by Terry Groves

Created on: February 09, 2009

How football hooliganism has negatively impacted the sport

Hooliganism is a generic term for acts of violence and abuse most usually by groups of young people. The game of Association Football, or Soccer, has a sorry history of hooliganism in many forms.

In England and Wales problems began in the 1970s when so-called "fans" began trashing railway trains on their trips to matches. This developed into mindless acts of vandalism in the towns and cities they visited and the necessity of having riot police available to deal with them. Naturally the fans of the clubs they were travelling to were not about to stand for a bunch of outsiders causing mayhem so fights were arranged. These took place both inside and outside football grounds and became increasingly violent with a range of weapons being employed. Certain clubs became notorious for their "fans" and when they travelled shops, public houses and other businesses closed and put up the shutters in the areas they were visiting.

Segregation was introduced inside the grounds; the police had to form a barrier between two sets of caged animals efffectively with all baring their teeth intent on mayhem. And so it continued.

It is of interest that the social conditions then were remarkably similar to today. There was a Labour government spending like crazy in the teeth of a recession and about to bankrupt the country. People were losing their jobs, many were striking and several violent clashes occurred between police and strikers. This violence spilled over to football as the game has always been seen as the preserve of the working class, the very people at the coalface of the recession. Not for nothing has football been described as a "gentlemen's game played by hooligans".

The game was at a low ebb to put it mildly. Vilified at every turn by the media the hooligans lapped up the publicity and were intent on living up to their (undesirable) image at every opportunity. The game seemed powerless, the government blew a lot of hot air and the police bore the brunt of the match day disturbances. English clubs found themselves banned from European competition and thus lost a lot of money.

The country emerged from recession, people had jobs again and the violence slowly died down. Police intelligence identified a large number of thugs and these were prevented from travelling abroad for fights. It was interesting that as the 80s turned into the 90s a lot of these "thugs" were found to be people with highly paid jobs in the City of

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