Sports Spectator Violence and Disorder.

1. Sports Spectator Violence and Disorder. Mike Weed

2. Generic Issues in Crowd Behaviour • What is the difference between ‘violence’, ‘disorder’ and ‘carnivalesque behaviour’? • How are these terms defined by various interest groups? • What are the influencing factors? • Type of sport • Relationship of fans to players • National context • Emotion and Identity

3. Football Fan Behaviour • Has football-related spectator violence gone away? • Has football spectator behaviour changed over time? • Have explanations of football spectator behaviour evolved? • Is all football-related spectator violence the same?

4. Five Principal Explanationsfor Football Hooliganism

5. Football Hooligans as Undesirable Sports TouristsTowards a Typology of Explanations • Routinisation and Purpose of Trip • Leisure Activities / Day-Trips / Short-Breaks / Holidays • Ritual / Cultural Inversion • “…tourism involves for participants a separation from normal ‘instrumental’ life and the concerns of making a living, and offers entry into another kind of moral state in which mental, expressive and cultural needs come to the fore” • Tourism as the Consumption of Experiences • Hooliganism as a commodity

6. A Speculative Typology ofExplanations for Football Hooliganism

7. A Speculative Typology ofExplanations for Football Hooliganism

8. Marsh (1984), Marsh et al (1978) • Examined hooliganism in late 1970s • Identified ‘hooligan careers’ • Little violence, much posturing • aggressive behaviour, taunting and baiting, boasting about ‘fights’ • Fans would withdraw at point of physical violence, or rely on being dragged away by friends • Attempting to make opposing fans back down first: • a game of bluff rather than actual fighting • BUT, this is never acknowledged, even within the group

9. England Fans @ Euro 2000 • Tournament took place in June 2000 in Holland and Belgium • England were eliminated after group stages • Much media coverage of potential for trouble prior to tournament • Widespread reporting of incidents before, during and after the match with Germany

10. England v Portugal (Monday 12th June) • Almost no trouble • Factors… • approach of Dutch Police: “we want to make a positive contribution to the festive nature of such an event. You don’t do that by policing to firmly. So its balancing between maintenance of public order and being a real host to the fans” (Theo Brenkelmans, Dutch Director of Police Intelligence) • midweek game, no historic rivalry - ‘real’ hooligans were waiting for weekend match with Germany

11. “Charleroi’s main square, the Place de Charles II, which should have been the centre of celebration, resembled a battleground. More than 200 English yobs attacked German rivals, hurling chairs and sticks as they went” (Sunday Express, 18/6/2000) “I had watched with delight as the Belgian riot police had waded into some 200 English thugs in Brussels the night before…. I counted perhaps 300 hardened English hooligans bringing fear and mayhem to Brussels and Charleroi” (Times, 19/6/2000) England v Germany (Saturday 17th June)Initial Response

12. “…there was no riot in Charleroi. There was no ‘pitched battle’. There were no ‘rival mobs baying for blood’. The fighting between English and German fans in the main square lasted for about 60 seconds. The clumsy but effective intervention of Belgian armoured water cannon and mounted police lasted about five minutes” (Independent, 19/6/2000) “Compared to Marseilles in the World Cup and even Copenhagen last month and despite some vivid television pictures, it was little more than handbags at 20 paces” (Times, 19/6/2000) England v Germany (Saturday 17th June)Minority Voices

13. “The Dutch police had a high-profile, low-friction approach which worked extremely well and brought out the best in the English fans. Here, on the day before the game the policing was non-existent until it was too late. Then after one or two problems had developed, the policing became heavy handed and indiscriminate. There can be few methods of policing less precise than firing tear gas into a crowded pub and arresting everyone who emerges” (Kevin Miles, Football Supporters Assn., 19/6/2000) “As a retired police officer with lots of public order experience (Miners Strike, London Marches), I failed to see any evidence of gross public order offences by English fans. If that same policing had taken place in this country, many of the officers would be serving jail sentences” (BBC Panorama website, 22/6/2000) England v Germany (Saturday 17th June)Belgian Police Tactics

14. “It is clear that over the weekend the Belgians decided that a heavy show of force with water cannon, tear gas, dogs and truncheons was the most effective deterrent pour encourager les auters. At a loss to know how to deal with the rioting they seemed to have rounded up everybody in sight” (Daily Telegraph, 19/6/2000) “When the police eventually moved in yesterday their behaviour was unbelievable, they tipped-off journalists and TV crews that they were about to lift some Germans in a bar and in the melee thousands surged towards the incident. That’s when it ‘went-off’ as they say. But of course it did!” (Observer, 18/6/2000) England v Germany (Saturday 17th June)Contribution to violent images

15. “…10 per cent are outright trouble makers (‘the thugs’); 10 per cent respectable supporters (‘the fans’); and a depressing 80 per cent are good-humoured, aggressive, drunken, racist, foul-mouthed boors (‘the slobs’). To tell the thugs and the slobs apart is almost impossible. All were dressed in shorts and baseball caps and bandanas, sports shoes and expensive watches. Most were in their late thirties or early forties. The slobs try vaguely to keep out of trouble but are all too happy to pitch in once the aggro begins…. [The answer] is to appeal to the better nature of the slobs and isolate the thugs who are beyond reason” (Independent, 19/6/2000) “…while only 10% want to start trouble, another 30% hang on to their coat tails and perhaps more behave in a way that is unacceptable to any civilised community…. There was one in the crowd in Charleroi on Saturday. Shirt off, swaying, on each chorus of No Surrender he thrust out his arm in a Nazi salute. I didn’t see him hurt anybody, but is it acceptable?” (Daily Express, 19/6/2000) Dynamics of Euro 2000 Incidents

16. “Of the 800 fans arrested by Belgian police, some were innocent, and many were guilty of being no more loud and obnoxious than the average pub on a Saturday” (Guardian, 20/6/2000) “[the hooligan]…is likely to be a professional in his 20s, the sort of bloke you see down the boozer, getting loud and giving it large; the kind of man who belts out ‘God Save the Queen’ whenever he’s drunk” (Observer, 18/6/2000) “…English popular culture encourages and even glorifies such conduct…much of what passes for social life in England is actually a low intensity riot” (Sunday Telegraph, 18/6/2000) “The fundamental problem is that English social culture is drunken and aggressive” (Guardian letters, 20/6/2000) Explanations for Euro 2000 IncidentsEnglish Social Culture

17. “There has been a hard core among England’s travelling support for a long time which has a racist core. But probably more significant in numbers is a body of people from various different clubs around the country who wouldn’t dare, or wouldn’t even dream, of voicing such sort of sentiments in the context of their home club support” (Kevin Miles, FSA , 20/6/2000) “In contrast to Germany, where a very clear division exists between ‘normal’ supporters and ‘hooligans’ which facilitates the work of police officers, England’s supporters are a mix. An apparently peaceful supporter can join the ranks of the troublemakers. It all depends on circumstances, resistance to alcohol, or solidarity against a common adversary” (Le Monde, France, 19/6/2000) Explanations for Euro 2000 IncidentsCultural Inversion

18. Euro 2000 Summary • Context of English culture of patriotism and nationalism which manifested itself as: • racial hatred • anti-IRA sentiments • range of insults harking back to war • Little violence, but much unpleasant, unacceptable aggressive posturing: • game of bluff rather than actual fighting • boasts of facing down other country’s fans, making them surrender as had done in the war • The above, alongside violent response of Belgian police contributed to images of riots: “one sees aggression, but violence itself is surprisingly rare - one has, instead, an illusion of violence” (Marsh, 1984; 278)

19. Policy ResponseThe Football (Disorder) Act – December 2000 • Amended the Football Spectators Act (1989) • Allowed Banning Orders to be made ‘on a complaint’ • ‘if it appears to the officer [that] the respondant has at any time caused or contributed to any violence or disorder in the UK or elsewhere’ • Also states that ‘violence’ and ‘disorder’ are not limited to violence and disorder in connection with football.

20. Policy ResponseThe Football (Disorder) Act – December 2000 • Definition of ‘disorder’… • Stirring up hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins, or against an individual as a member of such a group • Using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour • Displaying any writing or other thing which is threatening, abusive or insulting

21. Further Policy ResponseHome Office Working Group on Football Disorder (March 2001) • First government report to recognise link between football hooliganism and wider social forces. • Remit: • ‘…to reduce, by means other than new legislation, the level of football disorder(Home Office, 2001) • Recommended the replacement of the England Members Club (1300 members of which were identified by The Guardian as ‘the committed racist hardcore’ of England’s support) with a Club England that would focus on initiatives that would: • ‘encourage a fan base more reflective of a modern multi-cultural society’ (Home Office, 2001)

22. Further Policy ResponseHome Office Working Group on Football Disorder (March 2001) Racism or Xenophobia? ‘The problem is xenophobia rather than racism. There are people who follow England and refuse to accept anything foreign!’ Perryman (2000) ‘This is perhaps THE central problem in tackling “disorder” among fans following England, a xenophobic attitude that sees England and anything English as superior to any other nationality or culture’ Weed (2001)