616. Inside and outside grounds there were an average 1.21 arrests at a match, representing 0.01% of all supporters, and less than a 10th of the arrests were for violent offences. The police have largely reduced their presence and quietly withdrawn from many matches – 41% of matches in 2007-08 were police-free.”

of course the stats dont mean much but i know Roar-ers love ‘em.

Reply
Killer_Tomatoes said | August 28th 2009 @ 12:56pm | Report comment

I don’t really understand the point of this article. Are you advocating for or rallying against active support in the A-League, becasue up until about the last 4 sentnces I was sure this articles contention was in support of the FFA’s draconian fan policy, but they you turned it on its head. It doesn’t really say anything of substance, it also fails to acknowledge many cultural, environmental and historical issues/factors which are good indicators of the fact that Australia has never had – and likely will never have – football violence anywhere close to that scale.

I applaud your seeming support of the active fans though.

Reply
Davidde Corran said | August 28th 2009 @ 8:18pm | Report comment

I am 100% behind active support and I believe FFA should cultivate it’s presence at A-League games not repress it.

I also believe that a family friendly environment and a strong passionate atmosphere produced by active support are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary I think one can help the other.

The point of this article is that if FFA encourages, supports and interacts with the A-League club supporters groups it can minimize the effect of any future crowd trouble.

Reply
Killer_Tomatoes said | August 31st 2009 @ 4:10pm | Report comment

I agree in a certain aspect, but i do think that the family customer and active supporters are mutually exclusive and should remain so. I don’t know if you have read an article about the success of certain clubs in the MLS, those being the ones such as Chicago and DC United, that have encouraged and worked with their active support, ‘A Little Bit Dangerous’, but it points to the fact that, as the main demographic, for sports in general, is males between the age of about 13-45, that a percieved aspect of danger, without to much risk of it actually boiling over into West Ham v Milwall type incidents, actually helps promote the game amongst this demographic. Targeting the game directly at families may be inherently flawed, as children are by nature fair weather, and families will often have other commitments that limit them from being 100% committed to every game, even if they’re a member. I don’t think the FFA need to ‘work with’ active fans so much, as just leave them to their own devices in the same way the Chicago Fire or many J-League clubs have, to create an atmosphere that will attract others to the game, but keep them seperate from the off-field action.

Reply

Have Your Say

Explore:: Boleyn Ground, EPL, football, Millwall, West Ham, World Football

We must learn from England’s hooligan shame

Related coverage

Get a daily football email

The Crowd Says (8) | Page 1 of Comments

Have Your Say

Football articles