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 _at_ 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 dont 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
England v Germany (Saturday 17th June)Initial
Response

• Charlerois 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)

12
England v Germany (Saturday 17th June)Minority
Voices

• 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)

13
England v Germany (Saturday 17th June)Belgian
Police Tactics

• 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)

14
England v Germany (Saturday 17th
June)Contribution to violent images

• 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. Thats
  when it went-off as they say. But of course it
  did!
• (Observer, 18/6/2000)

15
Dynamics of Euro 2000 Incidents

• 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 didnt see him hurt anybody,
  but is it acceptable?
• (Daily Express, 19/6/2000)

16
Explanations for Euro 2000 IncidentsEnglish
Social Culture

• 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 hooliganis 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 hes drunk
• (Observer, 18/6/2000)

• English popular culture encourages and even
  glorifies such conductmuch 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)

17
Explanations for Euro 2000 IncidentsCultural
Inversion

• There has been a hard core among Englands
  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 wouldnt
  dare, or wouldnt 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, Englands 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)

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 countrys 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 Englands 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)