Blatter banned

[ProfessorDavey]

Football acts like a brilliant social glue. In my lifetime I've seen rivalry between different sets of supporters change from nasty to good natured, apart from a hardcore of idiots. Football's got very good at laughing at the absurdity of itself, whether through programmes like Fantasy Football and Soccer AM - a style which has filtered through to football reporting across the board - satire on Newsthump or the way people use Twitter. It's taken the heat out of a lot of it.

Indeed, and the whole notion of massive levels of football related violence compared to other sports simply isn't backed up by the evidence.

So in the latest figures (which are published in full for football related incidents, both inside and outside grounds) from a total of over 38 million attendances in 2014/15 there were just over 1,800 arrests (the lowest on record) - levels which are comparable or much lower than many other mass attendance events, such as festivals. In the premier league this equates to about 1 arrest per match, noting that each one is likely to have up to 70,000 fans attending.

Of course it is harder than finding hen's teeth to get comparable figures in rugby and indeed some have tried (and failed via freedom of information requests) - but there is data on arrests at Twickenham rugby games of which there are about 10-15 per year - and guess what over several years arrest levels per year at Twickenham at rugby games (and I believe this is only in the ground) have run at 15, so about one per game, exactly the same as premier league football games.

Now I imagine stats from the recent Rugby world cup will ultimately emerge, but I've not seen it, but there are from the 2011 world cup in New Zealand, specifically relating to the 11 games played in Auckland - police reported a total of 37 arrests related to the matches (both inside and outside the ground - that's about three times greater than for premier league football games. So much for the football hooligan vs the gentile rugby fan - a myth busted by the evidence.

[Rhiannon]

The one social group local to me that I would never want to meet on a night out is the local rugby club.

[Hope]

The one social group local to me that I would never want to meet on a night out is the local rugby club.

That's interesting, especially as it is generally agreed that violence in rugby exists on the field and not off it (unlike football).  As someone who has played both at local level - give me a rugby team and their supporters over their football equivalents.

[Rhiannon]

That's interesting, especially as it is generally agreed that violence in rugby exists on the field and not off it (unlike football).  As someone who has played both at local level - give me a rugby team and their supporters over their football equivalents.

They do get into fights. Mostly though it's how they treat women when they are out 'socialising' - truly disgusting.

[ProfessorDavey]

That's interesting, especially as it is generally agreed that violence in rugby exists on the field and not off it (unlike football).  As someone who has played both at local level - give me a rugby team and their supporters over their football equivalents.

But sometimes something that is 'generally agreed' turns out not to be true when tested against the evidence.

I would certainly accept that once upon a time football had a big problem with hooliganism, but that seems to have largely been dealt with.

So now we seem to have a situation where arrests at football aren't really very different to those at other major events - and certainly top flight football seems to be very comparable to top flight rugby at Twickenham.

[Rhiannon]

I agree. I've no worries when my son goes to an EPL match with his dad. It's so different from when I was growing up.

[ProfessorDavey]

That's interesting, especially as it is generally agreed that violence in rugby exists on the field and not off it (unlike football).  As someone who has played both at local level - give me a rugby team and their supporters over their football equivalents.

I think the level of complacency amongst rugby fans over the drinking culture and associated problems linked to rugby is rather worrying.

The trends in football are all in the right direction, but I worry that the trends in rugby are going in the wrong direction. I wouldn't want to go anywhere near Cardiff city centre on a big match night - and I know plenty of people who live in Cardiff who once used to enjoy the atmosphere after a game who get out quick now due to the levels of drunken-ness and associated violence/trouble. And this isn't just me as this article indicates:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/wales-v-england-idiotic-fans-8599135

Rugby may well be sleepwalking into problems at a time when football is getting its game in order.

[Hope]

I think the level of complacency amongst rugby fans over the drinking culture and associated problems linked to rugby is rather worrying.

The trends in football are all in the right direction, but I worry that the trends in rugby are going in the wrong direction. I wouldn't want to go anywhere near Cardiff city centre on a big match night ...

PD, I wouldn't go anywhere near Cardiff City Centre on ANY Friday evening, let alone a big (rugby) match night - also usually a Friday. 

[ProfessorDavey]

PD, I wouldn't go anywhere near Cardiff City Centre on ANY Friday evening, let alone a big (rugby) match night - also usually a Friday.

But while football seems to be putting in place mechanism to actively discourage excessive drinking and the problems than ensue linked to matches, rugby seems to continue to kind of actively encourage it. And the Friday night games with their drink all afternoon, the drink all night after the game model seems to be part of that.

But if rugby fans wreck a city centre, leaving carnage in their wake and arrests left, right and centre somehow this is 'high spirits', 'good natured banter', 'atmosphere', yet if football fans did the same it would be 'drunken hooligans on the rampage' and 'ban them'.

Double standards without a shadow of doubt.

[Shaker]

Rugby = allegedly invented at a public school and therefore the preserve of high-spirited but well-bred young men letting off steam.

Football = a traditionally working-class sport and therefore the preserve of unwashed, common oiks, drunken thugs and violent yobbos.

Seem to be the traditional perception, I think.

[john]

So there is no such thing as football violence!

Link below shows numerous articles from this years Daily Mirror

http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/football-violence

Reading the comments earlier on this thread it seems the whitewashers only want to talk about violence in the stadiums. Due to CCTV this is much reduced over recent years it is true. But violence in the towns around football grounds is a bad as ever. Which is why huge numbers of police are deployed to keep the animals apart, different railway/bus stations etc are used for "fans" from different teams.

Google "World Wide Football Violence" to see the extent to which violence is endemic amongst football fans throughout the world.

Talk about blinkered viewpoints!!!

[jeremyp]

No it's not.

It's football.

You don't get to choose what words mean in the English language. Soccer is a legitimate name for football and your denials won't change that.

[jeremyp]

Jeremy - we've been through this on another thread at length.

The term 'soccer' is not and I don't think has ever been an accepted term for football amongst football fans.

Football fans don't get to decide how the English language is used. "Soccer" is an accepted term for Association Football.

Furthermore, soccer is certainly certainly an accepted term amongst fans of football in the USA.

[Rhiannon]

My favourite hardcore football fans - the Whitehawk Ultras.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehawk_F.C.

[BeRational]

You don't get to choose what words mean in the English language. Soccer is a legitimate name for football and your denials won't change that.

I do deny it.

Its football.

[jeremyp]

Its football.

also known as soccer.

To save us both time, let's assume you are going to deny soccer is a legitimate term for football ad infinitum and I am going to assert it ad infinitum.

[ProfessorDavey]

So there is no such thing as football violence!

Where did I ever say that - what I said was that trouble associated with football matches in Britain is diminishing year on year and that's backed up by evidence. And that the levels of arrests aren't really much different to many other comparable big attendance events - such as music festivals, and indeed Twickenham rugby matches - and that's backed up by evidence.

Reading the comments earlier on this thread it seems the whitewashers only want to talk about violence in the stadiums. Due to CCTV this is much reduced over recent years it is true. But violence in the towns around football grounds is a bad as ever.

Which is why the reported stats include incidents both inside and outside the grounds - and in both cases they are falling year on year and have been for decades since the peak of the problem in the 1980s.

Talk about blinkered viewpoints!!!

No the blinkered viewpoint is to consider football fans, however well behaved, as being 'animals' and yet completely ignore any problems in other sports, for example rugby.

[ProfessorDavey]

Football fans don't get to decide how the English language is used. "Soccer" is an accepted term for Association Football.

Accepted by who? Certainly not by football fans in the UK or those actually involved in the sport. Soccer is not an accepted term to those people - football is.

And I think you need to differentiate between 'accepted' and 'recognised'. The term soccer might be 'recognised in the UK, but it isn't accepted, any more than the term 'Mick' to describe Irish people might be recognised (people understand that some people use that term) but it isn't accepted, and it certainly isn't accepted by Irish people themselves, just as soccer isn't accepted by the British football community.

Furthermore, soccer is certainly certainly an accepted term amongst fans of football in the USA.

I agree that soccer is an accepted term for football in the USA, due to the potential confusion with a different, and more established, sport that is called 'football' in the US. But it isn't in the UK.

And the country distinctions are important - american football is an 'accepted' term for gridiron (to use another term again) in Britain (to distinguish it from 'football'), american football isn't an accepted term for gridiron in the USA. And the converse is true also - soccer is an accepted term for association football in the USA, it isn't in Britain.

[ProfessorDavey]

Which is why huge numbers of police are deployed to keep the animals apart, different railway/bus stations etc are used for "fans" from different teams.

Really - news to me - have you ever actually been to a football game.

There is a longstanding tradition, dating from well before the upturn in hooliganism in the 1970s for football fans to congregate in certain parts of the ground - so effectively a 'home' end and an 'away' end - e.g Kop, Streford end etc. This is different to rugby which has always had a tradition of mixed areas. This wasn't originally to do with 'segregation' for security reasons at all, but just how the fans wanted to be. Indeed you see this still at tiny grounds (e.g. my local non league club) which has no segregation at all. The home fans congregate at one end, the away fans at the other and at half time there is a bizarre ritual where the fans move on mass to the opposite end so they are always behind the goal their team are attacking.

And sure at big ground with big attendances the different areas mean that fans need to access different entrances to the ground. But this is the same at any large attendance event - last time I attended the O2 for a concert, fans were guided to particular entrances to gain admittance.

But the notion that fans are somehow segregated outside of the ground is totally alien to me. When I'm wandering down Vicarage Road to a Watford game, the away fans are also wandering down the same road. Same thing outside the Arsenal stadium and any other match I can think of.

The only games I can think of that were different were cup semi finals, which were played at a neutral ground and fans were routed toward the stadium via different routes. But this wasn't anything to do with security but traffic management as (unusually) all fans are coming from a distance and often it is more sensible to route them to the stadium from different directions. And by the way, exactly the same thing happens at the Millennium stadium for rugby matches.

[john]

Proffesor


Your understanding of the term FOOTBALL VIOLENCE is different to mine.

I am not talking about a few drunks being locked up for rowdy behavoir.

I am talking about gangs of youths setting on another football fan for wearing the wrong colour scarf.

I'm talking gangs of youths chanting "your all a load of wankers" as they walk through Birmingham on their way to the station. The police do not arrest them because there are 200 of them and only 20 police men and if they each arrested 1 there would still be 180 left, so the police have to be pragmatic...... And no arrests appear on the statistics.

Visit any football grounds to see the large numbers of police deployed to separate and shepherd the fans out of/into the area. And observe the damage done along the way.

Visit any hospital A & E near a soccer ground and see who's there and why.

I take it you don't actually go anywhere near football grounds on match days.

It happens not only in England but all over the world where soccer is played.

And is definitely not the same as a few unconnected drunks being locked up as individuals at other public events.

[ProfessorDavey]

Proffesor


Your understanding of the term FOOTBALL VIOLENCE is different to mine.

I am not talking about a few drunks being locked up for rowdy behavoir.

I am talking about gangs of youths setting on another football fan for wearing the wrong colour scarf.

I'm talking gangs of youths chanting "your all a load of wankers" as they walk through Birmingham on their way to the station. The police do not arrest them because there are 200 of them and only 20 police men and if they each arrested 1 there would still be 180 left, so the police have to be pragmatic...... And no arrests appear on the statistics.

Visit any football grounds to see the large numbers of police deployed to separate and shepherd the fans out of/into the area. And observe the damage done along the way.

Visit any hospital A & E near a soccer ground and see who's there and why.

I take it you don't actually go anywhere near football grounds on match days.

It happens not only in England but all over the world where soccer is played.

And is definitely not the same as a few unconnected drunks being locked up as individuals at other public events.

Due you really think that the type of incident you describe (and I am not denying it happens occasionally associated with football) would not be reported to the police and recorded in the official figures that are released each year for football related incidents. Of course they are. And the numbers of these incidents are declining year on year and resulted in about 1800 arrests last year (inside and outside grounds at all matches at every level of football down to non league) out of about 38,000,000 attendance across all matches and all divisions.

And yes I do go near football grounds on match days - because often I am attending that match. Do you? Do you know what you are actually talking about.

And actually of those 1800 arrests the vast majority are of the type you describe as 'a few drunks being locked up for rowdy behaviour'. Last year there were less than 300 arrests for 'violent disorder', which would include (but not be limited to) what you describe as 'gangs of youths setting on another football fan for wearing the wrong colour scarf' with the victim ending up in A&E.

So for 38,000,000 attendance events there are a few hundred arrests for violent disorder - hardly a common occurrence at football matches, surely you'd agree if you actually bothered to look at the evidence rather than your blinkered prejudice. So, no A&E departments aren't filled with football fans admitted as victims of football related violence.

And why is this so different to the drunken violence and arrests in Cardiff flowing last February's Wales vs England rugby, or the arrests (at a much higher number per game than in English football) in the 2011 rugby world cup in New Zealand, or the 15 arrests per year (just in the ground) at the small number of rugby games at Twickenham - again at rates similar to or probably higher than in top flight English football.

So I am not complacent - I don't want to see any incidents, but a small number are almost inevitable at major events involving rival fans and with alcohol involved. However you want to see the numbers declining (as it is in football), and that decline to be a longstanding an consistent trend (as in football) - you want it taken seriously (as it is in football). What you don't want is complacency (as in rugby), failure even to properly report and monitor incidents and trends (as in rugby), with a clear impression of an increasing problem (as in rugby) that no one really seems to want to address because it is just 'high spirits' (as in rugby).

[BeRational]

also known as soccer.

To save us both time, let's assume you are going to deny soccer is a legitimate term for football ad infinitum and I am going to assert it ad infinitum.

Yes let's do that, cos it's football.

[ProfessorDavey]

Yes let's do that, cos it's football.

I've noting that Jeremy P has chosen to ignore my discussions about the person who came up with the term 'soccer' and why right from the very beginning he, and his little slang term, were unlikely ever to be accepted by the growing league of fans of the developing clubs in the 1890s.

He despised them and their developing professional clubs and they despised him for his elitist attitude and appalling actions towards professional footballers. The term soccer was synonymous with that elitist, establishment and anti-professional, anti-working class attitude, so not surprising that with the development of football as a working class, professional game the accepted term in Britain was always football, not soccer, and has always remained football nor soccer.

This is a man who, when he captained England (twice) and was also a selector ensured that every player on the pitch with him was amateur, ignoring every professional player despite the fact that by the 1890s the best teams and best players were professional.

This was the man who in his last match for England (of four caps) when he wasn't captain or involved in selection and therefore had to play with his hated professionals, showed his derision for them and the notion that they got paid for playing football by carrying money onto the pitch and pointedly give each professional who scored a coin to show both his derision for them and also emphasising his wealth and lack of need to earn when playing.

He also had contempt for football supporters - he thought that the game should be played but not watched.

This is the guy who coined soccer - this is the guy who stood for everything that the grassroots fans and professional players were fighting against - this was the term they rejected.

[BeRational]

I've noting that Jeremy P has chosen to ignore my discussions about the person who came up with the term 'soccer' and why right from the very beginning he, and his little slang term, were unlikely ever to be accepted by the growing league of fans of the developing clubs in the 1890s.

He despised them and their developing professional clubs and they despised him for his elitist attitude and appalling actions towards professional footballers. The term soccer was synonymous with that elitist, establishment and anti-professional, anti-working class attitude, so not surprising that with the development of football as a working class, professional game the accepted term in Britain was always football, not soccer, and has always remained football nor soccer.

This is a man who, when he captained England (twice) and was also a selector ensured that every player on the pitch with him was amateur, ignoring every professional player despite the fact that by the 1890s the best teams and best players were professional.

This was the man who in his last match for England (of four caps) when he wasn't captain or involved in selection and therefore had to play with his hated professionals, showed his derision for them and the notion that they got paid for playing football by carrying money onto the pitch and pointedly give each professional who scored a coin to show both his derision for them and also emphasising his wealth and lack of need to earn when playing.

He also had contempt for football supporters - he thought that the game should be played but not watched.

This is the guy who coined soccer - this is the guy who stood for everything that the grassroots fans and professional players were fighting against - this was the term they rejected.

Excellent post.

I guess that's why it's football.

I never even heard the term 'soccer ' when I was young.

[ProfessorDavey]

Excellent post.

I guess that's why it's football.

I never even heard the term 'soccer ' when I was young.

Thanks.

Yes I never heard my father (lifelong Burnley fan, but always followed his local team, whether that be Brentford, Tranmere, St Albans, Queen of the South etc) call football 'soccer' nor anyone else of his generation who were football fans. Nor did I ever hear my Grandparents (Burnley and Man C fans respectively) call it 'soccer'.

Nope as far as I am concerned those involved with and committed to football have always called it just that - football, never soccer. If there was a nickname it was always 'footie'.