Image of a Britain that is falling apart
There is a heightened consciousness of dysfunction all around us. Sport holds up a mirror to society, and when you have
Oxford rowers lamenting a Boat Race E.coli outbreak because of raw sewage in the Thames and Newcastle fans unable to return home from a 3pm kick-off at Fulham because of train strikes, an impression forms of a country coming apart at the seams.
This intensifies amid multiplying scenes of disorder. Take the police officers injured last month in pitched battles at Millwall, or the man left with blood pouring from his head as the ultras of Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion came to blows. So much for sport offering an escape from chaos.
It is possible to draw a straight line between deteriorating fan conduct and the image of a Britain that is falling apart. When the Euros final at Wembley in 2021 descended into a dystopia of hard drugs and mob rule, the temptation was to blame the debacle on lockdowns that had frayed the threads of civilisation.
Baroness Casey’s report on that ghastly night contained 29 separate references to the pandemic. But with stadiums restored to full capacity for alm
“I went along with it a little, this idea of letting off steam,” Dr Newson explains. “But nobody forgot how to behave. I just think that’s nonsensical. Generally people don’t forget.
I believe now that, just as in 1980s hooligan culture, there is this massive dissatisfaction with the political climate, plus frustration with the economic situation. And that makes people much more intense about their territories.ost three years, this fashion for using Covid-19 as a catch-all excuse no longer washes.
“This comes into play in football, clearly. I refer to it as ‘access to resources’. It encompasses territory, having your own home, and it brings in immigration and job losses. They all go together. Maybe people work 40 hours a week but they still don’t have enough to live comfortably or to buy a home. It’s an economic question, but it’s more about the perception of whether we have enough. That creates huge fractures between communities. And in sport, this increases the perception of threat. People are more defensive of their clubs.”
https://archive.ph/z2ea0#selection-2933.0-2945.550