Football can only be a reflection of society

The Premier League and Football Association will be delighted they secured their most recent global television deals before the recent spate of images depicting violence in around stadiums went viral.

For English football hooliganism has never stopped, it has just been conveniently airbrushed out of match-day coverage.

Mobile phones and social media have made everyone a journalist and small events are routinely blown into big ones. Any sane person in the English football watching world will think the dark days are back and that means they could stop paying to watch it.

But is it really anything new? As violent scenes are relatively rare these days, a photo of a contorted face or a video of a crowd surging is suddenly billed as a war zone. Have they not seen what is happening in Syria?

A colleague covering the West Ham v Chelsea match on Wednesday said he did not witness the trouble inside the ground until he saw it on Twitter as he had been watching the match and the fisticuffs had finished as quickly as it started.

Maybe his lack of shock was because he is from an era when hooliganism meant hand-to-hand fighting between like-minded people, not jostling with stewards and shouting abuse. And there is an argument these men should be given the stage – or a disused car park – to take their frustrations out on each other. ‘Anywhere but our football grounds’ is what the authorities seem to say as they wash their hands of the really bad trouble outside the stadiums.

It is one thing for the numbskulls to give each other brain damage, but not when there are innocent bystanders getting caught up in it too. The most disturbing images from West Ham were of a petrified eight-year-old girl who had been repeatedly hit by coins and was visibly shaking as she recounted the experience.

The scenes at West Ham’s London Stadium are an exception as the arena was built for spectators to watch athletics, without any need for segregation or intensive policing. Barely a match has passed there this season without some sort of disturbance.

And when a stadium is properly policed, aided by state of the art CCTV, the lads who like trouble just smash things up; as images of Man City fans destroying toilets at Old Trafford on Wednesday night illustrated.

There are numerous Twitter accounts devoted to the away day match experience and it is not just in Manchester, Liverpool, and London where photos and videos of aggro are posted. Similar anti-social behaviour is still going on when Wolves and West Brom meet, for a Sheffield derby, a Palace and Brighton clash and apparently whenever Warrington and Widnes face off in Rugby League.

And it is not because West Ham have moved to a stadium difficult to police we are witnessing regular occurrences of trouble again, for it was just the same at their hallowed Upton Park.

Covering their last match at The Boleyn Ground, against Manchester United last season, the visiting team bus was pelted by missiles from the awaiting home support. United’s departure from the ground that night was delayed while a replacement bus was secured and press and fans alike were locked inside the ground while the streets were cleared. But should we really be so surprised? When I attended matches as a fan in the Eighties, getting to and from Upton Park in one piece was an unenjoyable feat at the best of times. Getting pelted with coins and abuse inside the sanctity of the stadium was light relief compared to what one had to endure to get to and from there safely.

It is a sad fact a significant minority of men who like going to football, also like to fight and destroy. Getting in and out of Tottenham’s White Hart Lane was and is not much better and it sounded like Old Trafford was a similar arena of hate this week too.

There is no way I would take my daughter to an away match at any of those stadia, for fear she would witness what that poor young child endured at West Ham on Wednesday. But she does go to football fairly regularly as the game has never been more family friendly.

That is why the images from West Ham were so disturbing. Women and children are, thankfully, fully integrated into the modern match-day experience. Facilities have improved, grounds are more secure and high ticket prices have resulted in the wealthy prawn sandwich brigade deterring a lot of the old school crew from attending.

Football can only ever be a reflection of society, however, and many men of a certain age look back fondly to when these arenas were the only place one could end the working week over a few beers with mates and shout, scream and swear without fear of offending anyone.

That did not mean they wanted to fight, be racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic or smash the place up, but some did and some still do.

Nick Callow is a respected sports journalist covering national and international football for over 25 years.