Martin Samuel wrote an interesting piece about English football supporters in the Times the other day. Coincidentally I was just exploring the possibilities of Google Docs as a home for stuff backed up on floppies from my expired laptop. So I thought, why not see if the Blog transfer bit works for me. And it does.
Why are some football crowds so scary & others not?
With the spread of car ownership I dont think too many fans travel by train these days, but in the 70s & 80s this was a real problem. I remember travelling to London from Leeds with a crowd of Sunderland supporters going to the Cup Final - very unpleasant.
Then there was the Alcohol on Trains Act. On 2 successive Saturdays I saw elderly frail people collapse in queues at Euston - not because of any violence but because we were kept waiting, standing in line, for a long time until a policeman was available to check the crowds for signs of bottles & cans
In 1986 I travelled to Manchester on August Bank Holiday Monday, leaving a very rainy Notting Hill Carnival in the afternoon & arriving at Manchester Piccadilly station around 7pm. It was like something out one of those scary angst ridden modern alienation films - deserted except for a few policemen with barking Alsatians. There had been a football match, though the fans had either left or not arrived yet
Later, when hooliganism had receded as a problem, I travelled in to Manchester one sunny Sunday noon. As I walked down to Piccadilly Gardens I could see a large crowd of obvious football supporters spilling all over the pavement outside the large pub there
It seemed too far to walk all the way round the other 3 sides of the square & there were no signs of trouble - the crowd was noisy but there was no swaying or movement - so I decided that there would be no problem in just threading my way through the crowd. The moment I got in there I had one of those moments - I think I may just have made an awful mistake - no real reason, just the testosterone & the feeling This could go off at any moment.
Again in the 90s there have been many European matches in Manchester. It has been noticeable that the fans of the continental teams do not walk round in such large groups & do not, for some reason, exude such threat. The nearest I saw to that was when an Israeli team were playing United & there were lots of very excited & noisy young men in the centre of town, but for some reason no local fans felt compelled to gather & menace Come on if youre hard enough
In 2003 there was a European Cup Final in Manchester between 2 Italian teams. The city was absolutely packed. It helped that the weather was fine & sunny but not too hot. I would not have gone if I had realised the match was on. But it turned out to be a lovely day. Building on the experience of the Commonwealth Games the whole atmosphere was welcoming - there were lots of signs directing people how to get to the ground, entertainment was laid on in all the big public spaces, fans were lining up to have their photo taken with policemen in helmets, all the shops (incl M&S) were selling Italian newspapers … a wonderful carnival spirit. My only complaint was that there was almost nowhere to sit & rest my back for a few moments
British football fans seem to think that they are not causing any trouble so long as they are not actually fighting or attacking one another. They seem to think that walking around in large groups, making lots of noise, shouting at women, making no attempt to make room for other people on the pavement, showing off unnecessary amounts of bare skin, beer gut & man boobs & getting drunk, simply constitutes good fun. And, despite their claims to the contrary, Scottish fans are no better than English
Postscript: I was in Manchester again last Tuesday. I soon realised that a match must be coming soon, because there were small groups of fans wandering around. But they seemed somehow subdued & I assumed that the match must not be taking place until Wednesday. When I saw yellow jacketed police on guard in St Peters Square, & then 3 tactical support units parked in Piccadilly Gardens, I realised that somehow we had slipped back towards the old days, in the minds of the authorities at least.
The media response to the astonishing score line also seems to me unusually subdued - as if the commentators dont quite know what to make of it. Lets hope we can recover a happier spirit soon
