Hooliganism
You don’t have to be too old to remember the dark old days of English football, the seventies and eighties were plagued with crowd trouble and violence from English football hooligans both domestically and abroad, placing an indelible mark on the game in England.
It seems that there has been a clear change in the attitude of English support in recent years; we could look at a number of reasons for the apparent change, including the exclusion of offenders from attending games and the introduction of laws to keep them in the country when games are played abroad.
More interestingly I will focus on an aspect perhaps less obvious but in my opinion equally as effective. In the 1989 F.A Cup semi final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest one of the biggest sporting disasters on record occurred, the Hillsborough disaster claimed the lives of 96 people who were crushed to death against giant steel cages put in place to prevent hooligans invading the pitch. Since that day there followed what has become known as ‘the Taylor report’ which set in place measures to adapt the current stadiums in the UK to prevent a disaster like this ever occurring again.
The ironic thing is that the disaster that day was not caused by hooligans but by policing mistakes, however the changes that it forced to come upon the stadiums in my opinion helped to curb the problem of hooliganism which had been prevalent in the years before.
It seems that when people are treated like animals they are more prone to act like them. When the cages were taken down from the grounds, there was a new calm among the supporters that was not there before. Now the UK is the envy of many of its European counterparts who still cage there supporters and experience much higher levels of Hooliganism. After hosting many international sporting events since then England is now regaining its place as a friendly yet passionate sporting country.
This webpage is all about the Taylor report and what it was that changed with it… http://www.footballnetwork.org/dev/communityfootball/violence_taylor_report.asp
3 comments:
hey, i liked your blog on hooliganism!! English football has certainley changed, i think its because the fans are used to England not winning anything!! i have read in many papers and website that statistics showed that when england were kicked out the world cup last year, there was a rise in domestic violence. maybe hooliganism on the pitch has decreased but its taking place within the home.
itallian football has certainly changed as of late, its so terrible what is happening there, its one of the biggest leagues with some good teams and when things like that happen there it makes me wonder if it will kick off in england too. what do you think is the reason for this?? is it passion or just stupidity?
i havent really seen any violence in football, like proper violence. but when i was watching a champions league match 2 seasons ago i think, with Ac Milan playin Inter Milan i was appaulled to see the fans throwing fireworks onto the pitch. it was disgraceful and shocking!!
well cant wait till chelsea come 2 ashburton grove on the last day of the season, ashley cole will get tortured muhahahahaha!
Anyone that thinks that Hooliganism is resigned to the 70's and 80's are kidding themselves.
It is still alive and a major factor in the English game. Anyone who saw the Bravo documentaries last year would realise how vibrant hooliganism still is, and the roll it plays in the English game.
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