Do the British media sweep English hooliganism under the carpet?

super_furry

Just reading this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=441636&in_page_id=1770 and it struck me just how little coverage it's had in the media. The Daily Mail article is the only one I've seen on what is a very, very serious hooligan incident.

I suppose being a fan of Shamrock Rovers, a team I feel is often wrongly demonised by the Irish media (the Love Ulster riots farce anyone?) it sticks in my craw even more when woefully ill-informed Premiership fans insist they won't go to an eircom League game because 'there's too much trouble.' I made the point in a topic a while back that there is much more trouble at Premiership games these days, but it seems to be ignored by the media.

I was at a Liverpool v Man United game at Old Trafford four years ago and there were pitched battles out on the Old Trafford forecourt, it was seriously hairy and yet there wasn't a single mention of it in the media the next day – something that left me stunned.

If something like the Chelsea and Spurs riots happened here it would be a national emergency, people would be calling for the league to be disbanded and there would be wall-to-wall coverage of it. Yet, in England, it doesn't even warrant a mention on the major sports sites, nevermind the telelvision news.

Vokes

It was reported on in the all the papers here yesterday.

Not in the sports section, mind you, but mostly in regular news sections.

PHB

Yes, they do, a lot.
The only times you hear about it are through fan forums normally, but there are loads of incidents which are just completely ignored.

_blank_

In answer to the title, yes it would seem so.

But Sky don't cover it, so it doesn't happen :rolleyes:

Compare this thread in a day or so to the thread from a while back that highlighted the fight between people wearing NO COLOURS outside the Hill Sixteen pub about a year ago.

I guarantee that people with little or no experience of actual real live football will be up in arms over people having a pop at the precious SkySuperCleanPremiership.

It could never happen in the 'best league in the world', could it?

odonnell

in terms of the ENGLISH media, i would suspect they either choose not to make a story of it as its no longer a big story in England - its normal and usual there and always has been in modern times between certain teams...OR, they may be trying to keep the reporting to a minimum as England are trying to host the world cup in the future....

I reckon its the first one... they dont really report fan violence after Celtic - Rangers games now because its par for course.... waste of paper.

Zebra3

Superfurry,

People who say they won't go to EL cos of the fear of violence are simply using it as an excuse after all, you're more likely to see a fight outside you local boozer.

If England were coming over to play Ireland, they'd all be gagging for tickets despite the potential for trouble being far, far higher than at any EL game.

England are coming over for an U21 qualifier later this year and there is potential for trouble, but it won't put people off going.

~Rebel~

odonnell could be right there, it could be like when they just stopped going on about foot and mouth in england after it dominated the news for months. It was still just as rampent for a while after, with continued mass slaughterings but it was essentially old news and had all been said before so it just got the odd brief mention.

SectionF

There certainly is something odd, most likely related to money, TV rights and advertising, going on when you contrast English and Irish coverage, or non-coverage, of some hair-raising violence in the English game, with the hysteria engendered in Irish media when a few pathetic, mincing wannabes decide to have a ruck on behalf of 'their' clubs.
The last big media outing for football hooliganism in Ireland related to an event that occurred over six months ago and was presented as a national emergency.

therecklessone

seansouth wrote:

Compare this thread in a day or so to the thread from a while back that highlighted the fight between people wearing NO COLOURS outside the Hill Sixteen pub about a year ago.

This incident involved a number of people fighting FIVE hours after the match had ended, wearing NO COLOURS.

Yet I don't recall too many people denying that football violence exists in the English game.

In reference to the thread title, contrast the British media's treatment of domestic hooliganism with their NT fans behaviour abroad. They are as guilty of sensationalising confrontation on an international scale as our own media are with domestic incidents here.

Also remember, the "British" media we get presented to us is diluted by their attempts to appeal to the "Oirish" market, I do know this incident received a great deal of coverage in the UK.

mike65

I saw the Spurs/Chavski "riot" covered on the Telegraph yesterday. Just cos its not on BBC1 Six O'Clock News does'nt mean its buried. (maybe it was on the news).

Mike.

odonnell

guys when youre talking about english football hooligans and the english papers, do me and every other scot a favour - use the term england and english - not british and UK... it gets a bit confusing.

The english fans are thugs and always have been....right back to when we played them in wembley and they thought theyd have a wee barney with the tartan army in trafalgar square. I imagine the story published in England was massively diffreent to the story presented to us by the Scottish papers, and by personal accounts from the tartan army members themselves. But i wouldnt say theres anything odd about the english medias coverage of english hooliganism. And at the risk of offending english readers here - in my experience...they tend to have the attitude of turning a slightly naive and blind eye to the bad side of anything theyre proud of. LEts not focus on the fact that their rugby team are mostly thuggish twats this past decade.... as long as they win by any means necessary and injure any opposition necessary.....

therecklessone

odonnell wrote:

guys when youre talking about english football hooligans and the english papers, do me and every other scot a favour - use the term england and english - not british and UK... it gets a bit confusing.

Fella, there was running battle fought by Hibs and Hearts fans after a game last October and police followed that up by arresting 39 suspected hooligans preceeding the return game on Stephen's Day.

Rangers have their own casuals (with links to those lovely chaps at Stamford Bridge) and Aberdeen's firm are well known (Aberdeen Soccer Casuals). I've also seen reference to firms from clubs such as Airdrie United, Partick Thistle, Dunfermline Athletic, and Motherwell.

Not as bad as the English game, but there all the same. Scottich hooligan culture reached its zenith in the 80s,but the casual culture is making a comeback.

Internationally, the Tartan Army have a similar reputation to the Irish.

Zebra3

odonnell wrote:

guys when youre talking about english football hooligans and the english papers, do me and every other scot a favour - use the term england and english - not british and UK... it gets a bit confusing.

The english fans are thugs and always have been....right back to when we played them in wembley and they thought theyd have a wee barney with the tartan army in trafalgar square. I imagine the story published in England was massively diffreent to the story presented to us by the Scottish papers, and by personal accounts from the tartan army members themselves. But i wouldnt say theres anything odd about the english medias coverage of english hooliganism. And at the risk of offending english readers here - in my experience...they tend to have the attitude of turning a slightly naive and blind eye to the bad side of anything theyre proud of. LEts not focus on the fact that their rugby team are mostly thuggish twats this past decade.... as long as they win by any means necessary and injure any opposition necessary.....

Take a look at your own post ffs. "The English fans are thugs". :rolleyes: All of them?

You'd swear Aberdeen's firm weren't up for it during Euro96 when it kicked off with the English or that Rangers fans didn't indulged in sectarian chanting in Spain recently.

And there's these loveable Scottish footie fans...
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/3764/img016lt6.jpg

mike65

odonnell - Ned

Mike.

odonnell

I know about the whole hibs hearts rangers celtic thing mate but its nowhere near as prevalent as in England. Chelsea fans, rather unfortunately, made the decision to come up to a game at Ibrox a few years back and ended up having a pitched battle against the celtic fans as far as i recall - but man... whose proud of those ties? Idiots the lot of them...

That was in the paper that event, i remember that one, but its generally not a weekly event in Scotland like it used to be.

As for comments about 'sectarian chanting' ....im not going to get into this because itll be a slippery slope for me and as a rangers fan mate - theres no way i can come out of ANY debate on the topic on the right side of fair... so ill not go into it, only that UEFA themselves said they had no power to control it as it was not a footballing matter and Rangers FC were doing all they could to curb it. 'IT' is a long standing social problem in Scottish society....and that goes for the other side aswell mate so... lets not be too hasty with that one eh? And no...not all english fans are thugs...obviously i wouldnt mean that but then now we are getting into schoolboy forum posting arent we, or do we REALLY need to go down the route of disecting a posters last comma and paragraph - or can we actually be adults and read between the lines, and treat this as a conversation?

The picture youve posted by the way - i dont see how that can be ANY reference to the tartan army.... can you clarify that one? Just because theres a KKK wing in Scotland doesnt mean all scottish footie fans are KKK... for crying out loud

Cheers mike... you know what a ned is a presume? Neds dont generally have a vocabulary of more than 20 words

shedseven

odonnell wrote:

guys when youre talking about english football hooligans and the english papers, do me and every other scot a favour - use the term england and english - not british and UK... it gets a bit confusing.

The english fans are thugs and always have been....right back to when we played them in wembley and they thought theyd have a wee barney with the tartan army in trafalgar square. I imagine the story published in England was massively diffreent to the story presented to us by the Scottish papers, and by personal accounts from the tartan army members themselves. But i wouldnt say theres anything odd about the english medias coverage of english hooliganism. And at the risk of offending english readers here - in my experience...they tend to have the attitude of turning a slightly naive and blind eye to the bad side of anything theyre proud of. LEts not focus on the fact that their rugby team are mostly thuggish twats this past decade.... as long as they win by any means necessary and injure any opposition necessary.....

Not all English fans are thugs. I am English and I am not a thug. I think you will agree that the problems of football violence in England still exists but it seems nowhere near as bad as it was in the 70s and 80s. To label all English fans as thugs is absurd. About as daft as me labelling all Scots fans as thugs because they ran riot at Wembley after a lucky 2-1 win in 1977..........:D

odonnell

£%^&^%& that wasnt luck!! lol

Would that be the match that ended with goal posts going missing by chance??? Aaahh... if only i were alive to see them days

Nah mate again i wasnt doing the tar-brush thing... i possibly should have added a few extra words into that sentence to clarify in hind-sight. HOWEVER...you guys certainly have a higher instance of footie thug than we do in Scotland or Ireland....

mike65

Posh Ned

Mike.

Zebra3

odonnell wrote:

The picture youve posted by the way - i dont see how that can be ANY reference to the tartan army.... can you clarify that one? Just because theres a KKK wing in Scotland doesnt mean all scottish footie fans are KKK... for crying out loud

I never said all Scottish footie fans are KKK, but your OP made it sound like you were horrified that Scottish fans would be lumped in with the English thugs. I provided a few examples (and not being an expert on fitba) to show there was/is a problem in Scottish football.

Remember the CCS petrol bombing the ASC outside Waverly after their previous off saw one of the CCS get nearly kicked into a coma?

Not all Scottish/English/Irish fans are thugs/bigots, but not all are angels either.

Mr. Presentable

In reply to the OP. Yes, it's being hushed. For various reasons, not least to minimise glamourising it. The English have done a huge amount to combat hooliganism in football, and even more to *look* like they've solved the problem. It makes other countries problems look the more serious if they don't admit their own.

growler

You get violence at a lot of games still, usually low level thug on thug nonsense, well out of the eye of the press so it doesn't get reported. The police don't arrest people any more (ish) so there is no football related violence stats for the press to monitor. Blaming either Chelsea or Spurs for the hassel on Sunday evening is absurd, neither club had anything to do with it or indeed could have done anything to stop it.

There was a lot of coverage of the incident in the press here, the evening standard ran it as front page news (even got me to buy the rag) and most papers had some coverage. There isn't much of story here though, in a city where kids are shooting each other on a daily basis a bunch of middle aged overweight muppets longing for their hooligan heyday doesn't warrant tv attention. Most clubs have a "firm" these days, and some are growing, Chelsea Youth could well become a problem in the future but the policing in stadia / environs leaves little room for these idiots to operate in.

I've been going to chelsea home and away for 8 years now, i've seen trouble from Utd, Pool, West Ham (shock), Spurs, Blackburn, Watford, Leeds etc etc. , its common, its low level, its largely harmless and only affects the idiots, and most English people got bored of reading about it all years ago and as long as at doesn't spill over onto the high streets (like sunday), cause deaths or involve innocent fans, no one really cares.. and neither do I for that matter.

Bateman

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y192/jc1981/rangers1.jpgRangers in Israel recently;

Bateman

growler wrote:

You get violence at a lot of games still, usually low level thug on thug nonsense, well out of the eye of the press so it doesn't get reported. The police don't arrest people any more (ish) so there is no football related violence stats for the press to monitor. Blaming either Chelsea or Spurs for the hassel on Sunday evening is absurd, neither club had anything to do with it or indeed could have done anything to stop it.

There was a lot of coverage of the incident in the press here, the evening standard ran it as front page news (even got me to buy the rag) and most papers had some coverage. There isn't much of story here though, in a city where kids are shooting each other on a daily basis a bunch of middle aged overweight muppets longing for their hooligan heyday doesn't warrant tv attention. Most clubs have a "firm" these days, and some are growing, Chelsea Youth could well become a problem in the future but the policing in stadia / environs leaves little room for these idiots to operate in.

I've been going to chelsea home and away for 8 years now, i've seen trouble from Utd, Pool, West Ham (shock), Spurs, Blackburn, Watford, Leeds etc etc. , its common, its low level, its largely harmless and only affects the idiots, and most English people got bored of reading about it all years ago and as long as at doesn't spill over onto the high streets (like sunday), cause deaths or involve innocent fans, no one really cares.. and neither do I for that matter.

Fair enough, but there was bother on the forecourt outside the ground on Sunday as well.

odonnell

Bateman wrote:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y192/jc1981/rangers1.jpgRangers in Israel recently;

and ironcally - english ones - spot the huge st georges cross's. Rangers fans can be idiots - the whole british and orange thing makes me sick (which incidentally is part of the reason i brought me and my wife to dublin)

But as has been pointed out previously - they dont account for everyone, and im not defending them here but if the only source of information everyone has is the scottish and irish newspapers then youd best stop reading - as they print nothing but trash. In glasgow we call the daily record the rhebel, for example - one of the main culprits is a guy called Chick Young, who posts nowt but mince...he tries to explain why say a gers fan would sing specific words... he even tried to say the socks were red and black to signify the ["f*nian blood"] for crying out loud, so i mean - it might be way off topic but sure...the media in the sense of this topic - are certainly not helping matters in Scotland by mis-reporting events, and motives. All they do is serve to antagonise the fan base further.

So in a media sense... i think we could do without them in football, especially where theres some sort of controversy.

odonnell

Zebra3 wrote:

I never said all Scottish footie fans are KKK, but your OP made it sound like you were horrified that Scottish fans would be lumped in with the English thugs. I provided a few examples (and not being an expert on fitba) to show there was/is a problem in Scottish football.

Remember the CCS petrol bombing the ASC outside Waverly after their previous off saw one of the CCS get nearly kicked into a coma?

Not all Scottish/English/Irish fans are thugs/bigots, but not all are angels either.

ah no i know what youre getting at mate.... its a shame but those types of examples are really pure examples of what is an underlying problem in society rather than fan base. How do you erradicate it though? I mean - computer games say with the "Kick racism out of football" campaign logo dont seem to be working because it mostly stems from the environment youre raised in as a kid, and if you see your dad making red hand salutes at a rangers game - generally youll do it too and its disgusting to see.

the KKK thing though.... disgusting as it is, i cant really account for that one... i thought we were all above that level nowaways.

Zebra3

So when Scottish fans engage in violence/bigotry it's a problem of society, but when English fans do it, it's an English football problem?

odonnell

are the english fans wearing KKK masks and chanting sectarian songs? throwing bananas onto a pitch is hardly football thuggery mate.... its not THAT common to have pitched battles in scottish football now - we have been fined by uefa now over sectarianism and bigotry.... wheres the violence???

Two very different points mate. I think you missed that.

therecklessone

Report from Holland tonight:

Just off the phone to my mate Tanz, all going off in the main square... started 30 mins ago..

Toon fans been there drinking all day and then a mob of AZ turn up and start giving it large, throwing fireworks and flares into the crowds of Geordies...

So we fought back, mass riot, bottles, chairs, knives, anything you can get your hand on...

Police are now going in with full riot gear hitting anyone in sight and loads of horses etc etc..

Posted on another website.