Hooliganism has been around for many many years and the debate on whether the "war" on hooliganism is successfull is an ongoing topic. Hooliganism refers to unruly, destructive, aggressive and bullying behavior. Such behaviour is commonly associated with sports fans, particularly supporters of football (soccer). The term can also apply to general rowdy behavior and vandalism, often under the influence of alcohol and or drugs. These "fans" congrigate in "firms" and use thier cell phones and the internet to meet up with other "firms" at agreed locations to fight. This is not just happing in football nations but also the USA.
May 29th, 1985. Liverpool vs. Juventas, Heysel Stadium. Liverpool fans broke through a police barrier thinking they would be met by Ultras which is a Juventus hooligan firm they ran into Italian families who then tried to run away and in doing so, forcing a wall to colapse and crushing those beneath it. This inceident of hooliganism cause 39 deaths.
Ghana, 2001. Fans stampeded to the exits after police caused panic by firing tear gas in to the crowd after some trouble began with just five minutes remaining of the match. The panic caused by the police caused the fans to charge out of the stadium, crushing 125 people and injuring many more.
July 2008, Columbus, Ohio. The Columbus Crew were hosting West Ham in a friendly match over 100 Crew and West Ham fans clashed before the game. In that same weekend, members of the Empire Supports Club (ESC) who are the supporters for the New York Red Bulls, where permanently ejected and banned from football matches. They clashed with NJSEA security force over what the ESC believed to be unfair and repeated mistreatment.
The use of security cameras in the venues and the use of police force has cut down on hooliganism in football nations. Will hooligamism ever go away or will the acts of hooliganism pick up? Only time will tell because such behavior would be appropriate in the 1950's but not in present times.
I think it is so crazy that hooliganism can be that violent and even lead to so many deaths. Even though most of these horrible events happened awhile ago, I know they still occur even to that extreme, we just might not know about them. I think its good that security has really been enforced because of this issue and hopefully it can stop more of these events from happening in the future. Nice blog, I really liked how you described the certain events and the dates they occurred.
ReplyDeleteThis was a good definition of hooliganism as well as examples of what happened. I wondered if you had sources where you found this information. If so, be sure to link to the article(s) that you use, or cite them on your entry.
ReplyDelete