The most recent spell of hooliganism in England (Millwall-Wigan and Newcastle-Sunderland matches) appears to have rung in a renewed era of primitive and vulgar fan behavior that had led to the ban of English clubs and the England team from international football in the 80s. Hooliganism defaced the English game throughout the 1970s and 1980s: in 1974, a Blackpool fan was stabbed to death at Blackpool’s home match with Bolton Wanderers. In 1985, after vile hooliganism of Liverpool fans led to the deaths of 39 Juventus supporters before the European Cup final at the Heysel Stadium, English clubs were banned from Europe for five years.
Better policing, better stadia, a new league – the English Premier League – and lots of educational work by football’s administrators (and politicians) gradually improved English football’s reputation over time. Fact is, the English Premier League matured into one of the best leagues in the world.
And today?
Is there some sort of a backlash taking place? Are racist chants and brainless aggression in England’s stadia a revival of times long past? What is happening to football today, when the English game demonstrated for two decades that the “beautiful game” could actually be that: a beautiful game?
Just as stupid as the assumption that “football has a racism problem”, are the blind allegations that “football faces a new hooliganism problem”.
The pundits who claim either of the above, do not seem to understand (or maybe do not want to) that football is but a reflection of society as a whole. Instead of claiming that “football fans are racist”, one should try and analyse why there appears to be more racism in the game today, and why hooliganism has apparently raised its ugly head again.
In our understanding, the reasons have nothing to do with football (at least not directly) but much rather with the socio-political times we live in and the economic grief faced by hundreds of thousands of people all around Europe, football fans of course included.
It is not a novel phenomenon that in times of economic and social hardship, people would be looking for a valve to get rid of their frustrations. What used to be the cheapest form of entertainment in the past – football – has become an expensive pastime that threatens to alienate the “traditional fans” – a mass audience – and threatens to make it barely affordable to attend a game for families or fathers and sons/mothers and daughters.
Not a new phenomenon
Those who attend matches religiously, the hard-core fans, “want to get their money’s worth”. And while tribalism has always been part of club football, and in certain instances violent tribalism at that, the new flaring up of nauseating behavior in the stadia is neither new nor really unexpected: what is the discussion in the pub, at home or among “friends”, is merely translated into the stadium atmosphere. And that is where the problem is buried, whether society wants to hear it or not.
With five pints of lager in their stomach, tongues loosened and actions uninhibited, some “fans” (more often than not the violently primitive kind) will go to the game to get rid of aggression and not to enjoy a match.
With unemployment rising, a culture of “I-don’t-give-a-damn-the-state-shall feed-me” attitudes prevailing, and the attribution of guilt on to the “damned immigrants”, large parts of the British society are getting brainwashed on a daily basis by irresponsible radio presenters and other lunatics to view foreigners as undesirable scum who take away the English jobs and who are profiteers that want to “use English social services” instead of making a contribution to society (comfortably forgetting that they, too, pay their taxes and social dues).
Naturally, all of these prejudices are exactly that: prejudice, hence disqualified per definition. Questions should be asked why hardly any restaurant in London employs Englanders and instead resorts to French, Italian, East European and African staff. The same goes for many other trades in the capital, from carpentry, to plumbing, to car wash, to nursing – and so on.
The steady influx of foreigners into Britain’s societies (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England) is partly the result of the country’s EU membership – freedom of movement – and partly the result of its colonial past. When cheap labour was needed after the War, Caribbeans were highly welcome (mind you, not by the plebeians who put signs into their windows, that read: “No Irish, no blacks, no dogs”).
Today, immigrants are once again and largely regarded as a scourge because “they are taking away our jobs”. Really? “Our” jobs? Those in the hospitals, on building sites, in the hospitality industry? Not really. Which jobs, then? Those in banking? Hardly (even the Bank of England Governor is not British, is he? Why was there no Brit suitable to fill that job? Because of immigrants?). Which jobs then?
This general attitude of “look at those bloody foreigners how they destroy our country” (the opposite could well be true) is reflected everywhere. And it is this kind of attitude that gives birth to racism. It is the mindless incompetence of masses of people who fail to understand civilized values, possibly because they were never taught them. And it is the same mindset that regurgitates racial abuse in the stadia, and which is the basis for violence and hooliganism – not football.
Football offers a platform to the cowards.
Hofstätter’s observation of group dynamics proves convincingly that the individual will always behave differently when alone, as opposed to his conduct when part of a group. Encouraged by equally sordid individuals who often lack the capacity to spell their own name, such individuals will resort to violence and racism when they feel “safe” as part of a group of equally minded underachievers: the racist chanter or the violent hooligan, when identified and separated from his group of peers more often than not turns into a sobbing piece of misery when confronted by authority – any sort of authority. Naturally, the truly vile character will never stop: his is the notion of racial supremacy. A notion based on centuries of lies, rape and authorised thievery.
Once society has stopped looking at itself and analyses its past – which is what shapes its conduct and character of the future – and once the symptom becomes the cause, there is lots wrong in this State of Denmark.
Blaming football for the ills of an increasingly alienated society is ridiculous – let’s be honest: this is NOT an English problem or phenomenon alone; the same, in different colours and shapes is very much true for numbers of countries around the world!
Football is a mirror. A reflection of societal ills, as it is a reflection of the times we live in. And the times we live in are difficult times where economic woes are compounded by political incompetence and a tendency towards an Orwellian state.
Everywhere, not just in England, but very much so in Europe or what is called the EU, one can find similar conduct and similar excess. It is education and civilized values, family values of the past that have gone to the dogs, it seems. Without education, there cannot be empathy. Without teaching compassion and tolerance, there cannot be a functioning society. And without a functioning society – but a decaying one – we’ll all be faced with the ugly face of extremism. And the extremism we face today, maybe more so than before, exalts in violence (again) and discrimination against minorities. Problem is, we have apparently learned nothing from the past. And that bodes badly for the future.
And football only shows the dripping boil of decay – it is not the boil itself.