Football Hooligans: Difference between revisions

{{quote|Yeah, I mean, how many basketball games end with the destruction of a city? They reserve that for soccer games.|[[Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video)|Linkara's]] [http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/3459-gozilla-vs-barkley review of Godzilla vs. Barkley]}}

An [[Association Football]] supporter who arguably takes the "support" part more seriously than the football. Portrayals (and [[Real Life]] examples) tend to range along a sliding scale of criminal behaviour. Some are fans who've gotten drunk and found themselves in a [[Bar Brawl]], while others are organised "firms" -- gangs—gangs formed on the basis, not of ethnicity or home turf, but of the members' favoured team. Strongly associated with the UK, but [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_hooliganismFootball hooliganism|as pointed out]] on [[The Other Wiki]], prevalent all over the world -- evenworld—even [http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2005/dec/07/ussport.football within the US], at least according to ''[[British Newspapers|The Guardian]]''. Hooliganism was so rife in 1980's England (for example, contributing to disasters like [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_DisasterHeysel Stadium Disaster|Heysel]]) that [[Margaret Thatcher]] formed a "war cabinet" to deal with the problem; ironically, measures put in place to stop it resulted in the tragedy at [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disasterHillsborough disaster|Hillsborough]]. Thankfully, further measures put in place have all but stamped this problem out.

{{examples|Examples:}}

* An [[Asshole Victim]] in ''[[Case Closed]]'' was one such hooligan--ithooligan—it eventually comes out that he was murdered in retaliation for fatally pushing a man down some stairs [[For the Evulz]].

* [[Hellblazer (Comic Book)|John Constantine]] gets out of a sticky situation when a demon had fused four hooligans together to kill him, while retaining their personalities. Unfortunately for the demon's plans, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|two were for Chelsea, the other two for Arsenal]]. They start beating the crap out of themselves, allowing John to escape.

* Robert Carlyle's character Felix De Souza in ''[[The Fifty First51st State]]'' - Liverpool. Apparently just to cause trouble, he walked into a bar frequented by Manchester United hooligans and flashed a Liverpool t-shirt before bolting.

* In ''[[Euro TripEurotrip]]'', two of the protagonists run into a Manchester United fanclub (in London<ref>Not failure to research but a subtle gag about English football culture: among fans of other teams it is often believed that all Man United fans don't live in Manchester and are shallow idiots who only like them because they're successful</ref>). The club are stereotypical hooligans, but the two strike well with them and they give them a ride to Paris.

* The bizzarebizarre animated film ''[[Animal Soccer World]]'' invokes this was a gang of duck hooligans who show up for the animal soccer game. They're stereotypically attired and some have weapons with them before the game even starts. They play no part in the film after being introduced.

* Given the [[Discworld]] treatment in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Unseen Academicals|Unseen Academicals]]''.

{{quote| ''In most nations, when people say "football" they mean "soccer," which is a completely different game in which smallish persons whiz about on a field while the spectators beat each other up and eventually overthrow the government.''}}

* Adopted for horse racing in [[Belisarius Series]]. The Greens and The Blues, and their rivalry that culminated in the (in)famous [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots:Nika riots|Nika riots]] that destroyed half of the Constantinople and just barely haven't led to the destruction of Byzantine government at the time, were treated much like modern football hooligans or the rival firms.

* ''[[Alex Rider (Literature)|Alex Rider]]'' is being led through a crowd by a villain with a hidden gun. He starts silently taunting a football fan whose team has just lost badly (and by silently, I mean miming the score with his fingers), until the man comes over and starts a fight, giving Alex a chance to escape.

{{quote| "And then we overreact, and we have to put up perimeter fences and we treat the fans like animals! Forty, fifty thousand people herded into pens! And then how long before something happens, eh? How long before something terrible happens and we are dragging ''bodies'' out?"}}

** Specifically, he's talking about [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster:Hillsborough disaster|the Hillsborough Disaster]]. 96 deaths were caused by failures in crowd control leading to a dangerous crush, and the prevailing mindset that all fans were hooligans meant that a public safety problem was treated as a public order problem. This lead to a crucial delay in getting people out of the crush, and allegedly some of those scaling the fences to escape it were pushed back in.

* Bernard [[Suicide Byby Cop|tries to get beaten up]] by Millwall supporters in the pilot episode of ''[[Black Books]]''.

{{quote| ''Millwall! That's the one. Do you know this chant; "Millwall, Millwall, you're all really dreadful, and all your girlfriends are unfulfilled and alienated..."''}}

* ''[[The Goodies (TV)|The Goodies]]'' had an episode about soccer hooliganism, in which ''ballet'' eventually replaced soccer as the national pastime but was then ruined by - yep - ''ballet hooligans''.

{{quote| '''Bill:''' [[Sarcasm Mode|So where've you two been?]]<br />

{{quote| '''Frasier:''' Well, I didn't get injured playing soccer.<br />

{{quote| I throw house bricks for The Arsenal<br />

I chuck lead pipe for West Ham<br />

I kick and maim for Chelsea<br />

I kill for Tottenham<br />

I drop bottles for United on the crowd from up above<br />

* In Australia, ''[[The ChasersChaser's War Onon Everything]]'' had a skit involving selling Balaclavas and (fake) knuckledusters in club colors to [[Rugby League|Canterbury Bulldogs]] fans.

* After the home team wins in an episode of ''[[3rd Rock Fromfrom the Sun]]'':

{{quote| '''Mary''': Listen, can you hear them celebrating?<br />

* [[Word of God]] says this was part of the inspiration for ''[[Warhammer 40 K,000]]'''s Orks.

* There's a [[Theatre|play]] called ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140326104934/http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/p109/Among-the-Thugs/product_info.html Among The Thugs]'' which is about an American writer who goes embedded in another hooligan group.

* The Allies main tank in ''[[Command and& Conquer|Red Alert 3]]'' was crewed by them.

* ''[[The Simpsons]]''' "The Cartridge Family" is a [[Take That]] to soccer in general. The crowd at an international match breaks into a riot ''because the game is so boring'', and turns the city into a warzone.

{{quote| '''[[Violent Glaswegian|Willie:]]''' Ye call this a riot? C'mon boys, let's take 'em to school!}}

{{quote| '''Hans Moleman:''' We came for blooooood!}}

* The real-life example known as the [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War:Football War|Football war]] deserves mentioning when you take into account that the rioting from the games increased the tension between the countries which led to the war.

** The Croatian war of independence also arguably started with [httphttps://bitweb.lyarchive.org/web/20190924160343/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/aZxjsXDinamo_Zagreb%E2%80%93Red_Star_Belgrade_riot a football riot]. And in a related conflict, the Bosnian war, a [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Serb_Volunteer_Guard:Serb Volunteer Guard|paramilitary Yugoslav group]] consisted of hooligan supporters of Red Star Belgrade.

* Egyptian football "Ultras" are often credited as being part of the first wave and strongest group of protestors in the 2011 revolution. A year later, [https://web.archive.org/web/20130814023858/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2105997,00.html they were also involved in the country's worst football-related massacre].

** The bitter irony of the whole thing is that to have a deadly crush you don't even ''need'' hooligans -- theyhooligans—they happen even when all the fans are perfectly peaceful like in [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzhniki_disaster:Luzhniki disaster|Luzhniki disaster]], where all that was needed for a crush that killed ''at least'' sixty seven were the ice on the steps, an untimely goal by the end of an uneventful game, and, again, a failure of the crowd control.

** Football hooliganism was so bad in Britain that following the Heysel disaster mentioned above (during which 39 Italian fans died largely as a result of the actions of English hooligans), for five years English teams were no longer permitted to play in games in the rest of Europe. In addition the already poor reputation as unruly louts that most British fans had, matters weren't helped by an unpleasant strain of [[Misplaced Nationalism|bigoted xenophobia]] that such games tended to produce.

* In the US, similar things occur, but it's more well known with football. Just go to any game in [[Useful Notes/Philadelphia (useful notes)|Philadelphia]] to see a good example. Or just look at [http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-november-2-2009/clash-of-the-cretins this clip] from [[The Daily Show]], which is making fun of it.

** [[Hunter S. Thompson]] noted in his 1974 ''Rolling Stone'' article "Fear and Loathing at the [[Super Bowl]]" that in the relatively early years of [[American Football|pro football]] (i.e. the early to mid [[The Sixties|'60s]]), the main reason ''anyone'' went to a football game was to get drunk, get high (if that was their thing), and brawl. The construction of new stadiums and change in target demographic (brought about in part by televising the game) put an end to this (to Thompson's dismay).