British Expatriate Network

Dont give a toss
In our class
I'm the boss
(well, one of them)
Sorry I had a Roger McGough moment there!! wink

Anyhow..
I was looking at the beeb website and according to the Home Office football match arrests in 2003/2004 were down by 10% and the number of people being banned from games increased. Home Office figures showed that there were 3,982 football-related arrests during the 2003/4 season, compared with 4,413 the previous year. The number of 'fans' who are banned increased to over 2,596 an all time high.

As much as I am a complete nut about footie, I'm not exactly someone who has spent his time actually going to premiership/Nationwide/Coca Cola/whatever name League games over the years. Ive been to a few non league games and various sundry stuff like that. Ive read some stories about football violence and the well organised subculture of the football hooligan network but Ive never experienced it at first hand.

Has anyone seen any football violence close up or has been a hooligan in the past? Is it a necessary evil or a dark shadow which looms over our beautiful game? Apart from my missus, if you talk to anyone here about footie the first thing you hear about is football related violence!!! (then after that I hear the same crap about how boring it is??) I tend to romanticise about football but I suppose for every fan like me there's got to be others whose idea of a good game is more about the fighting which breaks out before/during/after a game?

Here's the league table of arrests, I was quite suprised to see who was top of the league!! o

Portsmouth - 146
Leeds United - 109
Manchester United - 108
Cardiff City - 107
Sunderland - 93
Hull City - 90
Plymouth Argyle - 78
Tottenham Hotspur - 77
Nottingham Forest - 73
Manchester City - 70
Aston Villa - 70

Here's the BBC link....
http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3945109.stm

As with many acts of violence in large groups there are those who go just to taunt others into doing violent acts(mob mentality).
Plenty of people may not have gone to the game thinking they would get in a fight but once the shouting, singing and the back and forth angryness gets going people are often drawn in to it and can't stop themselves.

I used to go to watch Burnley and particularly when they played Newcasle or local teams, the taunting was always much worse than for other matches.
I have a small scar just in the hairline where a bottle was thrown over the fence.
My friends and I would also sneak into the opposition stands just to aggravate them. We didnt ever smash up property but did deface property with a spray can more than once. We also never fought with anyone but are definitelt guilty of encouraging it in others. oops

Plymouth's "Central Element" was largely disbanded by the time I came to support them in the mid to late 80's but supposedly remnants survive, known as "The Burberrys", from their attire I suppose.

I saw today that we were 7th in that league which is a bit disappointing. One wonders where we would figure if we hadn't done as well as we have in the past few years (

I haven't been subjected to any violence (I certainly wouldn't have been into giving any out as I go for the football on display primarily) although I was threatened by a gang of lads in Plymouth on one occasion. The sad thing though was that they challenged me based upon my Argyle shirt I was wearing and were more Plymothian than I could ever claim to be (

I'm not surprised Leeds is up in the top two. For years their fans weren't allowed to even go to any of their games when I was a teenager!

I went to go and see Grimsby Town play when they were in the 4th division. They had a good system where the arriving fans had to come in by train. The train station was direct access to the away side part of the stadium so the two sets of fans never mixed. But even the Grimsby fans would parade the streets afterwards. We always left just a little before the end of the game to make sure we weren't caught up in anything.

When hubby took our eldest to see Notts forest play, they did the same thing and left a couple of minutes before the end of the game. Although it means you get out without any trouble, you can miss a crucial part of the match because once they heard the cheers go up from the home team fans as they were leaving with the score at 0-0 roll

Yes, I'm sure players and fans that survived Ibrox in 1971 can attest to that. Sorry, I often boo early leavers - if I'm going to a game I'm there til the end.

Yeah, the "80-minute brigade" always get a special mention on the radio commentary I listen to and we always used to give them a hard time as they left our terrace.

Had a brief experience at Spurs when I was about 17/18 and must admit it was a lot of fun. Of course it wasn't the hoolie heyday of the late seventies or early eighthes. It mainly consisted of going to games and getting into the home teams local before they did. It struck me that there were clear and well defined rules, so if you didn't want to get into a row you needn't.

The lads were mainly left over from the early causals, so dress was important. Stuff like Burberry, Aquascutum, Prada and Stone Island were the main labels but only chavs wore those burberry baseball hats.