Football Hooliganism: Leicester School Perspective - Essay Example

?Football Hooliganism: Leicester School Perspective For many years, football hooliganism was known as the “British disease” due to the prevalence in which the vice had spread matches across Britain and was a great concern across Europe in general. UK, Germany, Holland and Italy have had the largest cases of hooliganism while other countries such as Greece, Denmark and Austria have had a fair share of the hooliganism (Marsh et al., 1996). There are raging debates across European countries and frustrations in the failure to deal with the anti-social behaviours of some football fans. However, the debates have failed to result into an absolute cure for the football menace. The media though discussing the issue in detail has not been of help apart from making a sensational debate in a hysterical manner, which has not succeeded in solving he issue (Marsh e al, 1996). Most people are quick to blame the violence of some thugs or ‘scum’ whose interest is not to enjoy the game, but to populate the terraces with a view of causing chaos after. Social scientists have devoted their efforts in explaining the behaviour of fans and the factors to blame for the violence, but with no much success. However, to prove the seriousness of the issues the Leicester University sought to devote a whole centre aimed at researching on football and hooliganism, which made a great breakthrough in understanding the nature and trends of the menace in football. Soon after, many academicians and universities realized the seriousness of the issue and embarked on studies to understand the nature and the cause of football violence across Europe. Other than using theoretical perspectives, academicians zeroed in on understating the behaviours of fans in their hometowns, and the factors that may be blamed for triggering such violence in football matches (Mash et al, 1996). The contributions of Leicester University in demystifying football hooliganism lead to formation of a sociological school of thought based on Leicester University studies, which made wide ranging breakthroughs in understanding the vice and laying a platform on which numerous scholars based their studies. Leicester University scholars responded to earlier theories that tried to explain football hooliganism and how it could be approached, through a ‘figuration sociological approach’ that borrowed heavily from the theory of civilizing process by Norbert Elias (Spaaij, 2006). One of the school’s explanations was that over the years, values that are characteristic of a civilized behaviour had manifested in several classes across Europe, though the civilization behaviour had not adequately penetrated the lower classes of workers. Thus the theory tried to establish a relationship between the lower classes of the society and football itself (Spaaij, 2006). Dunning and his research colleagues identified fighting as one of the ways in which these groups experienced some excitement, status and defined their meanings, as males in a lower working class trying to struggle economically and socially (Spaaij, 2006). Their aggressiveness could not be totally blamed on the way the lower social class groups were integrated in the society. There is a tendency for lower working class in the society to generate some specific norms compared to the norms of those in the high levels of the society; these norms helps them to deal with high levels of aggression in areas where there are social relations and are prevalent in males (Dunning et al., 1988). The above explanation by the Leicester school of thought has been the most consulted concept and forms the basic platform to inquire into causes and behaviours of fans in football hooliganism. In addition, the concept laid the back ground to investigate the nature of hooliganism, and has inspired many scholars across Europe in the last two decades to base their studies on such a social perspective to understand the occurrence of hooliganism in football matches. However, some scholars have found this explanation not convincing and have made some critics on different perspectives. For instance, Giulianotti (1999) claimed that Dunning’s assertion was highly generalized to attain a universal applicability and making it irrefutable in the scholarly work. In other words, critics viewed the figuration approach to be approaching teleology, though the Dunning’s approach still remains the most consulted body of research today (King, 2002). The problem with Leicester school approach was that most European countries lack well defined social structures in contrast with England, meaning that Dunning and colleagues in their research assumed some concepts that could have an effect on the applicability of their theoretical perspective (Spaaij, 2006). However, Dunning made a claim that research in other European countries showed that most fans who were blamed for hooliganism in football had a history of coming of social backgrounds that were similar to those of their English fans. However, the theory was still said to be leading to certain contradictions and grey areas that could not answer pertinent questions. For instance, a research by Spaaij & Vinas (2005) about Netherlands indicated that there existed a close relationship between an individual’s movement towards a lower class and hooliganism, though the situation was very different from what had been reported in Britain, where social factors were found to be more collectivists and with more attachment to social classes than in Netherlands. In this case, though the hooliganism was recorded from people on the downward mobility to lower classes, the people had actually not attained the social lower class as indicated in the sociological approach in the “Leicester School” school of thought. In addition, another research indicated that though most Scottish hooligans in football matches came from lower social levels, they were basically working class youths, which may lead to considering incorporating the hooligans in the social and economic structures in the society rather than excluding them on a structural basis (Spaaij, 2006). Moreover, Italian sociologists differed with the Leicester School’s sociology in that most Italian football hooligans were mainly from the working class and not from lower social class, as the Leicester School theory indicated. However, Roversi (2000) in his study confirmed Dunning assertion regarding the self-producing mechanism with regard to an ordered segmentation from which the hooligans emanate, though in the Italian case, such hooligans were not exclusively from the lowest or the roughest social class as Dunning sociological theory postulates. All the same, Roversi in his study does not accurately articulate the issues, as he does not differentiate between the working class fans interested in watching football and the hooligans whose aim was to seek confrontations in football matches. Therefore, Roversi does not critic Dunning’s work adequately, as he deals with the fan groups and their social classes, but not specifically with hooliganism. However, social studies in Italy reported differing behaviours of hooligans according to the areas of origin. The same variation was reported in Western Europe where in West Germany for example, hooligans came from all social classes (Spaaij, 2006). All the same, in East Germany, football hooliganism was within the Leicester school of thought in that they were mainly making a point of social protest and provocation, mainly due to the identity crises of East Germany fans and their social status, similar to the lower status of fans in England (Spaaij, 2006). In order to deal with these contradictions, Dunning (2000) accepted the fact that it would be difficult and unlikely that football hooliganism will result from similar social conditions in all countries, but may be triggered not only by social classes, but also by fault lines developed in different countries. For example, in England, football hooliganism was not only caused by social classes, but regional inequalities were possible causes. For instance, in Northern Island and Scotland, religious animosity was the main cause while in Spain; the issues of sub-nationalism were the main cause of football hooliganism while in Italy, city allegiants fuelled by division between the South and the North were to blame for football hooliganism. On the other hand, in German football hooliganism was as result of political affiliations between two sides that enjoyed varying socio-economic status, creating rivalry between the East and West Germany fans. In this argument, Dunning made some major breakthroughs in solving most of the earlier contradictions. In addition, Dunning (2000) emphasized that football hooliganism resulted from “city particularism and sectarianism” which explained participation of more people from higher social classes on such hooliganism contrary to the belief that such hooliganism was a preserve of those in the lower social classes, as his first sociological theory postulated. Therefore, Dunning asserted that there are deeply founded faults between groups in every country, resulting in rivalry and serious antagonism from each side of the fault; faults resulted in formation of out-groups that were responsible for football hooliganism as a way to communicate their antagonistic behaviours in a violent manner against a perceived ‘enemy’ group. Dunning (2000) explanation of social faults was a major turning point in Leicester school of sociology, towards understanding football hooliganism in a broader perspective and to address the views raised by the school’s critics. Application of the fault line theory leads to major advantages that offer a broader explanation towards football hooliganism across European countries and in other places. First, the theory raised more concerns and awareness regarding existence of cross-cultural differences in football hooliganism trends, and helped to explain to a good degree of clarity the cause and development of the outsider and insider concepts that characterized rival groups football matches (Spaaij, 2006). However, there were still some weaknesses of the fault line perspective in that it failed to produce a holistic explanation of football hooliganism. In addition, the perspective made major assumptions in making cases of generalization that do not address incidences of localized rivalry in football, do not offer a detailed understanding of the interaction that exists between non-hooligan and hooligan fans, policemen and club officials; the sociological theory does not accurately address the general football hooliganism that occurs on the global scale (Spaaij, 2006). These cases call for a more localized approach to the issue of football hooliganism, considering the different patterns and trends of football hooliganism not only across Europe, but globally as well. All the same Leicester school sociological theories on football have had a huge impact as an eye opener in dealing with football hooliganism on a global scale; the Leicester school thoughts have been a platform on which scholars have based their studies. The reason as to why the school has a huge impact is that England has recorded the highest number of hooligan cases in football games globally. Ideally, there are three factors that make the country’s hooliganism different from the rest. Firstly, England was notorious for football hooliganism with a long history of violence in football games reported since the 19th century. In fact English football hooliganism was exported to other countries such as to Netherlands after a visit by violent English fans (Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research, n.d). Consequently, most European hooliganism was borrowed from their English counterparts. Secondly, England has played an active role in exporting football hooliganism compared to other countries. In the 1980s and 70s, while the English fans were causing havoc in football matches, there were no major recorded cases where a foreign team was involved in violence in their visit to the country; inter-country hooliganism was on a lower scale with no major incidences. This made the case study of hooliganism in England to offer a good perspective in which to approach the issue of hooliganism in football globally (Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research, n.d). Thirdly, though many countries might had domestic hooligan issues in local clubs, there were no major cases where intense conflict between fans supporting their national teams. Committed fans that included some hooligan groups had shown intense commitment to their respective local clubs with much lower interests in the national teams in countries such as France, Italy, Holland and Spain, though in England, the issue was different. In the 1980s and 1990s, the major hooliganism problem was not tied to local clubs similar to these countries, but was in supporting the national team (Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research, n.d). These comparisons of trends and patterns of hooliganism across Europe when compared to hooliganism cases in Britain, the school of Leicester has made significant contributions to understand hooliganism and the issues that may be blamed for triggering cases of hooliganism. It is this understanding through the school Leicester that has formed the basis for other scholars to formulate studies to either collaborate or critic the sociological thought in Leicester school. Consequently, the school opened a new chapter that has led to understanding of the nature of football hooliganism not only across Europe but globally. Football hooliganism had been major problem across Europe, with Britain bearing the greatest threat of hooliganism for many years. Many theories had been structured to understand the issue of hooliganism especially in European countries where it was prevalent. However, it was not until the Leicester school of thought was formulated that the issue of hooliganism became clearer and scholars made attempts to understand the issue in greater details. Therefore, Leicester University made great contributions towards understanding football hooliganism across the globe. References Dunning, E. 2000. “Towards a sociological understanding of football hooliganism as a world phenomenon.” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 8: 141­162. Dunning, E., Murphy, P. & Williams, J. 1988. The Roots of Football Hooliganism: An  Historical  and  Sociological  Study. London:  Routledge & Kegan  Paul. Giulianotti, R. 1999. Football: A Sociology of the Global Game. Cambridge: Polity. King, A. 2002. The End of the Terraces: The Transformation of English Football in the 1990s. London: Leicester University Press. Roversi, A. 2000. “Italian ultras today: change or decline?” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 8: 183­199. Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research. Fact Sheet 1 : Football and Football Hooliganism. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 22 Aug. 2013]. Spaaij, R. & Vinas, C. 2005. “Passion, politics and violence: A Socio­historical analysis of Spanish ultras.” Soccer and Society, 6: 79­96. Spaaij, R. 2006. Aspects of Hooligan Violence: A Reappraisal of Sociological Research into Football Hooliganism. Amsterdam School for Social Research. Working paper 02/06 Read More