SHELIA MACVICAR, ABCNEWS Tonight I'm going to take to you an island to meet some ferocious tribes. They are staunch and proud defenders of their villages, relentless enemies to their foes, fearless and glorying in battle, at least that's how they like to see themselves. No, I'm not talking about some exotic people who have never been exposed to civilization as we know it. No, I'm talking about the English.
(VO) Or at least some of them. They're known as ‘football hooligans.' That's British football, our soccer. These ultrafans like to drink, to sing, and especially, it seems, to fight. Both at home and abroad.
(Footage of fight shown)
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) Scenes like this turn international football matches in Europe last summer embarrassed England and led to public soul searching like this BBC documentary called "England's Shame."
(Clip from "England's Shame")
COLIN WARD Football and violence have always gone hand-in-hand.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) Colin ward is the author of "Armed For The Match," one of the growing popular memoirs of football hooliganism.
(OC) Why does it attract so much violence?
COLIN WARD People get worked up about things. When someone scores a goal against your team, and there's another fan there laughing and cheering, the only way you feel better about it is—is to punch him in the face.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) But fists are not the only weapon of choice, as I learn from Bryan Drew of Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service.
BRYAN DREW This actually fits in and would be part of a belt.
SHEILA MACVICAR Even if you've got a metal detector, you're just going to pick up...
BRYAN DREW A belt buckle.
SHEILA MACVICAR ...a belt buckle.
BRYAN DREW ....until such time as he withdraws it. And you've got that. Again, a whole range of weapons found in the vicinity of football grounds.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) The problem of football violence is so great in England, that along with running intelligence units to fight counterfeiting and extortion, Drew also runs a football intelligence unit.
BRYAN DREW Our culture is different. We don't have street gangs that some other countries have.
JOHN WILLIAMS What it's actually about is—is a celebration of a particular kind of masculine identity.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) John Williams is a sociologist at the Center for Football Research in Leicester.
1ST CROWD (In unison) No one likes us, we don't care...
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) He says football hooliganism springs from ancient rivalries between towns.
JOHN WILLIAMS The tradition of traveling to watch your team play, to go into enemy territory, as it were, and support your club has always been central to English football. It was a way of saying, we're going to travel to your town and we're not afraid to.
1ST OFFSCREEN VOICE You scaby bastards.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) We didn't have to look long to find what Williams was talking about. We found this pub in Derby. It is full of fans from nearby Leeds, a town with a history of football violence. Their team is playing Derby's this afternoon.
JIMMY Leeds supporters can come to Leeds and take over a pub in Leeds. But nobody can come to Leeds and take over the pub in Leeds.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) Meet Jimmy, not his real name. This is the only way he'd agree to talk to us on camera.
JIMMY And if they try to, then they'd get their asses kicked.
JOHN WILLIAMS Guys will phone each other up and say, look, we'll meet you at a car park, or we'll meet you at a certain pub. Bring your main guys, we're going to bring ours.
ANDY FRAIN (ph) (From video) Hello, Dave, it's Nightmare. All right. Are you on the road yet?
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) This pleasant enough looking guy, Andy Frain, who calls himself "Nightmare," is considered by British police to be one of England's most dangerous hooligans.
ANDY FRAIN (From video) Yeah, they've got 150.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) He doesn't know it, but he's being recorded by a hidden camera. The driver of this car is a BBC reporter named Donal MacIntyre (ph) who has infiltrated his gang.
ANDY FRAIN (From video) Special delivery for Mr. Dolby.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) MacIntyre spent 18 months mingling with the hooligans, secretly recording them. He found himself in the middle of some riots...
DONAL MACINTYRE (From video) OK, let's pull back. Pull back.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) ...and even got beaten up once by a Danish gang.
(OC) Did you learn anything about hooliganism or about hooligans that you didn't expect to find?
DONAL MACINTYRE What did surprise me was, actually, how much fun they had. They genuinely love their football, they also genuinely love violence for violence's sake.
1ST MAN (From video) Their top lad here is called Shannon. I smashed him with an iron bar.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) One of the scariest characters in your film is a young man, seemed to take almost visceral pleasure from violence.
DONAL MACINTYRE He himself I think was just motivated for the sheer hell of it.
1ST MAN (From video) Never heard so much screaming in my life.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) English hooligans are reputed to be at their worst when they go abroad. This year the violence began in Istanbul when hundreds of Leeds' fans arrive for a match.
JOHN WILLIAMS They did what many English supporters do, they drink heavily and you abuse local people. We're the English, your culture is inferior to ours. Your women are ugly.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) Whatever the cause, in the melee that followed, two Leeds fans were stabbed to death. Five months later, anti-Turkish feelings still run high in the pub full of Leeds supporters.
(Crowd singing song)
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) Even though Leeds is playing another English team, nearly every song they sing is a racist chant against Turks.
(Crowd singing)
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) It is time to go to the match. Rather than permit the riled up Leeds fans to walk through the streets of Derby, the police insist that they all get on a bus to go to the stadium.
2ND MAN Get on the bus now.
3RD MAN Get on the bus now.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) Once on the bus, they begin to taunt the local population.
2ND OFFSCREEN VOICE You're scabs.
(Crowd singing)
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) And continue the racist chanting.
2ND CROWD (In unison) I would rather be a Paki than a Turk.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) Now, it is one thing to chant racist songs in a bus in Yorkshire full of white football supporters.
2ND CROWD (In unison) I would rather be a Paki than a Turk.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) It is quite another to do so in European neighborhoods where thousands of Turks live. But that's what many English football fans did just weeks after the deaths in Istanbul. Here in Holland, the police were able to keep things relatively calm. That was not the case in Copenhagen. Colin Ward, who was there, blames the Turks for what happened.
COLIN WARD I thought they were confrontational with Turkish fans. Very confrontational.
SHEILA MACVICAR Where were you?
COLIN WARD In the square.
SHEILA MACVICAR And knowing that there is that possibility for violence, would you feel comfortable taking, say, a 10-year-old?
COLIN WARD I had my 10-year-old son with me.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) What do you say to him?
COLIN WARD Stand back, son. There's going to be some trouble. It's one of those things. It's not a big deal, you know.
SHEILA MACVICAR It's not a big deal?
COLIN WARD No, not really, no. You know, the British Empire was formed by military power and—and we are brought up with the great deeds of—of our warriors.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) The next battleground would be Belgium. It was Euro 2000, a World Cup qualifying match against England's historic foe, Germany.
DONAL MACINTYRE The chanting across the streets of Europe was, you know, ‘If it wasn't for us, you'd all be Krauts,'
CROWD (In unison) If it wasn't for the English, if it wasn't for the English...
DONAL MACINTYRE You'd all be German. We won you the war.
CROWD (In unison) Wasn't for the English, you'd be Krauts...
DONAL MACINTYRE You know, that's 50 years ago. So, you know, nobody—none of these football hooligans were born then.
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) Despite tight border checks, and the threat of stiff prison sentences, chaos still ensued in the heart of Brussels. It wasn't long before riot police stormed in. Making mass arrests.
3RD VOICE Hey, why don't we save the world for you as well?
BRYAN DREW They were shouting at the Belgian police, ‘Why are you doing this to us? You wouldn't be here if we hadn't helped you win the war.'
3RD MAN Who won the war?
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) The next day was match day. Beautiful Charleroi, Belgium, was turned into this, as English football thugs once again fought with Turks.
(Riot footage shown)
SHEILA MACVICAR (VO) The crowd was disbursed with the aid of a water cannon but not before hitting a woman who had just been passing by. By the time it was all over, Belgian police had arrested 1300 people, 500 were deported, mostly English.
(OC) As a result of England's acute embarrassment, sweeping legislation was rushed through parliament, giving police the power to prevent even suspected hooligans from traveling abroad. Whether they've been convicted of football violence or not.
(VO) But meanwhile, English hooliganism continues to thrive. Just a week ago Saturday, this outbreak occurred right outside the football stadium in England's Stoke City.
(Riot footage shown)
ELIZABETH VARGAS, ABCNEWS Within days of passing it's new law England put it to the test, preventing more than 20 fans from traveling to a match in France last month. There was still some minor disturbances in Paris but nothing like the violence in the past.
ABC News (US)
December 18, 2000
http://abcnews.go.com
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