The Nature of Football Hooliganism
Across numerous athletic activities, football is one of the most well-known sporting events, which gained popularity over time. Way back before football received its international recognitions, football started its outspread formerly through the British Isles thus far everywhere around the world [1]. Hence, football enthusiasts are commonly familiar with hooligan terms, or to be precise, football hooliganism. Conversely, the society established such stigmas to people with football hooligan’s labels as related to the violent chaos, riots, disruptive performance, and vandalism of public properties [2]. The phenomenon of hooliganism emerged in several debates toward the definition of its term due to dissimilar points of view. This essay attempts to examine the nature of football hooliganism, including the initial phase of the hooliganism; practices; mainstream behaviour; ‘English disease’ stigma; political media’s portrayal and collective; masculinity; and territory identity.
The initial of ‘football hooliganism’
First and foremost, in order for the idea and nature of football hooliganism to be understood, one must go through whatever underlies the connotation and the actors embedded into it. Primarily, football hooliganism that has garnered the infamous status as spectator violence, or the ‘English disease’, have been used to label the deviant behaviours of particular communities, more so the immeasurable usage of its term by the mass media and politicians in the 1960s helped propel its notoriety in the greater public [3], [4]. Thus, Dunning also emphasised that before the racialisation of hooligans’ connotation developed widespread among public media and lawmakers, the hooligans’ implication was not only applied exclusively to anything football-related, as it was found to touch an extensive range of distinctive variation in youth gang behaviours; likely as, vandalism and destruction of property, public disorder, rioting, looting, direct violence, mass brawls, et cetera [3]. Moreover, this suggests that hooliganism was primarily related to English football only since the 1960s ahead and somehow lacks the precision of labelling definition.
Looking back to the era before the 1960s, the term hooligan was applied to any types of lawless actions and deviancy perpetuated by the youth gangs, whereas the term hooligan can be possibly traced to the corruption of ‘Houlihan’, an Irish family who stayed in London and well-known for their love of fighting [5]. With that said, from the 1960s onward, there exists an indication of the two separate hooliganism phenomenon of label and practices disorder within the broad spectrum of sports activities enhanced together, as well as discursively conveyed into presence.
In addition, to further explain the rationale behind the origins of football hooliganism, one can look at it through a Marxist view. It is argued that football hooliganism is portrayed as merely a response and form of resistance from the working-class towards the commercialisation of football [6]. On the contrary however, this might seem to be a bit of a stretch considering that all the racket caused was aimed at fans of the opposing clubs and not the owners [7]. This could be seen in a way that suggests how this phenomenon is wreaking havoc only in the lower-tier of society, far from the higher-ups.
Moreover, hooliganism can still be referred to as an extensive range of deference and categories of behaviour that conceptually imprecise in today’s terminology. As a result, football hooliganism received a label that goes spiralling out and spawns broader meanings than its actual definition due to the media and politicians’ schemes in constructing the hooligans as a distinctive subculture.
The ‘English disease’ within football hooliganism
As aforementioned before, the stereotype of ‘English disease’ portrayed how the other nations perceive football hooliganism in and out of the UK was initiated by the British people themselves. This can be said by going over numerous reports across European countries, which shows that it led to the stereotype that aimed to outline football hooliganism as primarily an ‘English disease’ [3]. According to the report of football-related global incidence in English newspapers 1908–1983 by Williams et al. (1984), the central part of the occurrences were reported in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In further detail, 17 reports were stated in the 1960s, 20 in the 1970s, and no less than 40 in the initial three years of the 1980s. This suggests a pattern that reveals a factual escalation in the football hooliganism’s occurrence throughout the 30-year stage and a consistent upturn of media attention in this phenomenon as a remarkable topic. With that said, the reported data inclined the prejudgment of football hooliganism which wildly blow-out and media press portrayed as such social problems.
One case that could exemplify how the media portrays football hooligans to be a stain in British society — which in an extreme case, resulted in a term of ‘class disgust’ meaning a provoked feeling that is mediated emotionally towards lower-ranking groups of people which stems from their actions can be pointed out in The Edinburgh Evening News writing on what they called as UK’s then-new underclass of chavs, wherein the journalist’s invocation of expressions like “petty criminals”, “dole-scroungers”, mixed with “football hooligans” is nothing more than a disgust-fuelled attempt by the middle-class’ disdain towards the lower classes [9], [10]. This can only mean that the media doings on the rising problem only serve as fuel to the fire that is football hooliganism.
One of the most significant tragedies within football hooliganism history, which then emphasised more the term ‘English disease’, is the Heysel Stadium incident in 1985. Heysel Stadium disaster occurred in Brussels during the 1985 European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus, a charge of Liverpool hooligans against Juventus hooligans who were taking the same segregated also under-policed terrace which led to the deaths of thirty-nine Italians [3], [11]. This disaster proposed the worst reputation for English football fanatics’ behaviour in European football history and began to spread and noticed as the kind of delinquents performance. It is also worth noting that due to the massive reports of football matches disaster, the label hooligans achieved the emphasis on the kind of stylistic deference between groups and other forms of lawbreakers. Consequently, several policies regarding Football Spectators Bill were formulated, thus led to the ban of English clubs — likely as Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Nottingham Forest, Everton, Chelsea, Arsenal — by the Union Européenne de Football Association (UEFA).
The political and media’s portrayal of football hooliganism
Numerous widespread educations and scholars attempted to elaborate the subject of football hooliganism, despite the highest influencers in espousing the football hooligans portrayal are still done by the mass media and politicians. Later, the various explanations and interpretations of what or who counts as a football hooligan implied different understanding and no working definitions [3]. Therefore, Crabbe claimed that football hooliganism is thoroughly enclosed in a dynamic interaction amid media interest, political response, and cultural exercise [12]. This suggests the media representations are part of what being an England football fanatic actually means, also inquiring the media’s manufacture of occurrences as an end in itself.
Furthermore, the mass media tends to promote the moral panic caused by football hooliganism. Regrettably, panic wins over the soundless majority to the upkeep of progressively robust measures by the State that places biased marks on football hooligans, marginalising non-criminals, and the football fans are designed on the stage as folk-devils [13], [14]. In addition, Stuart Hall argued that the consequence of the reaction to football violence is alike in its generation of moral panic leading to an authoritarian response versus the working-class [15]. Thus, it demonstrates how the role of hooligans is substantive as hostages in politics and how the State portrayed the football hooligans as fascist muggers or thugs.
Newscaster and police rings are inclined to hyper-stress the level of strict organisation associated with football hooliganism, which then interprets hooligans collective as paramilitary associations with a hierarchical structure as ring leaders, generals, or lieutenants start and organise riots. While in the factual moment, its level of organisation associated with football hooliganism emerges to distinctive cultures and localities [16]. This suggests that the media and political apparatus attempt too hard on emphasising the football hooligans as a form of violent behaviours, including attacks on police, destructing public property, throwing and vandalism.
For exemplar, back in April 1989, the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool F.C. and Nottingham F.C. happened to be a misfortune and later named the Hillsborough tragedy. Historically, the Hillsborough tragedy followed the death of 96 hooligans of Liverpool Football Club and caused cultural trauma [17]. Thus, The Sun newspaper mainly reported such headlines that put the blame on Liverpool hooligans, likely as; Drunken Liverpool supporters attacked rescue employees, Liverpool supporters urinated on police and et cetera. As a consequence, Liverpool Football Club decided to apply a total ban on The Sun newspaper to report football matches of Liverpool, also give no more access to its reporters [18]. This proposes that Liverpool Football Club now has its own power over how The Sun writes and delivers its Liverpool F.C. related concerns.
Furthermore, aside from the newspapers’ expose of football hooliganism, the latest mass media portrayal of football hooliganism emerged throughout the rise of the pop culture era. The media became obsessed with hooliganism, thus affecting the film industry; several films were produced concerning the football hooligans stories, likely as Green Street directed by Lexi Alexander in 2005 and The Football Factory directed by Nick Love 2004. Conversely, it did not ultimately turn out as everyone’s favourite; instead, reap some criticism as complaints that the films overvalued football-related disarray [19]. Therefore, in general, the film industry and public mass media were mistakenly projecting the real condition of football hooliganism or mimic the actual hooligans’ practices and somehow failed to satisfy the audiences.
Collective, masculine, and territorial identity within football hooliganism
To football fanatics, there are several factors of involvement that contribute to the continuum of hooligans’ euphoria to support their favourite football club, including social value, attitudes, visual appearances, and the communal personality along with their sense of belonging. Each self-claimed hooligan may perceive different meanings of football hooliganism yet frequently opposed to the mainstream perspectives toward hooliganism. Nevertheless, each football hooligan of numerous football clubs usually acted within the name of commonality and aimed to support the specific football club harmonically. Armstrong stressed that hooligan establishments create their collective identities regarding the perceived variances among self and the other [20]. Nevertheless, it does not deny that fan groups have their own hierarchical structure within one same football club, for instance, a leader entitled ‘Fletcher’ [13]. It means that football hooligan collective groups may not always precisely generate egalitarian structures and has their kind of specific group norms.
Consequently, football hooligans hold on to some specific jargon to express their collectivised movement within the same club and distinguish themselves from other fanbases. Intuitively, football hooligans act based on their collective identity and use some unique words as jargon to greet other hooligans from the same fanbase. For instance, the supporters of Manchester United Football Club who used the “Glory Glory Man United” and likewise the supporters of Liverpool Football Club remain dedicated to their club and joyfully chanting to “You’ll Never Walk Alone” anthem song, which also used for their jargon [21]. Therefore, the role of football chants or jargon brought an enormous influence on concerns of the individual, collective, and cultural symbols and identities. It also demonstrated how football chants and jargon contribute to home-grown principles that have been devoted to the team since long ago and as a form of loyalty manifestation.
As a consequence of football hooligans’ attempt to distinguish themselves from other football club supporters, it emerged further characteristic within the dynamical movement of football hooliganism, namely as the complex masculine identity. The complicated masculine identity is constructed based on physical prowess in which ritual denigration aims to question the masculinity of opponents [16]. Notwithstanding that, this point of view toward complex masculine identity within hooliganism may be turned out diverse to every individual being since masculinity began to shift its interpretation, especially to today’s contemporary societal structure. Albeit the masculine identity developed as one of the characteristics of football hooliganism, the rigid masculine identity is contingent on particular spaces and times. Hence, the rise of hooligans as a global phenomenon introduces football to a variety of ages, gender, social classes, in other words, to wide-ranging groups of people.
Along with the formation of communal football fanatics, territorial identity also contributes to the causal dynamics of individuals’ sense of belonging within their devoted journey on football hooliganism. Specific territorial identification required hooligans to acknowledge their turf or field, thus claiming their exclusive zone. To be noted, it was not always a football stadium or football ground to meet the territorial identifications, yet it can be the borough open areas nearby the football ground, bars, train stations, city neighbourhoods, or entire towns [13], [16]. Thus, if the opposing groups entered the territory, it will be considered as misbehaving and presumed to be nerve-wracking, except additional justifications endures. Football hooligans tend to have a remarkable connexion to their specific space, which is then recognised as the home ground that obliges them to be protected. In addition, it somehow indicates that football hooligans pursue to display self-respect of being qualified of looking each other, together communally and personally.
In conclusion, across the countless different understandings toward football hooliganism, it remains that there are no clear working definitions of what or who counts as a football hooligan. By that, hooliganism was deemed as a moderately lingering lineage polemic that applied to countless forms of deviant behaviours, yet it applied to football-related from the 1960s onward. Nonetheless, this essay able to elaborate on the original term of hooligan and move onward to the dynamic nature of football hooliganism. Thus, football hooliganism highlighted the importance of its labelling and portrayal by the political and mass media, affecting the football hooligans’ long-lasting stigma likely as an ‘English disease’. Moreover, football hooliganism denotes some specifications on how the hooligans gained their collective, masculine, and territory identities in order to keep devoted to their football club.
Drawing together all the football hooliganism related occasions, football hooliganism directs a broader impact within the global scale. Football hooliganism was then regarded as a largescale phenomenon which was then imitated by the other football supporters around the world. Henceforward, suppose football hooliganism kept on being a disputed term with manifold and paradoxical characterisations. In that case, constant reporting of football hooliganism within the segment of the media will remain the same as in the portrayal of intimidating experiences amongst society.
References
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