Marching On Together!

Ahh Football...

After attending the heavenly stadium that is Elland Road to watch my beloved Leeds United give the MK Dons a 4 - 1 kicking on Saturday, I felt inspired to write a blog on football hooliganism. Not that there was any that I'm aware of before or after Saturday's game...

Hooliganism ranges from actual fist fights and shouting verbal abuse to full on riots. In some cases, stadium brawls have caused fans to flee in panic, causing walls and fences to collapse and actually kill people. Of course, these are only extreme cases, but it has happened. Most notably...

The Hillsborough Disaster:

On 15th April 1989, at Hillsborough Stadium, the home of Sheffield Wednesday FC, a human crush occured. Leaving 96 Liverpool fans dead. It remains the deadliest stadium-related disaster in British history and one of the worst ever international football accidents.The match was a FA Cup semi final tie between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, and was abandoned six minutes into the game.

In the lead up to the game, it was reported that many fans were caught in unannounced road works on the M62, causing thousands of fans to arrive at Hillsborough late. There were far too many fans trying to get in and not enough turnstiles. Those who had been refused entry were unable to move because of the crush behind them, and as a result, caused a massive obstruction. A small gate was opened to eject someone, and twenty fans got in. There was an estimated 5,000 fans attempting to get into the Stadium, so a gate was opened to try and ease the build up, this caused a rush of supporters into the Stadium. The rush of fans into the pens caused a crush at the front, against the fences (which were put up due to hooliganism). For some time, the problem at the front of the pen was not noticed by anybody other than those affected; the attention of most people was absorbed by the match, which had already begun. It was not until 3:06 pm that the referee, Ray Lewis, after being advised by the police, stopped the match several minutes in after fans had started climbing the fence to escape the crush. By this time, a small gate in the fencing had been forced open and some fans escaped via this route; others continued to climb over the fencing, and still other fans were pulled to safety by fellow fans in the West Stand directly above the Leppings Lane terrace. Finally the fence broke under pressure of people. As these events unfolded, some police officers were still being deployed to make a cordon three-quarters of the way down the pitch, with the aim of preventing Liverpool supporters reaching the Nottingham Forest supporters at the opposite end of the stadium. Some fans tried to break through the police cordon to ferry injured supporters to waiting ambulances, and were forcibly turned back. Forty-four ambulances had arrived at the stadium but police prevented all but one from entering.The fans were packed so tightly in the pens that many of the fatalities died standing up of compressive asphyxia. The pitch quickly started to fill with people sweating and gasping for breath and injured by crushing, and with the bodies of the dead. The youngest to die was 10.

The Hillsborough Disaster was a consequence of hooliganism, which was rife in the 1980's. Fencing was put up to stop pitch invasions and to try and control the violence in the terraces. Because of these fences, 96 people died. I've actually spent the last two days researching as much as possible into this disaster, and after spending many hours searching on youtube have found coverage from last years 20th Anniversary from the Football Focus show. It's in 7 parts, but is incredibly heart wrenching and thought provoking. I knew very little about the disaster until recently and fully intend on laying flowers for the dead at Anfield over the summer as a mark of respect.

Hooliganism is mainly caused through rivalries between football clubs. Obviously local teams are rivals, but also teams that actually are not that close together are also rivals. Leeds United and Manchester United have a long standing rivalry which originates from the rivalries between Yorkshire and Lancashire (Then again though, everyone hates Man Utd, apart from their supporters, who in the most case, are not from Manchester, and before you say anything, I may not live in Leeds myself, or be from Yorkshire, but as of June I will be and have already attended more Leeds United games than most Man Utd fans will ever attend so :P) This rivalry was in full bloom when Leeds United were at the top of their game in the 'Don Revie' days.

Pretty much every football club in England has what is called a 'firm', which is basically a gang. Some of them are more notorious than others, more so because of the level of violence which occurs. West Ham's ICF are well known, alongside Millwall's Bushwhackers. Millwall fans have more of a reputation when it comes to violence though, as do Cardiff supporters. Unfotunately for me, being a Leeds fan, Leeds' 'Service Crew' are also pretty notorious as being pretty violent. But every club has elements of violence and nastiness, some are just more documented than others.

Onto the subject of hooliganism and violence with regards to Leeds United, I want to talk about an incident that occured 10 years ago this month on the 5th April. Chris Loftus and Kevin Speight were brutally stabbed to death by Galataseray fans in Turkey in 2000. The Turks say that the violence erupted when the English insulted the Turkish flag, however, they found one man guilty after he confessed to stabbing one of the men and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He has not spent one minute of this sentence behind bars. Post mortems showed that Mr Loftus was stabbed 17 times, while Mr Speight suffered six stab wounds. These men were in their late thirties and had wives and children. Obviously, I didn't know them myself, but my wedding co ordinator, in a twist of fate did. She grew up with Chris and knew him and his family well. When I spoke to her about it she confirmed my suspicions that these men were not hooligans, they were just life long Leeds fans who had gone to see their beloved team play in a foreign country. I don't doubt that there were hooligans there that day, I just believe that those who ended up being killed, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Every year a minutes silence is observed at the match closest to the anniversary of the deaths.

This year saw the 10th anniversary of the killings, and around 300 Leeds United fans gathered at Elland Road to pay their respects on the day. My partner and I were unable to attend that day, but we did take some flowers as a mark of respect later that week. This is a picture of the Billy Bremner statue which is situated outside the club shop on the East side of Elland Road.

For further information on football hooliganism see films such as Green Street, which concentrates on the West Ham firms, The Football Factory and the Firm.

This is part one of the Hillsborough disaster Football Focus special. I urge you to watch them all.