The Rise And Fall Of The English Football Hooligan
Violent British fans aren't what they used to be
In May 1985, 60,000 fans of Liverpool and Juventus crammed into the decrepit Heysel stadium in Brussels for the European Cup final when fighting erupted. Courts would later find that organizers badly handled how they allocated tickets and failed to properly separate supporters in a decaying sporting structure, but they also blamed the aggression squarely on Liverpool lads, who charged a group of Juventus and pushed them into a fragile wall. When the wall collapsed, 39 people tragically died, the vast majority Italian.
Heysel led to a ban on English clubs playing in mainland Europe and the name is drilled into English (and Italian) football followers. It’s also a marker as a high point in English hooliganism and the moment that the British government began seriously clamping down on it, which it was ultimately successful at.
At this hooligan zenith in the eighties, English fans were infamous round the globe, sometimes referred to as the “English disease,” and on a weekly basis, nasty clashes took place across grounds in England, Wales, and in the Scottish league.
Today, in contrast, England hooligan mobs are a shadow of their former selves and Mexican fans are unlikely to worry about any serious crew starting trouble in Mexico City when England faces El Tri at the daunting Azteca Stadium on Sunday. Meanwhile, football ultras with violent reputations have risen in other countries including Poland, Russia, Argentina and Honduras.
How the British establishment quelled hooliganism is an interesting story, involving undercover coppers, big money, and enhanced government powers (some say overreach), that I detail below. Yet there are elements of English hooliganism lingering, and some fans will still go on a rampage when the national squad loses.
A first point to understand about English hooligans is to differentiate between spontaneous mobs of fans who get drunk and start fighting and the organized hooligan gangs, known as…
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