Football Hooliganism

Stephen Wells, writing in the Grauniad, takes note of the American fascination with British soccer hooliganism and the simultaneous blindness to the violence and mayhem associated with sports events in the U.S.:

There's not much soul-searching about sports hooliganism within the US - and what little there is tends to focus on the behaviour of African-American basketball players rather than predominantly white football fans. For no matter how many college games end in drunken mob violence (as many do), no matter how many American city centres see running battles between sports fans and riot police, the US sports media continues to present hooliganism as something utterly un-American. (This blinkered provincialism has parallels with the 1996 decision by the US State Department to "red flag" parts of south London as no-go areas for American tourists, claiming that Millwall was as dangerous as Guatemala - which, at the time, was overrun by right-wing death squads.)

When it comes to hooliganism, the US media really is the pot calling the kettle black. Riots at US sports events occur far more frequently than they do in the UK. And yet, in American popular culture, the "hooligan" is almost without exception portrayed as a soccer fan (and nearly always as English).

Wells focuses in particular on the fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, who seem to have a particulary extreme reputation for mayhem. Or perhaps Wells happened to be in a position to observe Eagles fans and took his story from there.

The connection between sports, violence, and the impulse to war is a deep one. It deserves close examination. It is interesting that, rather than examining it, we so conspicuously look the other way.

(via black_pearl_10)