Football Hooligans: Difference between revisions

Line 25:

* Robert Carlyle's character Felix De Souza in ''[[The 51st State]]'' - Liverpool.

* In ''[[Eurotrip]]'', 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 bizzare 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.

== Literature ==

Line 31:

* According to [[Dave Barry]] in "Football Deflated";

{{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 [[wikipedia: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]]'' 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.

* In the 1970's, a now-defunct publishing house called the ''[[New English Library]]'' specialised in lurid penny-dreadfuls, hack-written novels capitalising on ''[[British Newspapers Daily|Mail]]'' readers' fears about British society going to Hell in a handcart. Among its copious catalogue were pulp novels by a "Richard Allen" about football hooliganism, with no nose left unbroken nor no groin unkicked. Allen wrote four or five books about the hooligans, culminating in a truly outrageous piece of monumental absurdity called ''Striker!'', where football hooligans precipitate the collapse of British society and, with the aid of no-good trade unions and communists, take the country over. Literally. Eventually, the Americans call a halt to Britain's slide into anarchy by doing an Iraq and sending their Army in to restore order and put down hooliganism. Oh dear. A cure producing a bigger body count than the disease?

Line 41:

{{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 [[wikipedia: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 by 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..."''}}

* An episode of ''[[The Thin Blue Line]]'' had the police being worried about a possible outbreak of football hooliganism due to a London team playing the local club. In arresting various troublemaking elements, they end up locking up the entire local club.

Line 73:

== Video Games ==

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

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

** Given that their base soldiers are upgunned riot police...

* There is a whole game about them named ''Hooligans: Storm over Europe'', which is a tactical RTS. ''From the POV of the hooligans.''

Line 79:

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[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!}}

** More rioting soccer fans in the episode ''Marge Gamer,'' where Lisa watches a documentary about them. It's enough to make a statue of the Virgin Mary comes to life and "beat the living snot out of everyone."

Line 90:

** Except that the tension between Honduras and El Salvador was already at the brink of the war at the time, and the rioting just triggered its start.

** The Croatian war of independence also arguably started with [http://bit.ly/aZxjsX a football riot]. And in a related conflict, the Bosnian war, a [[wikipedia: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, [http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2105997,00.html they were also involved in the country's worst football-related massacre].

* As stated above, English Football became the most iconic example of hooliganism during the 80's. Almost every club had 'firms' who would arrange punch ups with opposing firms from other sides. This would cumulate with the disaster at Heysel, at the time the whole game was a mess, with stadia crumbling and not being up to standards and loose regulations about drinking for example. Measures put into place like catch fencing would lead to Hillsbrough where even more people died. The Taylor Report which arose from those events called for several new rules and regulations like no alcohol allowed inside the stands and all seater stadiums. Despite the occasional riot breaking out the problem has been all but solved.

** The bitter irony of the whole thing is that to have a deadly crush you don't even ''need'' hooligans -- they happen even when all the fans are perfectly peaceful like in [[wikipedia: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.

* Manchester 2008. After a screen failure during the UEFA Cup Final between Scottish side Rangers and Russia's Zenit St. Petersburg, Rangers fans starting rioting throughout the city. Rangers would lose the Cup final (and the league that season). It was scenes of chaos, and seemed to have given Rangers a horrendous reputation in other countries, especially combined with other scenes in Spain. It should be noted that their rivals Celtic saw their fans awarded by FIFA for their behaviour during the 2003 UEFA Cup Final, showing how much the fans contrast.

* In the US, similar things occur, but it's more well known with football. Just go to any game in [[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.