Kick in the teeth for complacency

Stephen Brenkley discusses the theory that the nature of hooliganism is changing

BACK in the bright, sunny uplands of last August hooliganism in football had been left behind in the grimy recesses of the past. If it was not dead it was, like dilapidated stands and more dilapidated meat pies, in terminal decline. It was unmentioned and probably unmentionable.

Unfortunately, it was also merely lying doggo. There was evidence of a most snarling kind that despite the glittering heights to which the game had elevated itself it was still accompanied by misbehaviour and insurrection. While the events of February in Dublin were to be the most disturbing and violent, other less spectacular examples of spectator unrest were scattered around the season.

If the clashes between old and bitter rivals like Chelsea and Millwall were simply habitual - and ultimately contained - there were other worrying signs. The stalls selling T-shirts bearing gratuitously offensive slogans outside Elland Road, for instance, are hardly indicative of a game at ease with itself. Manchester United and their followers are often accused of being paranoid but as a compelling contest for the Premiership title reached its climax there seemed to be a slightly insidious edge to the widely canvassed neutral desire that they slip up.

The Football Association, in their public pronouncements at least, remain upbeat. Their spokesman Mike Parry reiterated a familiar refrain: "It would be complacent to believe that hooliganism had gone away, and we never have. But if there is any benefit at all from what happened in the Seventies and Eighties it is that we are experienced in dealing with it. That is why Uefa had no hesitation in bringing Euro '96 here. We have the best set of stadiums in the world and our policing methods are studied by everybody else. The game is healthy and in good shape."

It is an understandable party line given that a multi-million-pound product cannot be seen to be tarnished. It also recognises that hooliganism and the odd riot have been part of the game since at least the early part of the century. But there is also a suspicion that the very marketing of the game now may have created domestic disaffection of a different kind. (Misbehaviour at international matches and in European competition may be symptomatic of other feelings like mindless, irrational dislike for Johnny Foreigner.)

According to Tim Crabbe, chairman of the Football Supporters' Association (FSA), the past five years have seen a prolonged attempt to gentrify football which, if wholly successful, would take it back to its roots. The game has clearly been targeted at a different audience; it has gone upmarket and acquired a higher profile.

"The larger problem may lie with the big matches," Crabbe said. "Because of the game's profile now, where it has become genuinely central to British life, the big games can bring out of the woodwork those thirtysomethings who used to watch when there was a different culture. This was about having a fight and they think the old laws still apply."

Like others, Crabbe was adamant that misbehaviour was emanating not from the purportedly traditional quarter of reckless adolescence but from wilful near-middle age. He is fearful that the widening of the game's popularity and the accompanying hype has led to an excess of emotion, so the result can seem more important than it is.

It always has, according to Rogan Taylor, director of the Football Research Unit at Liverpool University. Taylor's work demonstrates that history is not to be debunked. He had a feeling in his water, he said, that football might receive a kick between its legs this season and he was not delighted to be right. "I just wonder if the game's still settling down, that the traditional fan is feeling slightly usurped by the newcomers now sitting next to him in the same stand. He's saying, in a way, 'Look this is how to be a proper supporter, never mind your fancy souvenirs,' which might be causing a certain atmosphere."

That all is not peace and tranquillity even the FA would agree. Like all professional football bodies and other organisations as diverse as the FSA and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, they were represented last week at the inaugural meeting of the Anti-Racism and Intimidation Group. This is not about dealing with the rippers-out of seats but with the air of menace and threat which can pervade matches. Tim Crabbe was optimistic that such a group would be a force for good.

Unsurprisingly, he envisages a more influential voice for the FSA. Not that they can have much hope of ordering fans to behave or, as he specified, of telling Leeds United followers to stop chanting the Munich song. But in the marketing whirl engulfing the game he wants more fan involvement. "Instead of dancing girls on the pitch there perhaps ought to be dancing in the stands. Fans ought to be encouraged to have a good time, to enjoy it."

It is probably true that some of the incidents this season would barely have merited a column inch of copy in the violent morass of a decade ago. The FA's Mike Parry points to a 2 per cent rise in attendances last season, a 20 per cent rise in five years. But such figures cannot conceal the resonance of the cautionary words of the sociologist Professor Geoff Pearson, of Goldsmiths' College, London. He has written a book on hooliganism in society and is lecturing on a course, Football, Culture and Society, at Birkbeck College. While clarifying that football did not create hooliganism but was a focus for it, he said: "I feel that football will be accompanied by sporadic violence and extremely unpleasant behaviour for the foreseeable future." Mind you, he did admit to being a Manchester United supporter.

Serious incidents that scarred a season

25 January 1995 Manchester United's Eric Cantona executes kung- fu kick on Crystal Palace fan who allegedly ran down stand at Selhurst Park to taunt him

28 January Brawl at the New Den between Millwall and Chelsea fans during FA Cup tie

1 February Blackburn Rovers supporter runs on to pitch at Ewood Park to remonstrate with referee Rodger Gifford

8 February Brawling and pitch invasion by spectators at Stamford Bridge for FA Cup tie between Chelsea and Millwall. Controlled policing prevents wider outbreak of violence

15 February Friendly match between England and Republic of Ireland abandoned when rioting by English supporters breaks out after Irish goal

9 April Crystal Palace fan hit by bus and killed after fight in Walsall pub on day of FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United