Tommy Martin: Where does personal responsibility go in a football crowd?

ABUSED: Real Madrid's Brazilian forward Vinicius Junior gestures toward the crowd during the Spanish League football match between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid at the Wanda Metropolitano stadium. Pic: Oscar Del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images

They came in their hundreds of thousands, day after day. Some were long-time devotees, others simply felt compelled to join in the collective outpouring of emotion. All were drawn by the unique power of a figure at once remote but also familiar, uniquely charismatic but deeply ordinary.

Yes, Garth Brooks puts on a hell of a show.

Recent events are a reminder of the biblical directive that one should take care of the plank in one’s own eye before turning to the speck in your brother’s. It appeared obvious to us in Ireland that the prolonged mourning following the death of Queen Elizabeth II was more evidence that Britain has lost the collective plot. But this coming from a nation where 400,000 paid to listen to a man pretending to be a cowboy. Only 250,000 queued up to see the Queen lying in state, and she was free in.

The Brits are mad, we thought to ourselves countless times over the last fortnight, even though the personification of our own contemporary national mood would be a farmer from Monaghan walking around north Dublin dressed like the Milky Bar Kid. All of which is a reminder that no people are immune from the desire for shared symbols and cultural rituals. This is equally true whether one has royal blood or friends in low places.

Of course, if it’s strange behaviour in large groups you are after then you’ve come to the right place. Countless academic theses have been written on how crowds at sporting events engage in collective hysteria. Royal events may generate inexplicable outbreaks of emotion, but nothing compared to the average county final.

Take the footage filmed from among the Bohemians support in the moments after their team’s FAI Cup spanking by Shelbourne on Sunday. A losing team being booed by disgruntled fans is standard fare. But when you watch it detached from context, via the unsparing, granular lens of a cameraphone, it all looks rather silly.

Exhausted, demoralised, semi-professional athletes trudge over to acknowledge their supporters, who, in return, are telling them to “fuck off” and making obscene gestures with their fingers. Grown men, many of them in sturdy middle age, shout “Boo!” very loudly, over and over again. If a person did it to you in the street you would shuffle nervously away from the nutcase. Instead, the Bohemians players applauded their abusers.

Such deference to the mob was not the case when the Great British Wake Off was marred by the behaviour of Celtic and Dundee United fans, who didn’t get the memo that the death of a 96-year-old dog enthusiast had seen Britain declared an Orwellian monoculture. The Dundonians broke the sombre silence before their game against none-more-loyal Rangers with boos, as well as renditions of well-known Shamrock Rovers ditty Lizzie’s In A Box. The Green Brigade, Celtic’s ultras group, greeted the demise of the sovereign with banners saying things like ‘Fuck The Crown’ and ‘If You Hate The Royal Family Clap Your Hands’.

Naturally this carry-on sparked outrage. Dundee United fans were reportedly pelted with bottles by their Ibrox hosts, while Graeme Souness, who had the late Queen’s portrait put up in the Rangers dressing room during his time as manager, claimed that Celtic had become the “unacceptable face of Scottish football”.

None in the disrespect Gestapo cared to mention that the deceased figurehead presided over a constitutional monarchy, not a totalitarian dictatorship. The Queen’s famous inscrutability was deliberately constructed to permit the tolerance of a wide range of views among her subjects. Who knows, given the parade of oddballs, ingrates and alleged nonces within her royal brood, perhaps Elizabeth would have been clapping her hands herself were she still with us?

Far less palatable dissent came from the Atletico Madrid supporters ahead of their derby defeat to Real Madrid last weekend. Vinicius Junior, Real’s black, Brazilian superstar was greeted with monkey chants before and during the game. The appalling abuse followed comments by Pedro Bravo, a talking head on Spanish TV who accused Vinicius of “acting the monkey” because of his fondness for a goal celebration dance.

Bravo later apologised for the remark, claiming it did not have racist intent, but the Atletico fans heard the command of the dog whistle loud and clear. The quick descent of an inter-club slanging match into the basest form of racist prejudice has been seen as a shocking reflection on Spanish society. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, an Atletico supporter, took time out from the United Nations General Assembly to address the issue, saying he was “very sad” and calling on the club to take strong action.

Just another week in the lives of humble congregating folk. What drives our behaviour when grouped together in large numbers? Psychologists might point to the sense of permission we get in a crowd, an absolution of personal responsibility to suppress our darker tendencies, whether it’s racism, abusing underperforming footballers or donning double denim and a Stetson hat in public.

The collective spirit is powerful, responsible throughout history for mass delusion, courageous dissent and terrible evil. Maybe the Atletico fans making monkey chants at a young Brazilian footballer were experiencing a dark and twisted version of the sense of belonging shared by those mourning the Queen or those cutting loose in Croke Park. If there are currents flowing in society, malign or benign, they will surface wherever crowds gather, finding expression in our need to be bound together.

Speaking on England duty this week, Tottenham’s Eric Dier said his family no longer go to away matches after an incident in 2020 when he waded into the crowd to deal with an abusive supporter after a league cup defeat to Norwich. The fan, who had been shouting abuse at Dier throughout the match, had gotten into a row with Dier’s younger brother. Upon seeing the player heading his way – his shield of anonymity broken, a mere individual once more – the man turned and fled into the night.