Contemporary Issues in Sport - Football Hooligans UK

One of the most reoccurring problem during a soccer match is fan violence. There have been matches were the players from a team and/or the fans have gotten injured because of the misconduct presented among fans. Throwing stuff to other fans or players and starting fights are stuff that people will most likely see if they attend soccer matches. This is especially shown when the two teams playing against each other are considered rivals in soccer. The people affected when this happens are the soccer fans and sometimes the players. What causes most of these problems during a match, is when fans are not happy about the score or when they think that there has been an error during the game. Typically, when a team is losing their fans start to show

The culture of soccer is more than just articles written in sport pages, or rumors about players been transferred from one club to another. It includes a bigger picture that covers many different social, political and economic aspects of the game. In countries where the sport is not that relevant, people refer to it as soccer. In others where the sport is very popular and has been around for a long time, it is referred to as football. When it comes to the sport, there are two very different ideas relevant to how people view it. In said countries where soccer is the national sport, the game is viewed as if it can achieve anything; from having just fun with your friends to helping unite people from around the world. In other countries where the sport is not as much popular, the game is seen as boring and is looked down on. This paper will explore how soccer is growing at such a rapid pace despite the fact that it can be viewed as violent and boring.

A little background behind the movie, Green Street Hooligans, is that's about a college journalist drop out who moves to England to live with his sister but ends up joining one of the firms there, Green Street Elite. Usually firms don't take outsiders that they don't know very well, let alone an American. In this movie, one sees how the fights start during the soccer game and continue even after the game is over and sees how ruthless

The dark side of football communicates racism and violence among players in the United States. In Steve Almond’s The Blind Spot section, Almond tells us about how African- American boys are treated in the football world. These boys are facing the harsh reality of living in a judgmental society where their qualities and intelligence are not recognized. However, their physical strengths and distressing events are what fans and coaches want to see from them in each game. Whatever the football players’ ethnic origins, no one can deny that they are exposed to sacrifice their bodies and put in risk their lives. Supporting this point, Almond points his curiosity about a group of young boys who come from an underprivileged community,

In the article “Is it Immoral to Watch the Superbowl?”, the author, Steve Almond states that zealous fandom for football, supports player injury. If true, fans should reconsider supporting this industry. He focuses on the dangers of football, sharing personal stories of football players whose lives were forever changed by the love of the game. Meanwhile, he makes the interesting point of how fans’ utter “worship” of this sport that has forced us to turn a blind eye to the true “pathologies” football possesses. He then goes on to state that football has contorted our view of war into war is a “winnable contest”, and has served as a distraction from the wars.

This article comes in response to riots observed following soccer matches in South America, as well as violent occurrences in British soccer matches and following boxing matches at Madison Square Garden. A study was performed to assess hostility among sports fans before and after watching a game. Following similar laboratory experiments where subjects were shown violent images and were found to feel increased feelings of aggressiveness, it was theorized that observing aggressive sports might cause increased aggressiveness in sports spectators. The study was supported by a research grant from Temple University and used paid interviewers who interviewed male subjects going in to and coming out of an Army-Navy football game. This particular match was chosen because it was not being played on either team’s home field. The same interviews were conducted at a gymnastics meet to be used as a control group. Results of the study show that feelings of hostility significantly increased in subjects following the football game regardless of whether the team favored won or lost.

There is nothing more animated than going to a sporting event with your friends, decked out in the team’s colors and drinking a cold alcoholic beverage. Major sporting events draw out large crowds of people from diverse backgrounds who come together collectively to watch their team play, hoping for a win. Sporting events promote cohesion, people can come the game as strangers and at the end of the game leave as old friends. The problem of large sporting events is that riots can occur, win or lose, people come together through either excitement or anger to destroy property and each other. Understanding why people riot at games is significant for Sociology to help explain how the cohesion of people in this setting can promote violence.

Shots fired! Angry mobs run through the streets, smashing cars, and store doors! Parents running, trying to get their children to safety! Fifteen officers were injured, and around sixty arrested! Here's the twist to this tragedy… It was not over politics nor war, but a soccer game. Are sports fans over doing it? What happened that night at Buenos Aires, Argentina was an example of sports fans out of control over a game. Since day one of sports, fans have gone too far. Sports fans are just overdoing it.

People always describe soccer with a culture of passionate and active. After watching the video of Heysel tragedy (Lecture Video Week 3), I start doubting the other side of soccer culture. In this week reading, we were asked to read a novel of a story about how the author himself become crazy soccer fans in decades. The more I read, the more I feel the soccer culture has it aggressive and dominant elements. It will bite you badly when you lose your guard and embrace it. Here is a quotation from the book, "Football culture is so amorphous, so unwieldy, so big that it inevitably attracts more than its fair share of fantasists." (Hornby, 61), that I believe it can partly prove my point.

Firstly, this can be found where most information relating to football hooliganism in terraces is more backdated and relates more to the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Although all seater stadiums are more common in Scotland’s top leagues now and football hooliganism is not as rife, there is still a lack of information from the years of the 2000’s. Also the gap in research knowledge would be more to look at if fans want to bring back safe standing zones in Scotland where there is less information on this. In 1991, there was a journal made by (Smart and Goddard, 1991) that showed people from the more young working class of Scotland would prefer to be situated in a standing zone within the terrace which would be the more cheaper option compared to the seating areas which are more popular within the other more high class working groups. This information here shows that in Scotland in the start of the 90’s, people with less money were more likely to choose the cheaper option of standing in the terraces instead of the more expensive option of seating. Moreover onto the 2000’s, it was reported by (Burdsey, 2011) that many clubs in the UK had applied for a ‘Safe Standing Zone’ and in Scotland it was Celtic Football Club that had actioned for it more than any other major

Football has been an attractive sport around the world. Through this sport, many inhabitants have denominated themselves as fans of a particular football team. These people support the players in each match they have. Every football team has a group of fans that go to the stadium to encourage them in the game, but also they attend there to enjoy the show. Nevertheless, not all the fans go to see the matches since there are some people who belong to groups called hooligans. Those groups are highly violent, and they do not mind killing other people to defend their team. Consequently, citizens who belong to these violent groups should not be able to come back to the stadiums because hooligans do not benefit the image of football, do not understand the meaning of football, and do not respect the diversity of preferences.

“These people want to hurt you. It’s frightening. You feel like you’re in a cage out there”. Reggie Smith, (Berger, 1990). Spectator violence at sporting events has been recorded throughout history. People who have power over the events, often team owners, indirectly influence the amount of spectator violence by encouraging the factors contributing to violence, in order to benefit themselves. Sale of alcohol, encouraging crowd intensity, creating rivalries, and targeting social groups, are factors affecting the degree of spectator violence and can be proven to be influenced by the owner’s actions. Therefore the blame for spectator violence can be attributed to whoever has power over the sport.

This sort of behaviour is motivated in and around public venues that provide large television screens for viewing pleasure. The manipulation of time and space has led to the accessibility of television in bars and restaurants which led to the construction of a world enabled public sphere. Consequently, the event itself becomes a dispersed occasion taking place not only at the sports arena, but also within homes and other public places.

When one hears the name Manchester United what comes to mind? Football club based out of Manchester with prestige and globalized supporters. Sports have an amazing way of bringing people from different backgrounds together believing in one entity. In modernity, modern sport has taken the same form of trans-national corporations. In this paper, I will argue how modern sport has been influenced by three pillars that have also shaped modernity. The global financial system, militaries, and nationalism have each helped to develop and spread sport throughout the modern world. Through interaction with specific text, I will show how each of the above mentioned pillars have interacted and developed sport. In the penultimate paragraph of this

The drama of violence in sports and particularly in football is of major concern for the Greek government, because of the 2004 Olympic Games that will be held in Athens. A great debate is on in Greece these days, in order to institute measures for confrontation of football hooliganism. The previous minister of sports Mr Lianis tried to implement the British model of hooliganism elimination –expensive tickets, denial of entrance and stigmatisation of fans that in the past showed aggressive behaviour, severe financial penalties for football clubs that directly or indirectly tolerate these groups of supporters- but these measures where ineffective. Violent incidents still continued to occur in the Greek football league.