HOOLIGANS in FOOTBALL

Football hooliganism is unruly and destructive behaviour such as brawls, vandalism and intimidation by association football club fans. Fights between supporters of rival teams may take place before or after football matches at pre-arranged locations away from stadia, in order to avoid arrests by the police, or they can erupt spontaneously at the stadium or in the surrounding streets. Football hooliganism can range from shouts and small-scale fistfights and disturbances to huge riots where firms attack each other with deadly weapons such as sports bats, glass bottles, rocks, knives, machetes and pistols.In some cases, stadium brawls have caused fans to flee in panic; some being injured when fences or walls collapsed.In the most extreme cases, hooligans, police, and bystanders have been killed, and riot police have intervened with tear gas, armoured vehicles and water cannons.A football firm (also known as a hooligan firm) is a gang formed to oppose and physically attack supporters of other clubs. Some firms exist to promote fringe political causes, both on the far Left and Right, with the football aspect of the club of minimal importance behind the promotion of their political ideals through violence. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the casual subculture transformed the British football hooliganism scene. Instead of wearing working class skinhead-style clothes, which readily identified hooligans to the police, firm members began wearing designer clothes and expensive offhand sportswear.

The first instance of football violence is unknown, but football and violence could be arbitrarily traced back to at least the 14th century in England. In 1314, Edward II banned football (which then was a violent free-for-all involving rival villages fly-hacking a pig's bladder across the local heath) because he believed the disorder surrounding matches might lead to social unrest or even treason.The first alleged recorded instances of football hooliganism in the modern game took place in the 1880s in England, a period when gangs of supporters would intimidate neighbourhoods, as well as attack referees and opposing supporters and players. In 1885, after Preston North End beat Aston Villa 5-0 in a friendly match, the two teams were pelted with stones; attacked with sticks, punched, kicked and spat at. One Preston player was beaten so severely that he lost consciousness. Press reports of the time described the fans as "howling roughs"^. The following year, Preston fans fought Queen's Park fans in a railway station; the first alleged instance of football hooliganism away from a match. In 1905, several Preston fans were tried for hooliganism, including a "drunk and disorderly" 70 year old woman, following their match against Blackburn Rovers.

Between the two world wars, there were no recorded instances of football hooliganism, (though for example Millwall's ground was reportedly closed in 1920, 1934 and 1950 after crowd disturbances) but it started attracting widespread media attention in the late 1950s due to its re-emergence in Latin America. In the 1955-56 English football season, Liverpool and Everton fans were involved in a number of incidents. By the 1960s, an average of 25 hooligan incidents were being reported each year in England.

source:wikipedia