Anyone else think we should ban football?

[malvino]

Handwringing all over the interwebs and papers today, about how it's not football's fault. It's apparently the fault of a small minority of those who aren't real fans, the fault of the pubs for serving alcohol all day, the fault of the police not to keep them all apart, the fault of the council for having gthe big screen fail, the fault of everyone

Comments

[tempore]

I have no idea what this is about?

[malvino]

Rangers fans trashed Manchester yesterday.

[tempore]

Ah. The problem with fans of anything is that when they get together, there is a tendency toward mob mentality.

[mintogrubb]

but no - as was said in the OP - rugger generates huge crowds, with lots of lads and lots of booze thrown in.
yet where are the rugger riots?

[tempore]

The potential is still there; it's just a matter of circumstances. Besides which, take away the footballers' focus - football - and they will move on to rugby and such. The people who instigate trouble will find a way to instigate trouble, and a crowd, especially with the size of football, but with anything - will follow along.

[malvino]

I'm not convinced, there was no football team in Bath for years, there was just the rugby club, the violent elements didn't move in and they've never had trouble in the city despite the main ground being smack in the heart of things.

Also, the football players themselves are yobs, with their hyper-aggressive posturing, screaming at the referee, spitting at each other. It's not just people out to make trouble, the sport itself has become nasty.

[tempore]

Yes, but look at the demographics of Bath, too. My impression when I was there, granted as only a tourist, was that one has to be fairly well-to-do to live there unless one is a student just for the price and upkeep of housing. That does have an effect

[malvino]

Bath centre is fairly well off, it gets rural very fast, and there are a lot of working class folk in it. Likewise, there havn't been rugby riots in Wales, and their fans are anything but genteel or well-to-do.

Also, rugby league is almost entirely working class, and they don't get the problems football has. I'm pretty sure that like Bath, Hull has never had a football team in the top flight, although it's on the verge of getting a second rugby league team there which gets a comparable turnout.

I'm not sure how useful demographics are anyhow, the well off can be as loutish as anyone, the working class can be as genteel.

To look at another example, Cricket has an even wider base of people than football has, appealing to the whole country evenly across the classes. There's not been one single case of cricket hooliganism in this country apart from in Headingley, where it turned out it was a deliberate attempt by football fans to expand their particular mode of support.

Reply

[tempore]

True, demographics are problematic at best

[malvino]

This still doesn't explain why violence follows football and not other sports, I think it's a root cause.