Football Fans Are Tops

Stories like this are a crying shame. I can see why people don't want to go to football matches. I hardly ever wear colours away from home which as I've mentioned before is just as much down to a minority of our fans who frequently do their level best to wind up opposition fans before jumping on the nearest "safe" coach as it's down to opposition fans looking to cause trouble. Every club in the league has elements of both and if a club or its supporters tell you differently then its a lie.

I've been watching Torquay play at home and away for a few years and I have to say that I haven't seen or heard too much violence. I vividly remember a home match against Fulham a few years back, after a ill tempered 2-1 win against 11 Ian Branfoot thugs, as we left the ground 10-20 of their finest louts went on the rampage and hit anything that moved. I had a right go at 4 normal looking Fulham fans getting into their car around the corner after this melee. No fisticuffs, just a lot of angry words.

I also think its the nature of the game that makes 99% of the normal football supporters turn into different people. Rugby Union doesn't throw up as many flash-points or seemingly have as many unfair and unjust decisions. The players show the referee respect and in turn the crowd know who's in charge. Television replays are used to clarify potential flash-points and in 99.9% of cases the correct decision is made (apart from the unwritten rule that only France and Wales can get away with forward passes ;D). What is there in a game of Rugby Union that would turn normally nice Mr Jones into a nasty ranting and raving idiot?

It may be that there is a class difference between those who watch rugby and those who watch football. But once you get out of the home counties Rugby Union is a game followed as much by the working class as it is with the middle and upper classes. Real Rugby towns like Gloucester, Leicester and Northampton have working class fan bases. But is it just the way that media tries to differentiate between the classes when it comes portraying Rugby and football fans. Why is it that Rugby fans can dress in White and Red and be portrayed as "Noble Knights, Crusaders, all good stout hearted fellows fighting the cause of King Harry" (think of the Zurich Insurance adverts with Peter O'Toole) and yet the football fans wearing exactly the same colours are usually depicted as tooled up chavs with the intellect of a boiled potato?

When it comes to Rugby League it's a bit different. The clubs are mostly from traditional working class Northern towns where the clubs either are the biggest sporting club in the town or are close to it. Hull boasts two massive clubs, Wigan RLFC pack the JJB more than their footballing counterparts, St Helens have no competition with a football club in the same town as do the likes of Warrington, Widnes and Wakefield. The likes of Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield are towns where there isn't much difference between the level of support for sports. Leeds might be an exception I guess but they are the champions and the football club is still in the old division 3! Due the nature of the game (its quicker and more unpredictable than Rugby Union) and where its played you would imagine that there would be more scope for mass fighting. But apart from the booze fueled Wakefield V Castleford relegation grudge match (The Battle of Belle Vue) a few years back I can't remember a time when I heard about any trouble at a Rugby league match.

When you look at other tools the media use there are more films about football violence than the glory of the world's best sport. All are completely cringe-worthy I find whether its the attempt to explain and justify mindless violence by saying that "men need to feel like brave savage men by assaulting other men to feel alive" like in "The Football Factory". Then you have the awful "Cass" and "Green Streets" which is all about outsiders finding "a sense of belonging" and "glory, respect and identity through fighting". It's all about glamourising complete twatishness. But the attempts to focus on the non violent side of football are always equally wide of the mark. Can anyone think actually think of a better one than "Escape to Victory"? "Goal"? Anna Friel in a nurse's uniform and cheeky smile made that memorable. "When Saturday Comes" with Sean "100% Blades" Bean? God help us.

As for Rugby films.......ummmm.....urrrrrrr. There was a Rugby scene in The Departed where Matt Damon brought the game of gentlemen in complete disrepute when he told the opposing team consisting of the hated Fire Brigade that they were "homos" and that they should have sex with themselves! I mean its Martin Scorcese's take on a game he's never seen or played. What next? Joe Pesci at Scrum Half, Ray Liotta on the wing and Robert De Niro as the head coach?

Can you imagine that over here? I'm 100% sure that the old farts at the RFU choked on their Vol-au-vents with roasted aubergine tapenade when Martin Johnson shouted "clucking bell" in Dublin a few weeks ago when that thick 72 cap Cornishman (although he was born in Bude!) Phil Vickery decided to ignore the referee twice and committed the same crime right in front of him and rightly got sin binned for his stupidity.

But is that the the clubs do their level best to welcome supporters to the ground with open arms? I remember going to the Wycombe away game in the Ian Atkins survival spell. We turned up stupidly early. The beer tents were erected but for London Wasps the following day and despite not wearing any yellow and blue we were turned away by a couple of stewards from having a beer in the main bar. The problem is that you can't actually say with absolute certainty that if the same facilities were offered to us football fans that there wouldn't be a minority who would spoil a warm welcome and make twats of themselves.

I have to say that in the last two seasons I've found the welcome and the facilities at most BSP clubs to be far more relaxed and friendly than during our time in the League. In the most part its been reciprocated and has been respected by our fans. I just hope it continues.

As for other sports attracting violence? Andy C would be able to confirm or not that fighting goes on at NFL games between fans. But I don't believe it goes on. I heard a rumour that the Cleveland Browns fans could be a bit on the lively side though! With Ice Hockey the violence is on the field, indeed I read earlier in the week that the Toronto Maple Leafs president vowed to fight proposed new legislation to outlaw fighting from the game as "fighting was a huge part of the game". Apparently though fights have become more numerous than before and some appear to be "staged" in order to give the crowd what they want to see. The latest initiative comes after a Canadian state league player died after his head hit the head just after his helmet fell off.
I have heard that there's been fighting between fans at handball and water polo between Slovenia and Croatia in the not too distant past as well!
Does anybody know if some of the Gaelic Games provide as match violence off the pitch as there is on it?

To imply that the problem is "The English Disease" as EUFA and others did (particularly certain British right wing politicians)when it was cheek shifting time around the committee rooms, is to ignore the simple fact that it is clearly a right wing attitude (so loved of those very politicians) that invariably manifests itself as "Football Hooliganism".

From Holland to the Balkans and Spain to the Baltic, it is the Fascist and the intolerant who prioritise the identification of racial origin, the colour of skin, and the choice of club to play for or support; as the primary object of their attention and therefore recipients of the their abuse. Abuse that sadly pushes their appreciation of skill, flare and entertainment into second place much to the detriment of the rest of society and (indeed) to themselves if only they were not so bigoted and blinkered as to see it.

Just as the current implosion of the financial sector is a long predicted product of the "Me First and f**k you" politic of the right wing, so too is the resultant violence and division resultant of that same state of mind in perpetuating those ideals in the first place.

i.e. self praise and selfishness leads to the manifestation of violence and bigotry in an attempt to justify that school of thought whilst generosity of tolerance and a desire for the human rights of others will inevitably overcome it.

I completely forgot about Hull V Hull KR game a couple of years ago when there was a big pitch invasion and clashes between supporters!

I also failed to remember about the clashes between Serbian and Bosnian supporters at this years Australian Open Tennis tournament in Melbourne after Novak Djokovic beat Bosnian born Amer Delic. Some poor woman got flattened by a chair during a drunken brawl.

No is the answer! Only happens at events where ethnic rivalries occur. Anywhere the Croats and Serbs gather or Greeks and Turks, it WILL kick off, its nothing to do with sport, these people( for the want of a more accurate term) use these events as a battle field! Very rarely at an all Aussie event is there any trouble apart from the over enibriated or the extremely sun-burned.

Barton you say I'm a little surprised there are still those who worry about the threat of physical violence should they attend a football match

With Tom living in Yeovil I'm not to surprised he feels that there is a real risk of suffering physical violence. I'm not saying that Yeovil is a club full of mindless thugs, but it does have a group who are regular trouble makers and in my view are far worse than any TUFC fans.

When we played them in the league a few seasons ago, there was trouble in the town centre and at the time it was blamed on TUFC fans, it later was reported correctly in their local paper that it was Yeovil fans who caused the problems.

Many older fans will remember the times we played them in the FA cup when they were a non-league team and I remember feeling threatened being in their ground and was surprised how fans of a then non- league team behaved.

You also say It's tempting to speculate what our view of the game - and its' fans - would be if we were fresh to it as adults

I think many self respecting adults would very soon be leaving a football ground within the first 15 minutes and I have already posted on here how one man and his wife complete with grandchildren, who went to Plainmoor over Christmas felt about the experience and very quickly left the ground.

I do agree that some will state they paid their money and can do and say what they like, such people will have no regards for any other person who has in fact also paid and may not want to be subject to foul and abusive language, but it often seems because its in the name of football, anything and everything goes and you may just have to put up with it if you want to watch your team play.

While on the phone with Sally in the week, we touched on the subject of the foul language in our own ground,before I forget she was also so frilled at what the members on here were doing to make the day special for Lewis and the fact that we have Steve 004 on here so we can try and build a better relationship between fans and stewards.

The clubs view really is that they want to make Plainmoor more of a place where family's will want to come and it makes good sense really, bring along the children and you may just be creating the next generation of adult fans for the club.

When I look at the pictures you put up Barton taken at Plainmoor in the very early days, I do wonder just how those fans behaved, they clearly show a family feel and everything also looks very relaxed, why you could even sit on the edge of the pitch ;D and have a bottle top and no yellow lines.Jon put up a great article that showed that the mindset of football fans may have been the same then as it is today, but it did not indicate if the said fans were singing the refs a C*** every time he made a decision they did not agree with.

So was there a time when things changed? or has it slowly over the years been the case that more foul and abusive language as creped onto the terraces, what I find funny and have often thought about is, that if you took a cross section of our crowd and put them all together in a different environment how they would behave.

Lets say its at a dinner and dance, I can guarantee that you would not be hearing swearing, well maybe a few men together at the bar might use the odd word, but most would be swear word free. So it comes back to this attitude that its normal and acceptable to do it in a football ground and no one has yet to show me why it has to be the case that a football crowd acts in the way he does.

I have been at so many stockcar meetings, these cars are special built, cost large sums of money and drivers have their own followers at meetings. It is a contact racing sport as such, but I have seen many a star driver(like Bill Batten)pushed into the fence to prevent him from winning a race, I will never forget how a group of drivers made sure he did not retain his world title up at Bristol after the first time he had won it, mind you that was about 30 years ago ;D but despite the emotion I never saw or witnessed the abuse shouted out I see at football matches.

Tom does not base his view on any first hand experience, only what he reads in the local paper and what he may have seen on some TV news and while I hope to take him to a game up at Yeovil, I fear that what he will see and hear will only strengthen his views on football fans.

Yet we know that on the whole those who do love football are just normal decent people (just like us) who just enjoy the game and a real feeling of belonging to a club that somehow gets into your blood and even worse into your heart.