Football support v general public

Quoted from Mariner93er

It really irritates me this talk of 'unnecessary persecution'. It's nonsense. I've seen a lot more anti social behaviour at football than at any other sport.

I was at the fifth test at the Ashes at Edgbaston and, sure, the chants are becoming football-esque, but the level of behaviour never degraded to what I've seen at football. I was also at Glastonbury and the behaviour is incomparable.

The culture is completely different in football and there seems to be an anti-establishment, victim attitude developing amongst football fans. There's no doubt football fans can be treated heavily handedly, but surely everyone has seen enough to understand that there's more than a minority justifying it.

Lucky for you, but when people who aren’t regular attendees at football can see it, it probably suggests there’s some obvious truths in the matter.

A classic example was at Crawley a while back. Casually having a pint in a quiet ish pub, full of locals having a dinner and so on.

2 o clock rolls around, I go to get two pints around 2:05pm to only have my glass taken from me and my drinks dispensed in a plastic beaker. Naturally, I question this, having also witnessed a local somehow keep their glass, the response ‘football fans go onto plastic at 14:00’

Mind blowing stuff, and there are umpteen examples of confusing and inconsistent policing and security approaches used with football fans, many coming from sensible, every day folk.

Torquay away around ten years ago; I, a 20 something bloke at the time casually stroll through the turnstile, no search, no questions, jobs a good one. Turn around to see the 63 year old man with me, and the middle aged lady stood the other side of him being patted down and searched, the justification being ‘it’s done at random’. Mind blowing really.

Lincoln away many moons ago, having lived in Lincoln, arrive at my local to grab a pint with some Lincoln fans I know and then head off to the match, greeted with ‘home fans and locals only’ from a copper…apparently living in Lincoln for a number of years didn’t make me local, some of their lads even confronted the copper…

So whilst you make a point, that’s fair but don’t dismiss the fact there is a double standard and there is an issue…

Quoted from Mariner93er

It really irritates me this talk of 'unnecessary persecution'. It's nonsense. I've seen a lot more anti social behaviour at football than at any other sport.

I was at the fifth test at the Ashes at Edgbaston and, sure, the chants are becoming football-esque, but the level of behaviour never degraded to what I've seen at football. I was also at Glastonbury and the behaviour is incomparable.

The absolute very worst thing I’ve seen at any football match is a few people getting thumped in the head, and I’d imagine most people would struggle to say they’ve seen anything worse.

At Glastonbury I’ve seen people openly smoking crack and people absolutely paralytic far beyond what I’ve seen at a match, plus all the usual shouting, swearing, anti-social stuff. Most other festivals you’ll have people ritually burning tents and other people’s belongings on a Sunday night. Mass brawls and people getting booted in the head with shítflickers is absolutely par for the course at most big race meetings, along with coke use that would make Tony Montana blush.

Everyone has an anecdote about this or that, but it’s impossible to say that football fans are not subject to excessive policing, draconian laws and treatment which only apply if you are a football fan, and sentencing/punishments far beyond what would be considered reasonable. That’s just a fact.

Quoted from aldi_01

Mind blowing stuff, and there are umpteen examples of confusing and inconsistent policing and security approaches used with football fans, many coming from sensible, every day folk.


So whilst you make a point, that’s fair but don’t dismiss the fact there is a double standard and there is an issue…

On the subject of policing I think thats a valid point. For one thing I wouldn't want to do it. In what can be a high pressure/shift  job where you can be  subject to abuse and even violence making the right decision all the time is a tough one and people like in any walk of life will make mistakes. I often compare it to the army  as well albeit on a  different more acute level where soldiers have had to make a judgement on whether to neutralise a suspected terrorist out in Afghanistan  or hold fire.

I note as well from reading books on the matter police got things wrong back in Italia 1990 . Groups of England fans and many innocent were grouped in mass (targeted as yobos) and targeted by riot police with tear gas and truncheons . Lessons need to be learnt from this which I think they have to some degree although more could still be done .Goes in any job as well.

Sadly from speaking to people abroad the actions of a small percentage(I feel) in the 1980s when hooliganism was more rife still affects  some peoples judgment of English football fans.

And while everyone is bemoaning the treatment of football fans on this thread another thread is showing pictures and video of crowd trouble in the 80s between Town and Stoke.

Maybe there's a connection?

Quoted from BobbyCummingsTackle

And while everyone is bemoaning the treatment of football fans on this thread another thread is showing pictures and video of crowd trouble in the 80s between Town and Stoke.

Maybe there's a connection?

Maybe some things change over the course of 30-40 years?

Quoted from BobbyCummingsTackle

And while everyone is bemoaning the treatment of football fans on this thread another thread is showing pictures and video of crowd trouble in the 80s between Town and Stoke.

Maybe there's a connection?

I started both threads and there is no connection. None whatsoever. I started this post after the double standards that there seems to be after watching tv coverage of a few events over the course of the weekend. You are more than welcome to find some correlation between the two but I started the Stoke thread after being sent some photos.

Stoke is one of those games that is still spoken about by many 30 years later. Not glorified or dressed up to show off, but I would think, that it was probably one of the biggest ‘toe to toe’ fights where little old Grimsby didn’t come second best! Were you at the Stoke game? Because, I would suspect that if you were then it would’ve been brought up in many a conversation in the 3 decades that have passed.