Football not Soccer: Premier League and Hooliganism

Compiled to Complete the British Social Institutions

Lecturer: Yustin Sartika, S.S., M.A.

Compiled by:

Rizal Saiful H

Lilik Anggita (1523211013)

ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND ISLAMIC EDUCATION

THE STATE ISLAMIC INSTITUTE OF SURAKARTA

2018
 DISCUSSION

Football Hooliganism In The United Kingdom

• Football hooliganism is the term used to describe disorderly, violent or destructive
behaviour perpetrated by spectators at association football events.
• Football hooliganism normally involves conflict between gangs, in English known as
football firms (the term derives from the British slang for a criminal gang), formed for the
purpose of intimidating and physically attacking supporters of other teams.
• During the 1970s and 1980s, football hooliganism developed into a prominent issue in
the United Kingdom to such an extent that it became widely referred to as 'the English
disease' or 'the British disease'.
• Firms, crews, squads and gangs regularly caused disturbances at games around the
country, leading to the implementation of crowd segregation, as well as the erection of
fences at stadiums in an effort to minimize clashes.
• In the mid-1980s, the British government, under Margaret Thatcher, established a 'war
cabinet' to deal with the issue head on and it was one of the most talked-about topics in
British society.
• In 1985, in the aftermath of the Heysel Stadium disaster that claimed 39 lives, UEFA
banned English clubs from participating in their competitions for "an indeterminate
period of time" and there was a lot of pressure on both football authorities and politicians
to clamp down on the scourge of hooliganism.
• The ban was fully lifted for the 1991-92 season onward after steps had been taken to
tackle the issue, with English clubs being excluded from European tournaments for five
years - Liverpool served six.
• While the so-called 'English disease' has not been totally eradicated, the culture subsided
significantly through the 1990s and 2000s. However, the topic has been regularly
revisited since, in arts and entertainment, as can be seen in the preponderance of films
depicting English football hooliganism referred to above.
Football Hooligan Firms
• Football hooligans tend to form gangs in order to perpetrate acts of disorder and violence.
• These gangs adopt different monikers to establish a facade of notoriety and mark them
out against their rivals.
• In the United Kingdom gangs of hooligans often use quasi-militaristic terms such as
'firm', 'crew' and 'squad' to describe themselves.
• The term 'casuals' is also used after a subculture emerged in the 1980s where gangs wore
plain or designer clothes rather than club colours.

Causes of Hooliganism
 The Sociological Approach
This approach takes us back to the 19th century again, after the Industrial
Revolution had changed the working-class way of life. In the mid-1830s, people – when
talking about people, we are referring to men because women were not already allowed
to work – were starting to work in factories, to earn their own money, and to have less
time for themselves. Once their work day was over, those men used to go to stadiums to
watch their football teams play. In those places (in stadiums) is where football
hooliganism
started. Matches in which the home team had not played well drove people mad at the
players or managers; but they also were furious if the refereeing had not been favourable
to the home team. In both cases, people became enraged because they thought they were
spending uselessly the money they had earnt with so much effort. For them, starting a
fight was a way to overcome their frustration.
• The media
The media have a lot to do with the development of English football hooliganism.
Journalists have been allowed to English stadiums since the 1890s, though their style of
reporting was very different from the current one.
• Alcohol
Alcohol cannot be considered as a main cause of hooliganism, but “as an
aggravating factor”. However, this is not what both the British Government and the
 stadiums authorities thought at the time, forbidding alcohol consumption at football
matches as a measure to stop violent disorder.

Football Hooligan Films

• Some of the more well known films that followed include The Football Factory (2004),
starring Danny Dyer, Green Street Hooligans (2005), which starred Elijah Wood and
Cass (2008). Others include I.D. (1995), Awaydays (2009) and The Guvnors (2014).
• A number of the films from the genre have been positively received, earning a cult
following, but in many cases they have been criticized for seeming to glorify
hooliganism.

Football hooliganism involves a wide range of behaviour, including:

• Taunting
• Spitting
• Unarmed fighting
• Throwing of objects on to the pitch, either in an attempt to harm players and officials or
as a gesture of insult.
• Throwing of objects at opposing supporters, including stones, bricks, coins, flares and
Molotov cocktails.
• Fighting with weapons including sports bays, glass bottles, rocks, rebar, knives, machetes
and firearms.
• Disorderly crowd behavior such as pushing, which may cause stadium fixtures such as
fences and walls to collapse. Similar effects can occur when law-abiding crowds try to
flee disorder caused by hooligans.
• The most dangerous season was 1988-89, with almost 6,200 arrests.

THE PREMIER LEAGUE

• THE PREMIER LEAGUE era that started in 1992 signaled a watershed moment in
British football.
 • As satellite television deals injected money and demographics altered, it became
acceptable to be a football fan in a manner that the dark days of the 1980s would not
allow.
• Middle-class people had always attended matches, but now such a group felt able to write
about the game using its own voice. Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch," published in 1992, was
the story of a Cambridge University graduate finding his way in life, while remaining
hopelessly committed to Arsenal.

Government Act
• The Government and other authorities, such as the Football Association, had to play their
part in fighting hooliganism. The Government, led by Margaret Thatcher, promulgated
some governmental acts to remove violence from football. Besides, the Football
Association implemented other procedures to improve security inside and outside
stadiums, for instance, the creation of membership-cards or the incorporation of CCTV
cameras in order to control the fans’ behaviour inside and outside the stadiums.

The Rules of Premier League for Football Club Stadium

• Club or stadium
The principles of safety management are the same, regardless of the size of any football
club. Commissioned by The Football Association and designed by a team of football safety
professionals with decades of experience at every level of the English game, The resource is
aimed at clubs playing in Steps 1 to 7 of the National League System (i.e. in the National League
and the Leagues below) and has been designed to:
• Describe the qualities and responsibilities of the safety officer,
• Provide an overview of the key pieces of legislation governing stadium safety,
• Help you train, equip and organise your team of stewards, and to
• Assist you in preparing to stage an unusually high-profile game.
Punishment for Rude Support
1. Not allowed in stadium for several years or life banned
2. A charge
3. Detention
 REFERENCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_hooliganism
https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/football-hooligans-firms-films-violence-culture-
among/16dewe1zjd5cs1wwaky23qv9zk

http://www.espn.com/soccer/blog/name/68/post/2193850/headline

Conde Martínez, J. (2016). Crime and punishment: the survival of hooliganism in English football.