Introduction:
Hooliganism is most notable in the United Kingdom, but has spread throughout the world. This article is to provide you with a brief background of what crimes these thoughtless fans have committed.
This article is actually something that I have wanted to write for a while but have just now gotten around to. Now when I mention football in this article, I am not talking about American football, I’m talking about soccer. Now I love soccer, and at one of my practices a year or two ago my friends were telling me about this bad ass soccer movie that I had to see; Green Street Hooligans. So the next day I went and rented the movie, and watched it 3 times over the next 2 days. I’m sure many of you haven’t seen this movie as it was never very popular. It is about a Harvard student (Elijah Wood) who gets kicked out and goes to live with his sister in England. During his stay, he gets caught up with the GSE (Green Street Elite) which is the firm for West Ham in the movie. He ends up breaking out of his shell and taking part in the fights. There is a lot more to it, but I don’t want to give it all away.
Now many people may think there team has crazy and reckless fans, but let me set you straight. Nothing, and I mean nothing, even comes close to what these soccer fans have done. These fans are often called football hooligans, and they are some of the most reckless people in the world. Hooligans are violent, and insane followers of a football club that often stick together in groups, known as firms. These firms are essentially gangs that meet up with their teams’ opponents firms either before or after the match and basically beat the living hell out of each other. The hooligans are typically young working class men, and they usually stake out the goal-ends of the stadium and claim it as their territory by intimidating older fans and their rivals’ fans. The dumb thing about these firms now a day is that the importance isn’t whether their club won or lost the match, it’s whether they were successful in intimidating the opposing clubs firm.
Hooliganism can be dated back as early as the Middle Ages in England. At this point, football was two rival villages that would take part in a game where one team would try and get an inflated pig’s bladder to a certain point, such as a bridge. It is referred to as “mob football” seeing as the amount of players was unlimited and there were no rules. In 1314, Edward II banned football because he feared that the violent nature of the game and its players could cause unrest. The first episodes of Hooliganism of modern football began occurring around 1880. In 1885, following an Aston Villa and Preston North End friendly, the firms assaulted the players on the field. They began by throwing things such as sticks, and rocks. The fans then went down and began to punch, kick, and spit on the players. One player was beaten so badly that he went unconscious. A year later the Preston North End firm was charged with Hooliganism, the first charge away from a match. They took part in a fight with the fans of the Blackburn Rovers, and assaulted a 70 year old lady. Once WWI and WWII began, the hooliganism aspect of football died down, but began reoccurring in the 1960s.
Around the 1960s and 1970s, Hooliganism began escalating to the point where a panic began. Between the Hooliganism and other youth driven gangs, the citizens of England became terrified. Many Hooligans took on the image of skinheads, and the police began recognizing this. They started to step up the enforcement to try and keep peace, so they began paying closer attention to fans that had the skinhead look. The hooligans responded and began wearing more casual type clothing to throw off the police. This was also the time at which firms became more structured and more started to appear such as:
Chelsea- Headhunters
Manchester United- Red Army
Birmingham City- Zulus
Millwall- F-Troop or Bushwackers
Tottenham- Yid Army
West Ham- Inter City Firm
Arsenal- The Herd
Aston Villa- Steamers
Blackpool- Muchkers
Liverpool- Urchins
Portsmouth- 6.57 Crew
With the emergence of these firms came a lot of violence. A Bolton Wanderers fan stabbed a fan of another team to death during a second division match. Sadly, this act seems petty compared to some of the more notable acts of hooliganism. On May 29, 1985 Liverpool fans became responsible for the death of 39 Juventus (Italian club) fans. The Liverpool fans broke through a line of police officers and immediately rushed the Juventus fans. In attempts to get to them, they broke down a fence that was separating the groups which fell on the fans of the Italian club. The Italians tried to escape, but 39 were unable to as they were crushed as a result of the recklessness of the Liverpool fans. A few weeks prior to this incident, a 15 year old boy was also crushed by a wall that had been knocked down while more than 1,000 people were taking part in a riot at a Birmingham City match. The worst incident by far though took place in 1989 at Hillsborough during a FA Cup between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. At many football matches it is common for fans to just stand in a certain area of the stadium and just watch from their feet as opposed to sitting down. The Hillsborough disaster made many stadiums go away from this type of structure. Thousands of fans were waiting outside the gates of the stadium to get into the match, but the police were doing a successful job in holding the hooligans off. Then they made a mistake. They opened a small gate to eject a fan, and 20 waiting fans took advantage of the opening and rushed into the stadium. The police then opened another gate to get more fans out of the stadium, but once again the 5,000 waiting fans saw this as there last chance to get into the game and rushed into the stadium. The fans were bottlenecked to a small tunnel inside the stadium which was already overcrowded. The result became deadly. The force was so great that the fence containing the people had broke and it was the only way for people to escape. Because of all the pressure people were exerting on each other, many fans died of compressive asphyxia. This is a result of the people being too packed together that they physically couldn’t expand their chest enough in order to get the needed amount of oxygen. Due to the riot, 94 Liverpool fans died that day, and 2 died later as a result of the riot. Liverpool has set up a tribute to remember these fans that you can see at their stadium, Anfield. It was actually one of the things a guide showed me while I was there but I never quite realized what it was for until now. It is a huge board and each and every person that died has a little piece of stone with their name on it, and a number, ranging from 1 to 96.
Hooliganism has begun to die down as most of the originals are aging, security has stepped up, and now most stadiums are all-seater which is meant to prevent the standing mobs that occurred at Hillsborough. There have been some recent acts of hooliganism though, and as close as Toronto. When West Ham traveled here to play in the MLS all star game, 30 West Ham fans and 100 Columbus Crew fans got into a scuffle and punches were thrown but there were no severe injuries this time. I personally love the movie Green Street Hooligans, as it is very entertaining. But it is also accurately displays what goes on in England that many people don’t know about. As dedicated as these firms and hooligans claim to be to their team, they could care less. These hooligans just use football as an excuse to fight. Most of the time, they couldn’t care less about whether their team wins or loses. All the firms care about is their prestige and how much they are feared by other firms. There is nothing respectable about fighting for no reason where actual loyal fans are watching and cheering the team on in the right way.
