British football fans have a well-deserved bad reputation for hooliganism and violence.
In this episode, we explore where this comes from, why British football stadiums have historically been violent places, and why things have started to change.
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a lesser-known, much darker side of British culture.
[00:00:29] One that has plagued Britain for decades, and earned a reputation abroad as the ‘British disease’.
[00:00:36] It’s the ugly side of the beautiful game, football hooliganism, the British phenomenon of fighting at football matches.
[00:00:45] Okay then, let’s get into it and talk about the history of football hooliganism.
[00:00:53] On the far side of the stadium, the crowd writhes around in the distance.
[00:00:58] The air is filled with panicked screams and shouts, the smell of beer, urine, and tobacco smoke.
[00:01:07] A plastic chair flies over your head, followed by bottles and bricks.
[00:01:13] Slowly, supporters from the far side of the stadium close in, and you watch as they fight with police on the pitch.
[00:01:21] The police strike back with batons, and the approaching fans throw bottles and coins, punching and kicking anything, and anyone, in their way.
[00:01:33] There are screams of fear and rage, and chaos as people climb over one another to try and escape.
[00:01:41] Some are knocked unconscious, face down on the pitch, someone grabs you by the arm, telling you it’s time to go.
[00:01:50] It is 1985.
[00:01:52] You’re at a football stadium in England, and you are watching the ‘British disease’ in action.
[00:01:59] So, how did this bizarre British subculture develop?
[00:02:03] How could such an ugly tradition stem from what billions of people the world over know as the ‘beautiful game’?
[00:02:12] As always, we need to delve into a bit of history.
[00:02:16] But don’t worry, for the non-football fans among us, we won’t be going back and doing a blow-by-blow history of football, and the next 20 minutes should be interesting, whether you are a die-hard football fan or you've never watched a game before.
[00:02:32] Football fan or not, as I’m sure you'll know, in many parts of the world - and almost every single city, town and village in Britain - football clubs have a religious, cult-like following.
[00:02:45] They are often much more than a sporting club, they are pillars of the community that reflect local history, politics, and religion.
[00:02:55] For some, this is an attachment worth fighting for.
[00:02:59] So, how did football hooliganism start? When were the first punches thrown?
[00:03:06] Well, as you may know, from the Chinese to the Aztecs to the Ancient Greeks, many countries and civilisations claim to have “invented” football.
[00:03:18] The British claim comes from the 12th century, and even from the start it was a violent sport.
[00:03:26] It wasn’t an organised game with rules and positions, and matches weren’t played in stadiums.
[00:03:33] Instead, “football” was played between two different villages, and played not with a ball but a stuffed pig’s bladder.
[00:03:43] And the aim of the game wasn’t to kick the ball, or rather, the pig’s bladder, in the opposing team’s goal, but to kick it across a heath - or field - in the direction of the other village’s church.
[00:03:58] Unlike the pampered football stars of today, 12th century football was an incredibly violent, lawless game.
[00:04:07] There were no referees, and people would do anything they could to stop the ball, the pig’s bladder, from heading in the wrong direction. People were even killed during matches.
[00:04:20] It was so violent that in 1349, King Edward III banned football due to the violent rivalries and mob mentality it was creating.
[00:04:32] The King also felt that football had developed a cult-like following that distracted people from their civic and military responsibilities.
[00:04:43] As the sport developed over the next few centuries and rules were added, clubs and leagues formed, and matches started to be played on pitches.
[00:04:54] But one thing remained a part of the game both on and off the pitch: violence.
[00:05:03] Football historians believe that the first recorded case of hooliganism in modern football was at an 1885 match between Preston North End and Aston Villa - two of England’s oldest clubs.
[00:05:19] On that day the supporters, who were described in newspapers at the time as ‘howling roughs’, decided to do something known in British dialect as ‘kick off’.
[00:05:31] And this is an interesting example of an expression that’s a noun and a phrasal verb with two very different meanings.
[00:05:40] “Kick off” as a noun is the start of a football match, but if you use it as a verb, “to kick off”, it can mean to kick off a match, to start a match, but it can also mean to erupt in violent behaviour.
[00:05:56] And it is this type of kicking off that happened in 1885.
[00:06:01] After Preston North End went 5-0 up against Aston Villa, the fans went mad, attacking the players from both teams, spitting on them, punching and kicking them, and attacking them with sticks and stones, so much so that one of the Preston players was knocked unconscious.
[00:06:23] And then the next year, in 1886, the Preston North End fans would become the first to do something that would go on to become a common hooligan tactic in later years - fighting in a train station.
[00:06:37] It was around this time, in the 1890s, that historians believe that the term ‘hooligan’ was coined, or first used, after a man named Patrick Hooligan killed a London policeman.
[00:06:51] Anyway, back to the hooligans themselves.
[00:06:55] And it’s back to the Preston North End supporters again, when in 1905 a group of supporters were tried in court for the crime of being a hooligan when they kicked off after a match with Blackburn Rovers.
[00:07:09] Interestingly enough, the reports of this group of hooligans included a "drunk and disorderly" 70-year-old woman.
[00:07:18] As you will probably know, most football hooligans aren’t 70-year-old women, football hooliganism is an overwhelmingly - almost entirely - young, male thing to do.
[00:07:30] In fact, the demographics are even narrower than that.
[00:07:35] Football hooliganism is very much a white, male, working-class subculture.
[00:07:40] And it’s clearly a young man’s activity too, with one report finding that the vast majority of football hooligans in the UK are between 25 to 44 years old.
[00:07:52] So, why are these football fans fighting? Well, sometimes the rivalries go a lot deeper than simply not liking another team.
[00:08:02] For one example of this we can go to Scotland. Specifically, to Glasgow in 1909.
[00:08:10] If you’re a football fan, you’ll know that there are two main football teams in Glasgow: Rangers, and Celtic. The match between the two clubs is called the “Old Firm” derby, and it’s one of world football’s fiercest and most violent rivalries.
[00:08:28] And the ‘Old Firm’, the match between Rangers and Celtics, is about much more than football.
[00:08:36] It represents religious, political and transnational divisions at the core of British - and Irish - society and history.
[00:08:46] As you might know, Celtic fans are traditionally Catholics, of Irish descent, and sympathetic to Irish republicanism, whereas Rangers fans are Protestant, and, at least traditionally, supportive of the United Kingdom.
[00:09:02] Celtic fans wave Irish flags at matches, sing pro-Irish republican and anti-British songs, and the Rangers fans fly British flags and sing provocative anti-Irish and anti-Catholic songs.
[00:09:18] These derbies are always violent events, but back in 1909 the ‘Old Firm’ derby ended in a mass riot that lasted for two hours and resulted in the serious injury of over 50 policemen.
[00:09:33] So, as you can see, at the turn of the 20th century, football matches were violent places.
[00:09:41] And this violence showed no signs of abating, of slowing down.
[00:09:47] The First and Second World Wars, however, and the years between them, provided a bit of respite, a bit of peace.
[00:09:55] Not only did the country have more pressing matters to deal with, but young men presumably realised that people from other towns and cities weren’t so bad. So, violence at matches started to decrease.
[00:10:10] But then the Second World War ended and British society was flooded with former soldiers - many of them unemployed, many of them traumatised with what would today be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - and football hooliganism had a bit of revival.
[00:10:27] In the 1955-56 season, fans from another of the British game’s biggest local rivalries, Liverpool and Everton, were involved in a number of ‘train-wrecking incidents’ where fans vandalised and destroyed train carriages.
[00:10:44] In fact, the post-war expansion of Britain’s transport networks - both the rebuilding of its railways but also the increasing number of national motorways and cars - allowed football hooligans to travel more easily on ‘away days’.
[00:11:00] In case you weren’t aware, like in pretty much every football league, in the British football leagues, teams play at their home stadium, but they also travel to other towns and cities to play other clubs.
[00:11:13] By the time the 1960s came around there were an average of 25 serious hooligan incidents a year, and football hooliganism was beginning to embed itself into British sporting life.
[00:11:27] Whereas in the past football violence had been more sporadic, or random, in the 1960s, and in the 1970s, football violence became more organised and habitual.
[00:11:41] It was around this time that hooligans began to organise themselves into gangs known as ‘firms’ with hierarchies and members.
[00:11:51] And unlike in the United States, where the sheer size of the country and its franchise system means it’s rare for fans to travel to support their teams, in Britain this became the norm.
[00:12:04] Each weekend, thousands of fans would travel the length and breadth of the country on Britain’s railways to support, to cheer on, their club.
[00:12:16] For many, they travelled not only to support their club, but to fight.
[00:12:21] For some, that was the only reason they went.
[00:12:25] It almost goes without saying, but alcohol - and often cocaine - played a huge role in fuelling football violence.
[00:12:34] Often on matchdays, supporters would begin drinking in the early morning as they set off on their long journeys.
[00:12:42] In fact, special train services - known as ‘Football specials’ - were put on to transport fans across the country.
[00:12:50] These journeys, known as ‘away days’, became a huge part of hooligan culture.
[00:12:56] And from the 1970s onwards, firms began to give themselves their own names.
[00:13:04] Some of the most famous football firms emerged around this time, including the Leeds United ‘Service Crew’, Chelsea ‘Headhunters’, West Ham’s ‘Intercity Firm’ - which was named after the train line they travelled on - as well as the Millwall ‘Bushwhackers’ and Birmingham City’s ‘Zulu Warriors.’
[00:13:25] And when I say these firms were becoming more organised, I don’t just mean among themselves.
[00:13:32] A key part of football hooligan culture is the cooperation between rival firms to set up and organise fights.
[00:13:42] So, in preparation for an ‘away day’, one of the more senior members of the firm - often known as the ‘top boy’ - will set up the fight with the leader of another team’s firm by phone.
[00:13:55] They arrange a time and place, sometimes at the stadium but often further afield to avoid the eyes of the police, who by the 1970s were beginning to take the problem of football violence more seriously.
[00:14:09] And it was around this time that the very ‘British disease’ began to spread across Europe.
[00:14:15] Hooligan groups started forming in other European countries.
[00:14:19] And though there were clear similarities with the hooligans of British football, each club and country developed its own style and identity.
[00:14:29] Hooliganism became particularly popular in Italy, where its ‘ultra’ fans were aligned to fascist politics, but also in Germany, Holland, and further afield in places like Turkey and Russia.
[00:14:43] And not only did the disease of hooliganism cross borders, but the hooligans and firms themselves too, as fans began travelling internationally and crossing borders for European matches.
[00:14:58] On their European travels in the late-1970s, many British hooligans picked up on continental sportswear and began incorporating it into their own fashion sense - a style that became known as ‘football casual’.
[00:15:14] This served two purposes.
[00:15:17] Firstly, to show off their expensive designer European brands to their rivals.
[00:15:23] But it was also camouflage. It was “casual” in the sense that firms stopped wearing traditional team colours because it was easier to blend in, to avoid the police, and infiltrate rival club’s stadiums and pubs.
[00:15:40] It was during this period, in the 1970s moving into the 1980s, that was the high point [or perhaps, low point] of football hooligan activity.
[00:15:52] In a 1985 FA cup fixture between Luton and Millwall, for example, 31 fans were arrested after violence left 81 people injured.
[00:16:03] Fans rioted, ripped out stadium seats and attacked policemen. A knife was thrown at a player, and a “Football Special” train had its ceiling ripped off.
[00:16:15] After the riot, a British Rail spokesman said that "it was like a bomb had exploded inside some of the carriages."
[00:16:24] Unfortunately during this period, political instability in British society meant that far-right politics began intermingling with football violence.
[00:16:35] Fascist groups such as the National Front began infiltrating and appealing to hooligan firms, and there was a huge amount of racist abuse towards black players.
[00:16:46] Fascist political literature was sold outside stadiums, racism at football matches became rampant, and although the number of active National Front members involved in organised football violence is perhaps overstated, it wasn’t as large as people said it was, they were certainly a very loud and visible element of football casual culture.
[00:17:09] The 1980s also saw some of the deadliest episodes of football violence that would have far-reaching consequences on hooligan culture.
[00:17:18] The Heysel Stadium disaster, in Belgium, on the 29th of May, 1985, was one of them.
[00:17:26] It happened at the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus, and was a tragedy that killed 39 people and left 400 injured.
[00:17:38] After being attacked at a match in Rome the previous year, Liverpool hooligans saw Heysel as an opportunity for revenge against the Italians and they managed to break into the Juventus’ section of the stadium.
[00:17:52] As the Juventus fans fled, a wall collapsed and crushed 39 people - mostly Italians - to death.
[00:18:02] As a result of the tragedy, all English football clubs were banned indefinitely from playing in European competition, and fourteen Liverpool fans were found guilty of manslaughter, of accidental murder.
[00:18:17] This ‘British disease’ had spread to Europe with deadly consequences.
[00:18:23] Then, a few years later, another incident synonymous with football hooliganism - but unjustly so, as I will explain in a minute - happened in Sheffield, which is a city in the north of England.
[00:18:37] In 1989, 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium during an FA Cup semi-final fixture between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
[00:18:49] It was the deadliest event in British sporting history, and the police and British media [and much of the general public, it must be said] were quick to blame the Liverpool fans.
[00:19:01] With memories of Heysel still fresh in people’s minds, the Liverpool fans were painted as violent hooligans and drunks.
[00:19:10] For years the British police, public, and press all cited the Hillsborough disaster as yet another example of the deadly consequences of Britain's hooligan culture.
[00:19:22] But in reality, it wasn’t actually that simple.
[00:19:26] After years of investigations and inquiries, it was revealed that poor policing, particularly crowd management, caused the crush, and that hooliganism had not been a factor in the tragedy.
[00:19:41] The Hillsborough disaster, however, did indirectly contribute to a decrease in football hooliganism.
[00:19:48] After the disaster, a number of safety improvements were made in English football stadiums, most notably the replacement of fenced standing terraces with fully seated-stadiums.
[00:19:59] Essentially, there was a seat for every spectator.
[00:20:03] This not only made football stadiums safer, but also made it easier to separate rival fans, which is clearly a good thing if you want to stop people from fighting each other.
[00:20:15] Unsurprisingly, after the disasters at Heysel and Hillsborough, and the growing football violence during the 1980s more widely, there was a crackdown on hooliganism.
[00:20:26] There was an increased police presence at matches, and longer prison sentences given for those convicted of hooliganism.
[00:20:35] By this point, fewer football clubs, and fewer fans, were suffering from this “British Disease”, and in the 1990s violence at football matches started to drop.
[00:20:47] Not only was there more CCTV, and harsher punishments if you were caught, but the generation of hooligans from the ‘heyday’ of the 1980s was growing older.
[00:21:00] What’s more, this crackdown also came as the sport was becoming professionalised and commercialised - as Britain’s Premier League was established and became an international television product, the game was cleaned up.
[00:21:15] At last, football matches were becoming less violent places.
[00:21:20] And if you go to a British football game today, you probably won’t see any signs of the hooligans of the past.
[00:21:28] But at least you’ll know, if you didn’t before, that football in Britain has a violent history.
[00:21:35] Whether it be the brutal clashes between villages in the 12th century, the emergence of hooliganism in the late-19th century, sectarian riots in Glasgow; or the highly-organised, ultra-violent hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s, British football was often more like war than sport.
[00:21:56] The firms. The clothes. The chants. The alcohol. The danger. The away days. The violence.
[00:22:02] And sometimes, the death.
[00:22:05] There was a very good reason it was called “The British Disease”.
[00:22:11] Ok then, that is it for today’s episode on football hooliganism in Britain, the ugly side of the beautiful game.
[00:22:20] I hope it was an interesting one, and whether you knew a lot about football hooliganism before, or this was the first time you’d heard anything about it, well I hope you learned something new.
[00:22:30] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:22:34] Did you know much about British football hooliganism before today?
[00:22:38] Are there football hooligans in your country?
[00:22:40] Is going to a football match considered a safe or dangerous thing in your city?
[00:22:45] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:22:49] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:22:57] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:23:10] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a lesser-known, much darker side of British culture.
[00:00:29] One that has plagued Britain for decades, and earned a reputation abroad as the ‘British disease’.
[00:00:36] It’s the ugly side of the beautiful game, football hooliganism, the British phenomenon of fighting at football matches.
[00:00:45] Okay then, let’s get into it and talk about the history of football hooliganism.
[00:00:53] On the far side of the stadium, the crowd writhes around in the distance.
[00:00:58] The air is filled with panicked screams and shouts, the smell of beer, urine, and tobacco smoke.
[00:01:07] A plastic chair flies over your head, followed by bottles and bricks.
[00:01:13] Slowly, supporters from the far side of the stadium close in, and you watch as they fight with police on the pitch.
[00:01:21] The police strike back with batons, and the approaching fans throw bottles and coins, punching and kicking anything, and anyone, in their way.
[00:01:33] There are screams of fear and rage, and chaos as people climb over one another to try and escape.
[00:01:41] Some are knocked unconscious, face down on the pitch, someone grabs you by the arm, telling you it’s time to go.
[00:01:50] It is 1985.
[00:01:52] You’re at a football stadium in England, and you are watching the ‘British disease’ in action.
[00:01:59] So, how did this bizarre British subculture develop?
[00:02:03] How could such an ugly tradition stem from what billions of people the world over know as the ‘beautiful game’?
[00:02:12] As always, we need to delve into a bit of history.
[00:02:16] But don’t worry, for the non-football fans among us, we won’t be going back and doing a blow-by-blow history of football, and the next 20 minutes should be interesting, whether you are a die-hard football fan or you've never watched a game before.
[00:02:32] Football fan or not, as I’m sure you'll know, in many parts of the world - and almost every single city, town and village in Britain - football clubs have a religious, cult-like following.
[00:02:45] They are often much more than a sporting club, they are pillars of the community that reflect local history, politics, and religion.
[00:02:55] For some, this is an attachment worth fighting for.
[00:02:59] So, how did football hooliganism start? When were the first punches thrown?
[00:03:06] Well, as you may know, from the Chinese to the Aztecs to the Ancient Greeks, many countries and civilisations claim to have “invented” football.
[00:03:18] The British claim comes from the 12th century, and even from the start it was a violent sport.
[00:03:26] It wasn’t an organised game with rules and positions, and matches weren’t played in stadiums.
[00:03:33] Instead, “football” was played between two different villages, and played not with a ball but a stuffed pig’s bladder.
[00:03:43] And the aim of the game wasn’t to kick the ball, or rather, the pig’s bladder, in the opposing team’s goal, but to kick it across a heath - or field - in the direction of the other village’s church.
[00:03:58] Unlike the pampered football stars of today, 12th century football was an incredibly violent, lawless game.
[00:04:07] There were no referees, and people would do anything they could to stop the ball, the pig’s bladder, from heading in the wrong direction. People were even killed during matches.
[00:04:20] It was so violent that in 1349, King Edward III banned football due to the violent rivalries and mob mentality it was creating.
[00:04:32] The King also felt that football had developed a cult-like following that distracted people from their civic and military responsibilities.
[00:04:43] As the sport developed over the next few centuries and rules were added, clubs and leagues formed, and matches started to be played on pitches.
[00:04:54] But one thing remained a part of the game both on and off the pitch: violence.
[00:05:03] Football historians believe that the first recorded case of hooliganism in modern football was at an 1885 match between Preston North End and Aston Villa - two of England’s oldest clubs.
[00:05:19] On that day the supporters, who were described in newspapers at the time as ‘howling roughs’, decided to do something known in British dialect as ‘kick off’.
[00:05:31] And this is an interesting example of an expression that’s a noun and a phrasal verb with two very different meanings.
[00:05:40] “Kick off” as a noun is the start of a football match, but if you use it as a verb, “to kick off”, it can mean to kick off a match, to start a match, but it can also mean to erupt in violent behaviour.
[00:05:56] And it is this type of kicking off that happened in 1885.
[00:06:01] After Preston North End went 5-0 up against Aston Villa, the fans went mad, attacking the players from both teams, spitting on them, punching and kicking them, and attacking them with sticks and stones, so much so that one of the Preston players was knocked unconscious.
[00:06:23] And then the next year, in 1886, the Preston North End fans would become the first to do something that would go on to become a common hooligan tactic in later years - fighting in a train station.
[00:06:37] It was around this time, in the 1890s, that historians believe that the term ‘hooligan’ was coined, or first used, after a man named Patrick Hooligan killed a London policeman.
[00:06:51] Anyway, back to the hooligans themselves.
[00:06:55] And it’s back to the Preston North End supporters again, when in 1905 a group of supporters were tried in court for the crime of being a hooligan when they kicked off after a match with Blackburn Rovers.
[00:07:09] Interestingly enough, the reports of this group of hooligans included a "drunk and disorderly" 70-year-old woman.
[00:07:18] As you will probably know, most football hooligans aren’t 70-year-old women, football hooliganism is an overwhelmingly - almost entirely - young, male thing to do.
[00:07:30] In fact, the demographics are even narrower than that.
[00:07:35] Football hooliganism is very much a white, male, working-class subculture.
[00:07:40] And it’s clearly a young man’s activity too, with one report finding that the vast majority of football hooligans in the UK are between 25 to 44 years old.
[00:07:52] So, why are these football fans fighting? Well, sometimes the rivalries go a lot deeper than simply not liking another team.
[00:08:02] For one example of this we can go to Scotland. Specifically, to Glasgow in 1909.
[00:08:10] If you’re a football fan, you’ll know that there are two main football teams in Glasgow: Rangers, and Celtic. The match between the two clubs is called the “Old Firm” derby, and it’s one of world football’s fiercest and most violent rivalries.
[00:08:28] And the ‘Old Firm’, the match between Rangers and Celtics, is about much more than football.
[00:08:36] It represents religious, political and transnational divisions at the core of British - and Irish - society and history.
[00:08:46] As you might know, Celtic fans are traditionally Catholics, of Irish descent, and sympathetic to Irish republicanism, whereas Rangers fans are Protestant, and, at least traditionally, supportive of the United Kingdom.
[00:09:02] Celtic fans wave Irish flags at matches, sing pro-Irish republican and anti-British songs, and the Rangers fans fly British flags and sing provocative anti-Irish and anti-Catholic songs.
[00:09:18] These derbies are always violent events, but back in 1909 the ‘Old Firm’ derby ended in a mass riot that lasted for two hours and resulted in the serious injury of over 50 policemen.
[00:09:33] So, as you can see, at the turn of the 20th century, football matches were violent places.
[00:09:41] And this violence showed no signs of abating, of slowing down.
[00:09:47] The First and Second World Wars, however, and the years between them, provided a bit of respite, a bit of peace.
[00:09:55] Not only did the country have more pressing matters to deal with, but young men presumably realised that people from other towns and cities weren’t so bad. So, violence at matches started to decrease.
[00:10:10] But then the Second World War ended and British society was flooded with former soldiers - many of them unemployed, many of them traumatised with what would today be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - and football hooliganism had a bit of revival.
[00:10:27] In the 1955-56 season, fans from another of the British game’s biggest local rivalries, Liverpool and Everton, were involved in a number of ‘train-wrecking incidents’ where fans vandalised and destroyed train carriages.
[00:10:44] In fact, the post-war expansion of Britain’s transport networks - both the rebuilding of its railways but also the increasing number of national motorways and cars - allowed football hooligans to travel more easily on ‘away days’.
[00:11:00] In case you weren’t aware, like in pretty much every football league, in the British football leagues, teams play at their home stadium, but they also travel to other towns and cities to play other clubs.
[00:11:13] By the time the 1960s came around there were an average of 25 serious hooligan incidents a year, and football hooliganism was beginning to embed itself into British sporting life.
[00:11:27] Whereas in the past football violence had been more sporadic, or random, in the 1960s, and in the 1970s, football violence became more organised and habitual.
[00:11:41] It was around this time that hooligans began to organise themselves into gangs known as ‘firms’ with hierarchies and members.
[00:11:51] And unlike in the United States, where the sheer size of the country and its franchise system means it’s rare for fans to travel to support their teams, in Britain this became the norm.
[00:12:04] Each weekend, thousands of fans would travel the length and breadth of the country on Britain’s railways to support, to cheer on, their club.
[00:12:16] For many, they travelled not only to support their club, but to fight.
[00:12:21] For some, that was the only reason they went.
[00:12:25] It almost goes without saying, but alcohol - and often cocaine - played a huge role in fuelling football violence.
[00:12:34] Often on matchdays, supporters would begin drinking in the early morning as they set off on their long journeys.
[00:12:42] In fact, special train services - known as ‘Football specials’ - were put on to transport fans across the country.
[00:12:50] These journeys, known as ‘away days’, became a huge part of hooligan culture.
[00:12:56] And from the 1970s onwards, firms began to give themselves their own names.
[00:13:04] Some of the most famous football firms emerged around this time, including the Leeds United ‘Service Crew’, Chelsea ‘Headhunters’, West Ham’s ‘Intercity Firm’ - which was named after the train line they travelled on - as well as the Millwall ‘Bushwhackers’ and Birmingham City’s ‘Zulu Warriors.’
[00:13:25] And when I say these firms were becoming more organised, I don’t just mean among themselves.
[00:13:32] A key part of football hooligan culture is the cooperation between rival firms to set up and organise fights.
[00:13:42] So, in preparation for an ‘away day’, one of the more senior members of the firm - often known as the ‘top boy’ - will set up the fight with the leader of another team’s firm by phone.
[00:13:55] They arrange a time and place, sometimes at the stadium but often further afield to avoid the eyes of the police, who by the 1970s were beginning to take the problem of football violence more seriously.
[00:14:09] And it was around this time that the very ‘British disease’ began to spread across Europe.
[00:14:15] Hooligan groups started forming in other European countries.
[00:14:19] And though there were clear similarities with the hooligans of British football, each club and country developed its own style and identity.
[00:14:29] Hooliganism became particularly popular in Italy, where its ‘ultra’ fans were aligned to fascist politics, but also in Germany, Holland, and further afield in places like Turkey and Russia.
[00:14:43] And not only did the disease of hooliganism cross borders, but the hooligans and firms themselves too, as fans began travelling internationally and crossing borders for European matches.
[00:14:58] On their European travels in the late-1970s, many British hooligans picked up on continental sportswear and began incorporating it into their own fashion sense - a style that became known as ‘football casual’.
[00:15:14] This served two purposes.
[00:15:17] Firstly, to show off their expensive designer European brands to their rivals.
[00:15:23] But it was also camouflage. It was “casual” in the sense that firms stopped wearing traditional team colours because it was easier to blend in, to avoid the police, and infiltrate rival club’s stadiums and pubs.
[00:15:40] It was during this period, in the 1970s moving into the 1980s, that was the high point [or perhaps, low point] of football hooligan activity.
[00:15:52] In a 1985 FA cup fixture between Luton and Millwall, for example, 31 fans were arrested after violence left 81 people injured.
[00:16:03] Fans rioted, ripped out stadium seats and attacked policemen. A knife was thrown at a player, and a “Football Special” train had its ceiling ripped off.
[00:16:15] After the riot, a British Rail spokesman said that "it was like a bomb had exploded inside some of the carriages."
[00:16:24] Unfortunately during this period, political instability in British society meant that far-right politics began intermingling with football violence.
[00:16:35] Fascist groups such as the National Front began infiltrating and appealing to hooligan firms, and there was a huge amount of racist abuse towards black players.
[00:16:46] Fascist political literature was sold outside stadiums, racism at football matches became rampant, and although the number of active National Front members involved in organised football violence is perhaps overstated, it wasn’t as large as people said it was, they were certainly a very loud and visible element of football casual culture.
[00:17:09] The 1980s also saw some of the deadliest episodes of football violence that would have far-reaching consequences on hooligan culture.
[00:17:18] The Heysel Stadium disaster, in Belgium, on the 29th of May, 1985, was one of them.
[00:17:26] It happened at the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus, and was a tragedy that killed 39 people and left 400 injured.
[00:17:38] After being attacked at a match in Rome the previous year, Liverpool hooligans saw Heysel as an opportunity for revenge against the Italians and they managed to break into the Juventus’ section of the stadium.
[00:17:52] As the Juventus fans fled, a wall collapsed and crushed 39 people - mostly Italians - to death.
[00:18:02] As a result of the tragedy, all English football clubs were banned indefinitely from playing in European competition, and fourteen Liverpool fans were found guilty of manslaughter, of accidental murder.
[00:18:17] This ‘British disease’ had spread to Europe with deadly consequences.
[00:18:23] Then, a few years later, another incident synonymous with football hooliganism - but unjustly so, as I will explain in a minute - happened in Sheffield, which is a city in the north of England.
[00:18:37] In 1989, 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium during an FA Cup semi-final fixture between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
[00:18:49] It was the deadliest event in British sporting history, and the police and British media [and much of the general public, it must be said] were quick to blame the Liverpool fans.
[00:19:01] With memories of Heysel still fresh in people’s minds, the Liverpool fans were painted as violent hooligans and drunks.
[00:19:10] For years the British police, public, and press all cited the Hillsborough disaster as yet another example of the deadly consequences of Britain's hooligan culture.
[00:19:22] But in reality, it wasn’t actually that simple.
[00:19:26] After years of investigations and inquiries, it was revealed that poor policing, particularly crowd management, caused the crush, and that hooliganism had not been a factor in the tragedy.
[00:19:41] The Hillsborough disaster, however, did indirectly contribute to a decrease in football hooliganism.
[00:19:48] After the disaster, a number of safety improvements were made in English football stadiums, most notably the replacement of fenced standing terraces with fully seated-stadiums.
[00:19:59] Essentially, there was a seat for every spectator.
[00:20:03] This not only made football stadiums safer, but also made it easier to separate rival fans, which is clearly a good thing if you want to stop people from fighting each other.
[00:20:15] Unsurprisingly, after the disasters at Heysel and Hillsborough, and the growing football violence during the 1980s more widely, there was a crackdown on hooliganism.
[00:20:26] There was an increased police presence at matches, and longer prison sentences given for those convicted of hooliganism.
[00:20:35] By this point, fewer football clubs, and fewer fans, were suffering from this “British Disease”, and in the 1990s violence at football matches started to drop.
[00:20:47] Not only was there more CCTV, and harsher punishments if you were caught, but the generation of hooligans from the ‘heyday’ of the 1980s was growing older.
[00:21:00] What’s more, this crackdown also came as the sport was becoming professionalised and commercialised - as Britain’s Premier League was established and became an international television product, the game was cleaned up.
[00:21:15] At last, football matches were becoming less violent places.
[00:21:20] And if you go to a British football game today, you probably won’t see any signs of the hooligans of the past.
[00:21:28] But at least you’ll know, if you didn’t before, that football in Britain has a violent history.
[00:21:35] Whether it be the brutal clashes between villages in the 12th century, the emergence of hooliganism in the late-19th century, sectarian riots in Glasgow; or the highly-organised, ultra-violent hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s, British football was often more like war than sport.
[00:21:56] The firms. The clothes. The chants. The alcohol. The danger. The away days. The violence.
[00:22:02] And sometimes, the death.
[00:22:05] There was a very good reason it was called “The British Disease”.
[00:22:11] Ok then, that is it for today’s episode on football hooliganism in Britain, the ugly side of the beautiful game.
[00:22:20] I hope it was an interesting one, and whether you knew a lot about football hooliganism before, or this was the first time you’d heard anything about it, well I hope you learned something new.
[00:22:30] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:22:34] Did you know much about British football hooliganism before today?
[00:22:38] Are there football hooligans in your country?
[00:22:40] Is going to a football match considered a safe or dangerous thing in your city?
[00:22:45] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:22:49] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:22:57] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:23:10] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a lesser-known, much darker side of British culture.
[00:00:29] One that has plagued Britain for decades, and earned a reputation abroad as the ‘British disease’.
[00:00:36] It’s the ugly side of the beautiful game, football hooliganism, the British phenomenon of fighting at football matches.
[00:00:45] Okay then, let’s get into it and talk about the history of football hooliganism.
[00:00:53] On the far side of the stadium, the crowd writhes around in the distance.
[00:00:58] The air is filled with panicked screams and shouts, the smell of beer, urine, and tobacco smoke.
[00:01:07] A plastic chair flies over your head, followed by bottles and bricks.
[00:01:13] Slowly, supporters from the far side of the stadium close in, and you watch as they fight with police on the pitch.
[00:01:21] The police strike back with batons, and the approaching fans throw bottles and coins, punching and kicking anything, and anyone, in their way.
[00:01:33] There are screams of fear and rage, and chaos as people climb over one another to try and escape.
[00:01:41] Some are knocked unconscious, face down on the pitch, someone grabs you by the arm, telling you it’s time to go.
[00:01:50] It is 1985.
[00:01:52] You’re at a football stadium in England, and you are watching the ‘British disease’ in action.
[00:01:59] So, how did this bizarre British subculture develop?
[00:02:03] How could such an ugly tradition stem from what billions of people the world over know as the ‘beautiful game’?
[00:02:12] As always, we need to delve into a bit of history.
[00:02:16] But don’t worry, for the non-football fans among us, we won’t be going back and doing a blow-by-blow history of football, and the next 20 minutes should be interesting, whether you are a die-hard football fan or you've never watched a game before.
[00:02:32] Football fan or not, as I’m sure you'll know, in many parts of the world - and almost every single city, town and village in Britain - football clubs have a religious, cult-like following.
[00:02:45] They are often much more than a sporting club, they are pillars of the community that reflect local history, politics, and religion.
[00:02:55] For some, this is an attachment worth fighting for.
[00:02:59] So, how did football hooliganism start? When were the first punches thrown?
[00:03:06] Well, as you may know, from the Chinese to the Aztecs to the Ancient Greeks, many countries and civilisations claim to have “invented” football.
[00:03:18] The British claim comes from the 12th century, and even from the start it was a violent sport.
[00:03:26] It wasn’t an organised game with rules and positions, and matches weren’t played in stadiums.
[00:03:33] Instead, “football” was played between two different villages, and played not with a ball but a stuffed pig’s bladder.
[00:03:43] And the aim of the game wasn’t to kick the ball, or rather, the pig’s bladder, in the opposing team’s goal, but to kick it across a heath - or field - in the direction of the other village’s church.
[00:03:58] Unlike the pampered football stars of today, 12th century football was an incredibly violent, lawless game.
[00:04:07] There were no referees, and people would do anything they could to stop the ball, the pig’s bladder, from heading in the wrong direction. People were even killed during matches.
[00:04:20] It was so violent that in 1349, King Edward III banned football due to the violent rivalries and mob mentality it was creating.
[00:04:32] The King also felt that football had developed a cult-like following that distracted people from their civic and military responsibilities.
[00:04:43] As the sport developed over the next few centuries and rules were added, clubs and leagues formed, and matches started to be played on pitches.
[00:04:54] But one thing remained a part of the game both on and off the pitch: violence.
[00:05:03] Football historians believe that the first recorded case of hooliganism in modern football was at an 1885 match between Preston North End and Aston Villa - two of England’s oldest clubs.
[00:05:19] On that day the supporters, who were described in newspapers at the time as ‘howling roughs’, decided to do something known in British dialect as ‘kick off’.
[00:05:31] And this is an interesting example of an expression that’s a noun and a phrasal verb with two very different meanings.
[00:05:40] “Kick off” as a noun is the start of a football match, but if you use it as a verb, “to kick off”, it can mean to kick off a match, to start a match, but it can also mean to erupt in violent behaviour.
[00:05:56] And it is this type of kicking off that happened in 1885.
[00:06:01] After Preston North End went 5-0 up against Aston Villa, the fans went mad, attacking the players from both teams, spitting on them, punching and kicking them, and attacking them with sticks and stones, so much so that one of the Preston players was knocked unconscious.
[00:06:23] And then the next year, in 1886, the Preston North End fans would become the first to do something that would go on to become a common hooligan tactic in later years - fighting in a train station.
[00:06:37] It was around this time, in the 1890s, that historians believe that the term ‘hooligan’ was coined, or first used, after a man named Patrick Hooligan killed a London policeman.
[00:06:51] Anyway, back to the hooligans themselves.
[00:06:55] And it’s back to the Preston North End supporters again, when in 1905 a group of supporters were tried in court for the crime of being a hooligan when they kicked off after a match with Blackburn Rovers.
[00:07:09] Interestingly enough, the reports of this group of hooligans included a "drunk and disorderly" 70-year-old woman.
[00:07:18] As you will probably know, most football hooligans aren’t 70-year-old women, football hooliganism is an overwhelmingly - almost entirely - young, male thing to do.
[00:07:30] In fact, the demographics are even narrower than that.
[00:07:35] Football hooliganism is very much a white, male, working-class subculture.
[00:07:40] And it’s clearly a young man’s activity too, with one report finding that the vast majority of football hooligans in the UK are between 25 to 44 years old.
[00:07:52] So, why are these football fans fighting? Well, sometimes the rivalries go a lot deeper than simply not liking another team.
[00:08:02] For one example of this we can go to Scotland. Specifically, to Glasgow in 1909.
[00:08:10] If you’re a football fan, you’ll know that there are two main football teams in Glasgow: Rangers, and Celtic. The match between the two clubs is called the “Old Firm” derby, and it’s one of world football’s fiercest and most violent rivalries.
[00:08:28] And the ‘Old Firm’, the match between Rangers and Celtics, is about much more than football.
[00:08:36] It represents religious, political and transnational divisions at the core of British - and Irish - society and history.
[00:08:46] As you might know, Celtic fans are traditionally Catholics, of Irish descent, and sympathetic to Irish republicanism, whereas Rangers fans are Protestant, and, at least traditionally, supportive of the United Kingdom.
[00:09:02] Celtic fans wave Irish flags at matches, sing pro-Irish republican and anti-British songs, and the Rangers fans fly British flags and sing provocative anti-Irish and anti-Catholic songs.
[00:09:18] These derbies are always violent events, but back in 1909 the ‘Old Firm’ derby ended in a mass riot that lasted for two hours and resulted in the serious injury of over 50 policemen.
[00:09:33] So, as you can see, at the turn of the 20th century, football matches were violent places.
[00:09:41] And this violence showed no signs of abating, of slowing down.
[00:09:47] The First and Second World Wars, however, and the years between them, provided a bit of respite, a bit of peace.
[00:09:55] Not only did the country have more pressing matters to deal with, but young men presumably realised that people from other towns and cities weren’t so bad. So, violence at matches started to decrease.
[00:10:10] But then the Second World War ended and British society was flooded with former soldiers - many of them unemployed, many of them traumatised with what would today be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - and football hooliganism had a bit of revival.
[00:10:27] In the 1955-56 season, fans from another of the British game’s biggest local rivalries, Liverpool and Everton, were involved in a number of ‘train-wrecking incidents’ where fans vandalised and destroyed train carriages.
[00:10:44] In fact, the post-war expansion of Britain’s transport networks - both the rebuilding of its railways but also the increasing number of national motorways and cars - allowed football hooligans to travel more easily on ‘away days’.
[00:11:00] In case you weren’t aware, like in pretty much every football league, in the British football leagues, teams play at their home stadium, but they also travel to other towns and cities to play other clubs.
[00:11:13] By the time the 1960s came around there were an average of 25 serious hooligan incidents a year, and football hooliganism was beginning to embed itself into British sporting life.
[00:11:27] Whereas in the past football violence had been more sporadic, or random, in the 1960s, and in the 1970s, football violence became more organised and habitual.
[00:11:41] It was around this time that hooligans began to organise themselves into gangs known as ‘firms’ with hierarchies and members.
[00:11:51] And unlike in the United States, where the sheer size of the country and its franchise system means it’s rare for fans to travel to support their teams, in Britain this became the norm.
[00:12:04] Each weekend, thousands of fans would travel the length and breadth of the country on Britain’s railways to support, to cheer on, their club.
[00:12:16] For many, they travelled not only to support their club, but to fight.
[00:12:21] For some, that was the only reason they went.
[00:12:25] It almost goes without saying, but alcohol - and often cocaine - played a huge role in fuelling football violence.
[00:12:34] Often on matchdays, supporters would begin drinking in the early morning as they set off on their long journeys.
[00:12:42] In fact, special train services - known as ‘Football specials’ - were put on to transport fans across the country.
[00:12:50] These journeys, known as ‘away days’, became a huge part of hooligan culture.
[00:12:56] And from the 1970s onwards, firms began to give themselves their own names.
[00:13:04] Some of the most famous football firms emerged around this time, including the Leeds United ‘Service Crew’, Chelsea ‘Headhunters’, West Ham’s ‘Intercity Firm’ - which was named after the train line they travelled on - as well as the Millwall ‘Bushwhackers’ and Birmingham City’s ‘Zulu Warriors.’
[00:13:25] And when I say these firms were becoming more organised, I don’t just mean among themselves.
[00:13:32] A key part of football hooligan culture is the cooperation between rival firms to set up and organise fights.
[00:13:42] So, in preparation for an ‘away day’, one of the more senior members of the firm - often known as the ‘top boy’ - will set up the fight with the leader of another team’s firm by phone.
[00:13:55] They arrange a time and place, sometimes at the stadium but often further afield to avoid the eyes of the police, who by the 1970s were beginning to take the problem of football violence more seriously.
[00:14:09] And it was around this time that the very ‘British disease’ began to spread across Europe.
[00:14:15] Hooligan groups started forming in other European countries.
[00:14:19] And though there were clear similarities with the hooligans of British football, each club and country developed its own style and identity.
[00:14:29] Hooliganism became particularly popular in Italy, where its ‘ultra’ fans were aligned to fascist politics, but also in Germany, Holland, and further afield in places like Turkey and Russia.
[00:14:43] And not only did the disease of hooliganism cross borders, but the hooligans and firms themselves too, as fans began travelling internationally and crossing borders for European matches.
[00:14:58] On their European travels in the late-1970s, many British hooligans picked up on continental sportswear and began incorporating it into their own fashion sense - a style that became known as ‘football casual’.
[00:15:14] This served two purposes.
[00:15:17] Firstly, to show off their expensive designer European brands to their rivals.
[00:15:23] But it was also camouflage. It was “casual” in the sense that firms stopped wearing traditional team colours because it was easier to blend in, to avoid the police, and infiltrate rival club’s stadiums and pubs.
[00:15:40] It was during this period, in the 1970s moving into the 1980s, that was the high point [or perhaps, low point] of football hooligan activity.
[00:15:52] In a 1985 FA cup fixture between Luton and Millwall, for example, 31 fans were arrested after violence left 81 people injured.
[00:16:03] Fans rioted, ripped out stadium seats and attacked policemen. A knife was thrown at a player, and a “Football Special” train had its ceiling ripped off.
[00:16:15] After the riot, a British Rail spokesman said that "it was like a bomb had exploded inside some of the carriages."
[00:16:24] Unfortunately during this period, political instability in British society meant that far-right politics began intermingling with football violence.
[00:16:35] Fascist groups such as the National Front began infiltrating and appealing to hooligan firms, and there was a huge amount of racist abuse towards black players.
[00:16:46] Fascist political literature was sold outside stadiums, racism at football matches became rampant, and although the number of active National Front members involved in organised football violence is perhaps overstated, it wasn’t as large as people said it was, they were certainly a very loud and visible element of football casual culture.
[00:17:09] The 1980s also saw some of the deadliest episodes of football violence that would have far-reaching consequences on hooligan culture.
[00:17:18] The Heysel Stadium disaster, in Belgium, on the 29th of May, 1985, was one of them.
[00:17:26] It happened at the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus, and was a tragedy that killed 39 people and left 400 injured.
[00:17:38] After being attacked at a match in Rome the previous year, Liverpool hooligans saw Heysel as an opportunity for revenge against the Italians and they managed to break into the Juventus’ section of the stadium.
[00:17:52] As the Juventus fans fled, a wall collapsed and crushed 39 people - mostly Italians - to death.
[00:18:02] As a result of the tragedy, all English football clubs were banned indefinitely from playing in European competition, and fourteen Liverpool fans were found guilty of manslaughter, of accidental murder.
[00:18:17] This ‘British disease’ had spread to Europe with deadly consequences.
[00:18:23] Then, a few years later, another incident synonymous with football hooliganism - but unjustly so, as I will explain in a minute - happened in Sheffield, which is a city in the north of England.
[00:18:37] In 1989, 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium during an FA Cup semi-final fixture between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
[00:18:49] It was the deadliest event in British sporting history, and the police and British media [and much of the general public, it must be said] were quick to blame the Liverpool fans.
[00:19:01] With memories of Heysel still fresh in people’s minds, the Liverpool fans were painted as violent hooligans and drunks.
[00:19:10] For years the British police, public, and press all cited the Hillsborough disaster as yet another example of the deadly consequences of Britain's hooligan culture.
[00:19:22] But in reality, it wasn’t actually that simple.
[00:19:26] After years of investigations and inquiries, it was revealed that poor policing, particularly crowd management, caused the crush, and that hooliganism had not been a factor in the tragedy.
[00:19:41] The Hillsborough disaster, however, did indirectly contribute to a decrease in football hooliganism.
[00:19:48] After the disaster, a number of safety improvements were made in English football stadiums, most notably the replacement of fenced standing terraces with fully seated-stadiums.
[00:19:59] Essentially, there was a seat for every spectator.
[00:20:03] This not only made football stadiums safer, but also made it easier to separate rival fans, which is clearly a good thing if you want to stop people from fighting each other.
[00:20:15] Unsurprisingly, after the disasters at Heysel and Hillsborough, and the growing football violence during the 1980s more widely, there was a crackdown on hooliganism.
[00:20:26] There was an increased police presence at matches, and longer prison sentences given for those convicted of hooliganism.
[00:20:35] By this point, fewer football clubs, and fewer fans, were suffering from this “British Disease”, and in the 1990s violence at football matches started to drop.
[00:20:47] Not only was there more CCTV, and harsher punishments if you were caught, but the generation of hooligans from the ‘heyday’ of the 1980s was growing older.
[00:21:00] What’s more, this crackdown also came as the sport was becoming professionalised and commercialised - as Britain’s Premier League was established and became an international television product, the game was cleaned up.
[00:21:15] At last, football matches were becoming less violent places.
[00:21:20] And if you go to a British football game today, you probably won’t see any signs of the hooligans of the past.
[00:21:28] But at least you’ll know, if you didn’t before, that football in Britain has a violent history.
[00:21:35] Whether it be the brutal clashes between villages in the 12th century, the emergence of hooliganism in the late-19th century, sectarian riots in Glasgow; or the highly-organised, ultra-violent hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s, British football was often more like war than sport.
[00:21:56] The firms. The clothes. The chants. The alcohol. The danger. The away days. The violence.
[00:22:02] And sometimes, the death.
[00:22:05] There was a very good reason it was called “The British Disease”.
[00:22:11] Ok then, that is it for today’s episode on football hooliganism in Britain, the ugly side of the beautiful game.
[00:22:20] I hope it was an interesting one, and whether you knew a lot about football hooliganism before, or this was the first time you’d heard anything about it, well I hope you learned something new.
[00:22:30] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:22:34] Did you know much about British football hooliganism before today?
[00:22:38] Are there football hooligans in your country?
[00:22:40] Is going to a football match considered a safe or dangerous thing in your city?
[00:22:45] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:22:49] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:22:57] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:23:10] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
