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]

True, demographics are problematic at best.

I still think though, that it's more that you have the disruptive elements of society and they are simply using this particular sport (which, the difference between it and the others you've mentioned is that the violence of it's fans does have an appeal precisely because it's become almost a glorified part of culture, rather like the glorification of the redneck over here has its appeal in certain arenas) as a way to vent their aggression. Change not the sport, but the way in which fans watch it and get rid of the glorification of it (movies like Eurotrip for example, turn it into something funny, though tbh, I think that movie is hilarious, especially that part) and that diffuses some of the aggression people have built up all week to vent through it.

The sport is a symptom, not the issue. There are acts of stupidity and violence all throughout the UK without the sport; if nothing else, the sport could be useful in channeling that violence away from a much more random and unpredictable aggression.

But I still hold by the fact that wherever you have a large gathering of people, you have the potential for violence as people tend to be either sheeplike, or turn into a wolfpack. Psychologically, there is something that happens when in the influence of a crowd that is similar to intoxication; add intoxication in (I don't even know the details beyond what's in your journal, but I'd bet money booze was involved) and you've got trouble.

[malvino]

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