Will holliganism ever leave football?

DrumSteve

Just read this article Here

FA: SEEK LIFE BANS FOR CUP TIE YOBS
Posted 26/08/09 10:10EmailPrintSave



The Football Association will push for life bans to be imposed on the fans whose behaviour marred Tuesday night's Carling Cup tie between West Ham and Millwall.

The FA are looking into the events that saw a man stabbed outside Upton Park and pitch invasions occur following West Ham's first two goals and again at the final whistle.

West Ham have pledged to help with the investigation into the shocking scenes but could also face action themselves.

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said officers had made several arrests and were scanning CCTV footage to identify hooligans.

FA director of communications Adrian Bevington said on BBC Radio Five Live: "We have to understand exactly what measures were put in place last night.

"I'm not going to condemn West Ham or Millwall football clubs for any of their actions - certainly not at this stage, because we don't know exactly what's been put in place.

"And we know there have been huge efforts on the parts of all our clubs to try to eradicate the problems and we've had a history of success on that.

"However, we have to make sure that the individuals concerned face such tough actions that they can't go to football again.

"We all want a big atmosphere at matches - that's part of football, part of the passion.

"However, we also want to make sure it's a safe environment to watch games and we've just spent the best part of 20 years working towards that."


Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe backed the FA's call for life bans, saying: "The scenes last night were a disgrace to football.

"I completely back the FA's call for any person identified as involved in the violence to be banned for life and urge full and swift co-operation from all parties in the investigation into what happened.

"We have made great progress in the past 20 years in tackling football hooliganism in this country and we will not tolerate any return to the dark days of the 70s and 80s when it plagued the game.

"We will never be complacent in the fight against football violence."



Football Supporters Federation chairman Malcolm Clarke, due to meet with FA chief executive Ian Watmore on Wednesday, recognised the "very serious" nature of the crowd disturbances but stressed that "hysterical over-reactions" to the incidents would not be helpful.

"It's not a good start to the season and it's important a full investigation is done, and the FA are going to do this with all parties to see exactly what caused this," Clarke said.

"But I think at this stage we must keep it in perspective.

"Certainly over the last 20 years the amount of football violence has radically reduced.

"It's too early I think to start drawing too many long-term conclusions, but obviously this was a very serious incident."

Clarke added: "I can assure you the vast majority of Millwall and West Ham supporters will be as horrified by events that occurred as everybody else.

"It's important to get to the bottom of it but too many hysterical over-reactions don't help."

Clarke explained: "I have a routine meeting with the FA chief executive today - I'm quite sure this will now be on the agenda.

"There clearly needs to be a very clear response to try to make sure this doesn't happen again."

However Clarke is aware that football still has a hooliganism problem, even if such large-scale incidents are are.

"We haven't eliminated it, that's certainly true," he said.

"We haven't yet had figures for last season but Home Office figures for the four previous seasons to that showed the lowest level of disorder since those records started being kept."

He added: "Anybody who goes regularly to football matches and has done for 20 or 30 years as I have, is in no doubt that the amount of disorder is far less than it was, say, 20 years ago.

"That is not to diminish last night, that was obviously an extremely serious matter.

"The question is, why did it occur at that particular game when the trend over recent years has been in the opposite direction?"

Given West Ham and Millwall are two leagues apart, a repeat of the Upton Park clashes is unlikely to occur in the near future.

Clarke urged those who look at Tuesday night's disturbances to examine whether the authorities were prepared for all possibilities.

"Part of the investigation would need to look at whether appropriate measures were put into place to deal with the situation," he said.


The Football League condemned the violence which took place in and around Upton Park.

Football League chief operating officer Andy Williamson said: "We utterly deplore the violence that took place at last night's match between West Ham United and Millwall.

"Such behaviour has no place in the game and we will work with all the relevant authorities to ensure that those behind it are held to account.

"Football has made huge progress in the last 30 years in the management of football matches and the whole game must continue to demonstrate that such behaviour will not be tolerated."

Does anyone think this will ever end? no matter how much policing you put in to the game it always seems to crop up especially in places like italy and turkey. Also is the glorification of it by films such as the football factory and green street( as opposed to showing how ****ed up it can make you in a film like I.D.) adding to it?

therecklessone

DrumSteve wrote: »

Also is the glorification of it by films such as the football factory and green street( as opposed to showing how ****ed up it can make you in a film like I.D.) adding to it?

A West Ham supporting mate of mine pointed similar out on Tuesday night, Sky News leading with the disorder then cutting to a break and running an ad for one of the hoolie movies. Couldn't make this sh1t up.

Danny Dyer has a lot to answer for.

cournioni

Nope. Its part of football culture, I can't think of many other things that can possibly be done to stop it. The publicity it gets from movies like Green Street and Football Factory, and "documentries" like Real Football Factories doesn't help the situation either though.

mike65

Football is merely an arena, the mentality can be expressed anywhere.

stovelid

No.

Like it or not, it's part and parcel of the culture and history of football and young men. And the Sky pseudo-outrage won't change that.

The British authorities have driven it from the grounds. Outside the ground, it's a public-order issue and not really as controllable. And you will always have public-order issues when young lads gang up: football or no football.

The Millwall-Hammers thing was a rarity, much to the chagrin of Sky I would imagine. The teams rarely meet so you see a lot of people coming out of retirement and a lot of young lads that have all grown up on Green Street, hoolie memoirs and the reissue culture all showing up to see what all the fuss is about.

growler

A proper world war would probably give them a suitable outlet for all their aggression.

i don't think you'll ever have a situation where young men won't want to fight other young men when put in such a tribal situation of "us" v's "them" , testosterone, booze and football culture ensure it'll happen, if not on the terraces then outside the pub on a friday night , human nature really. Recession and unemployment seem to cause even more pent up anger that needs an outlet.

_blank_

therecklessone wrote: »

Danny Dyer has a lot to answer for.

:eek:

Yeah, like he invented hooliganism. :rolleyes:

Does Tarantino cause gangland crime?

Come on there tro, having a pop at Danny Dyer is a tiny bit silly here.

There were worse hooligans before Dyer was a sparkle in his father's eye, and there will be hooligans long after he's gone. He has nothing to answer for apart from making a few dodgy films and TV shows.3

He is, categorically, not the cause of this.

stovelid

Des wrote: »

Yeah, like he invented hooliganism. :rolleyes:

Does Tarantino cause gangland crime?

Come on there tro, having a pop at Danny Dyer is a tiny bit silly here.

True.

The hooligan media industry exists because people enjoy watching the films and reading the books.

A large proportion of the current match-going British public first came to football in the 80s golden era of casuals and hooliganism. Hence the demand for trainer reissues, memoirs and programmes about it.

It's certainly not a matter of Danny Dyer directly causing a riot at Upton Park.

DSB

Des wrote: »

:eek:

Yeah, like he invented hooliganism. :rolleyes:

Does Tarantino cause gangland crime?

Come on there tro, having a pop at Danny Dyer is a tiny bit silly here.

There were worse hooligans before Dyer was a sparkle in his father's eye, and there will be hooligans long after he's gone. He has nothing to answer for apart from making a few dodgy films and TV shows.3

He is, categorically, not the cause of this.

He is not the cause of hooliganism, he is however the single biggest catalyst in influencing a massive new generation of hooliganism, its impossible to say hooliganism would be gone if there was no Danny Dyer, but him and his stupid glorifying film and TV shows are one of the massive factors towards today's severity.

therecklessone

Des wrote: »

:eek:

Yeah, like he invented hooliganism. :rolleyes:

Does Tarantino cause gangland crime?

Come on there tro, having a pop at Danny Dyer is a tiny bit silly here.

It's a flippant remark with a hint of added truth Des. He's not the only one, but the last few years has seen a raft of TV, film and written material glorifying football violence, and that is not helping.

One of the key components of the UK authorities strategy for dealing with disorder was to starve it of publicity...people accuse the UK media of brushing their problems under the carpet, but what they are doing is denying these guys a public platform, and it works. Conversely they publicise the aftermath of football disorder, naming and shaming convicted hoolies in the press, which put further pressure on guys who had families to feed and jobs to keep if they wanted to do that.

That's all changing, and the culture which was successfully suppressed in the 90s and early years of this decade is now celebrated, and grows stronger for that. You can't ignore the effect that has on a new generation of young males attending football (and yes, I'll accept that much of what happens around football happens on a Saturday night in most UK towns, and that there is a wider societal issue at play)

I'd throw Cass Pennant, Jason Mariner, and Trevor Tanner in with Dyer.

DrumSteve

difference between pennant and dyer is that pennant lived that life. Dyer is making money off it but has never really been involved with hooliganism outside of his movie or tv show...

stovelid

DrumSteve wrote: »

difference between pennant and dyer is that pennant lived that life. Dyer is making money off it but has never really been involved with hooliganism outside of his movie or tv show...

While Dyer is very irritating, he's a jobbing actor. A certain type of job comes his way, I guess.

therecklessone

DrumSteve wrote: »

difference between pennant and dyer is that pennant lived that life. Dyer is making money off it but has never really been involved with hooliganism outside of his movie or tv show...

For most sane people they are both making a living off it, whatever their background.

DrumSteve

therecklessone wrote: »

For most sane people they are both making a living off it, whatever their background.

while I agree with that I do feel that dyer has no authority to speak on the matter whereas pennant (even though he may be glamourising it) would. if you were going to watch something about the subject i guess it'd be better to hear it from someone who knows what they are talking about as opposed to someone pretending.

stovelid

Cass Pennant in the Guardian today

Dodgykeeper

Funnily enough the disturbances outside seem to centre on Green St.

I blame Danny Dyer and that fooker from Eastenders caused the war in Afghanistan!

anonymous_joe

In fairness, people fight. Football's just the excuse.

Bored young lads from shítty areas (of which London has a wondrous selection thereof) píssed out of their trees are always going to find excuses to fight. Football just gives them tribal identities and then tribal enemies.

England's definitely not the dodgiest place I've watched football matches, and while hooliganism is a problem, in reality it's a symptom of wider issues. Not the cause of the trouble.

And the Danny Dyer blaming does ring true to a degree, because we have seen the glorification of football hooliganism to a massive degree. You can romanticise almost anything, and football hooliganism has been turned into some kind of fight for self-identity rather than the truth - grubby knackers knocking lumps out of each other.