Football Hooligans: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

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 formed on the basis, not of ethnicity or home turf, but of the members' favoured team. Strongly associated with the UK, but [[wikipedia:Football hooliganism|as pointed out]] on [[The Other Wiki]], prevalent all over the world -- 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 [[wikipedia:Heysel 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 [[wikipedia:Hillsborough disaster|Hillsborough]]. Thankfully, further measures put in place have all but stamped this problem out.

 

== Comic Books ==

** On another occasion, John meets a demon who is the genius spirit of football hooliganism and accepted deaths and bloodshed in the stands as his sacrifices.

 

* ''The Firm'' - West Ham

* ''[[Green Street]]'' has Elijah Wood's [[Fish Out of Water]] American student sucked into the world of a West Ham firm.

* 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 ==

* 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.

* 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?

 

{{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.

{{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.

** This was quite probably a reference to ''[[The Rite of Spring]]'', which actually did have hooligans beating each other and gendarmes called in to quell the riot on its premiere.

** They also had a milder parody in one episode, where Tim and Graeme ran in, cheering, chanting, and dressed in red-white scarves and wooly hats.

* In an episode of ''George and the Dragon'', George gets arrested for hooliganism, though what he did was mild compared to today. Look closely and you'll see the policeman who arrests him is Lionel from ''As Time Goes By''.

* Documented in Danny Dyer's (of ''The Football Factory'') series ''The Real Football Factories'' and ''The Real Football Factories International''.

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

'''Dick''': ''[wistfully]'' Yes, the happy sounds of cars over turning and stores being looted. I love the smell of burning rubber, it smells like victory! }}

 

== Tabletop Games ==

 

== Theatre ==

* 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 [[Useful Notes/Philadelphia|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.

** Massachusetts in particular is known for [[American Football]] hooliganry; after one Super Bowl, there were cars turned upside down and set on fire in Boston, and at least one murder.

* The popular table football game 'Subbuteo'' incorporated a lot of clever marketing gimmicks which meant if you had enough time and money, you could buy from a formidable catalgue of extras that meant your tabletop footballers could eventually turn out in their own stadium, complete with stands, working footlights, scoreboards, advertising hoardings, TV crews, St John's ambulancemen, cigar-smoking manager and subs in the dugout policemen, stewards, programme salesmen, pie stall.... some fans of the game turned their Subbuteo playing areas into an art-form not unlike model railway layouts. Whilst the official Subbuteo vendor sold fans in packets of fifty to populate your model terraces, other enterprising and strictly unofficial vendors added topics the licenced dealers frowned on. In the form of Subbuteo soccer hooligans and streakers (male and female) that in an expanded rule set could be randomly deployed to disrupt matches...