Football Fans - Is terrace hatred worse now than back then ??

Loki

Loki

Loki

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Ok this is a bit of random thread but what are peoples thoughts on the current climate of terrace hostilities at football at the moment ? This week we heard of Leeds and Man United fans going to to toe, trading as much filth as possible about Turkey and Munich. Nothing new there, but I get a feeling that some of the stuff that goes with football nowadays north and south of the border goes beyond abusing your nearest rival. Some of the hatred towards opposing teams and players is just sickening.


When Sky took over football they made it into a product to be commercialised all around the world and a lot of the violence associated with it was took off our screens. It never really went away, it was just moved away from the ground as we saw a few years ago with West Ham & Millwall. When you listen to football phone is, the majority of calls is now about condemning fans own players. The Mindset of 'I Pay to go through the turnstiles and that gives me a right to boo and abuse my own team if I see fit' is becoming all too common.

Whenever you look at the results list and look for local derbies, you only need to scratch the surface of the internet to see that some kind of violence and abuse goes hand in hand with the game.

On a personal level I started going to United in the Mid 80s and have seen all sorts in and around the streets of Old Trafford before and after games. Better Policing, Better Seating and Sky saw a lot of this kicked out of the game. Racism I feel is gone but certainly not forgotten but as I say the terrace hatred seems to have gone to a next level. Before anyone thinks I have an agenda on this I don't . I find some of the chants from people associated with Man Utd, Leeds Utd & Liverpool to be beyond the line and all three equally as bad.

Not to single out Leeds on this but I don't see this getting better any time soon. The Daily Fail reports of a video on YouTube of a 4 year old kid being taught the 'Munich' Song. I am 100% sure if you dog deep enough there are videos of kids being taught songs about Heysel, Hillsborough, Turkey, The Pope or whatever. How do you stop the hatred if kids are being taught this from an early age ?? Let's try and have a discussion without this turning into they did this and they did that and singling out teams. The issue is about football in general. Is some of the hatred now an accepted part of our game should it be an accepted part of our game.
 
No. There will always be a small minority of ***** at every club but the exposure their opinions get through social media and video streaming sites is far greater now than it's ever been.
 
I don't go to away games so don't notice it on that end.

But at home Toon only tend to abuse the Sunderland fans even then, apart from a minority, it's just good natured banter.

Everyone knows about dirty Leeds, I have friends that are Wolves fans, Portsmouth fans, Arsenal and Everton and all are united in their hatred of that clubs fans attitudes, so its not a shock they were involved in more trouble.
 
To be fair to Leeds, The Man U fans had flags, flares and chants. Only towards the end of the match did Leeds sing back

Not that I excuse them, those sort of chants are blooming awful and have no place in the game
 
You're talking about millions of football fans, and often the more pationate fans of any particular club who tend to go often.

If 80k people turned up to watch a Croquet match, there WOULD be a fight between someone, thats life. F1, two photographers got in each others way and got into a fight, humans are passionate and get angry, people will fight, larger groups of people are FAR more likely to fight. Football is simply the most popular sport in this country, with the most people involved both on the pitch and as fans, spectators. If Football was as popular as badmington as a spectator sport, and ping pong drew crowds of millions across the country every few days, this thread would be about ping pong fans.

People are violent, frequently, theres not much more to it than that.
 
"Dirty Leeds" came from tough tacking players of the 70/80's not the fans no1newts so I have no idea why you just wrote that.

Fans will do anything to wind up the oppositions fans, it will never stop even as vile as it all sounds.
 
Seriously, it mus be me getting soft as I get older but football does seem to be more violent nowadays than before. I was at my lads game this morning. Got offered out by two of the parents today. Why ??? because I left their kids on the bench because they didn't turn up to training. Under 10's 2nd division match. WTF gives :confused:

If you do some reading around Football, Hooliganism and violence, you see that it is a good barometer of the state of society. While their is a lot of social unrest, I expect football related violence and the like to be on the increase. Do not expect any of the vitriol to change any time soon
 
I was at a Liverpool - Everton game a couple of seasons ago, sitting in the very left handside of the Main stand (very close to the Everton fans in the Anfield Road stand) and pre-match and at half-time you had friends shouting across to each other arranging where to meet up for a drink after the game etc.

The second the whistle blew for the start of the game or 2nd half, everything changed and the abusive chants were fired back and forth (no bias but more tasteless chants coming from the Everton fans). The change in behaviour was surreal.

Whether it's worse now than 'back then', I can't comment because I wasn't arround to compare but it's been said a lot that the Merseyside derby specifically has got worse in terms of the chanting etc.
 
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BaZ87 said:
I was at a Liverpool - Everton game a couple of seasons ago, sitting in the very left handside of the Main stand (very close to the Everton fans in the Anfield Road stand) and pre-match and at half-time you had friends shouting across to each other arranging where to meet up for a drink after the game etc.

The second the whistle blew for the start of the game or 2nd half, everything changed and the abusive chants were fired back and forth (no bias but more tasteless chants coming from the Everton fans). The change in behaviour was surreal.

Whether it's worse now than 'back then', I can't commen because I wasn't arround to compare but it's been said a lot that the Merseyside derby specifically has got worse in terms of the chanting etc.
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I work with a lot of Liverpool and Everton fans and the consensus is the 'Friendly' Derby is no longer Friendly.

I dunno, but my observations are that in the 70's and 80s Football was looked down upon as an inferior sport because of the Fans. In the 90s we had this period of football being the sport of 2.4 children, Mum & Dad and a trip to the souvenir shop at half time outweighing the local working class man who went for the craic and a pie at half time.

Now were at this almost unhappy point where their is this awful undercurrent, probably from 'lads' who go to more away games than home games. It's out and out hatred before the football.
 
I think strides have been made in terms of racism but the problem is that racism isn't the only dark side to terrace behaviour (not that I'm seeking to belittle it as an issue). If I have children I will definitely have second thoughts about taking them to football matches at least until they reach a certain age.

I know you get abusive behaviour in all walks of life but it does seem that sporting events almost have their own microcosm where people can group together and hurl abuse that they wouldn't normally do in any other situation. In part this is down to the obsession with singing songs that football fans have, it is almost a source of pride for supporters to be noisy and create a 'good atmosphere'.

The impression I get is that violence isn't worse than it used to be though, extremely rare I see anything going down in or around the Emirates. Things must have been pretty tame in 70s/80s (before I started attending matches) if it's got worse since then, which I find hard to believe.
 
Unfortunately, too many fans that go to football games regularly are scum and the kind of people you'd avoid at all costs in your every day life.

I find it embarrassing being at a football game listening to the language that is hurled towards players and officials. It then saddens me deeply when these people have a small child next to them who is following their lead.

Watching football on television and seeing a player taking a throw in having a 40 year old man screaming obscenities at him is also extremely saddening. When you look at their faces when they are doing it, you'd be forgiven for thinking that footballer had just murdered the person's wife as there is such hatred there.

When I have children, I don't think I'll be in any rush to take them to a live game. At least not until they are at the point where they understand the actions shown by a lot of the people there is not acceptable.
 
I don't think fans are worse now. I think Football is now a better environment then ever.

Certain matches, the Steel City Battle (Wednesday v United) Still aren't for the faint hearted and certainly take people that are young or not used to football rivalries by surprise at just how unpleasant everyone is.

There are always going to be idiots at clubs, but the rise of the Internet / Sky / Coverage has given them a platform.

Leeds aren't called a dirty team for anything off the field (that would be Millwall) Leeds were just a tough side in the 70's, no clue why you'd say that about them newts. I know several Leeds fans, top banter with them.
 
There was a book I read as a teen called 'Steaming In' about terrace violence. I have honestly never experienced anything as bad as what I read in the book.

Maybe I get the wrong impression, though I don't think Forest fans have a reputation for being nutters.
 
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