Kicking Off

Dougie Brimson

Description

Why hooliganism and racism are killing footballThe media and police claim the battle against football hooligans has been all but won. Those who study the culture of football know only too well that behind the squeaky clean corporate image being fed to the public lie some dark and unpalatable truths.Compiled by best-selling author, screenwriter and world-renowned hooliganism expert Dougie Brimson, KICKING OFF picks up the debate where BARMY ARMY left it - Euro 2000 and the horrific murders of two Leeds United fans in Turkey.In his own uncompromising style Brimson exposes the truth and paints a disturbing picture of what lies ahead for the game if the culture of hate, racism and violence remains unchecked.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Category C Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908400062
• Langue: English

Extrait

Kicking Off
Why hooliganism and racism are killing football
The media and police claim the battle against football hooligans has been all but won. Those who study the culture of football know only too well that behind the squeaky clean corporate image being fed to the public lie some dark and unpalatable truths.
Compiled by best-selling author, screenwriter and world-renowned hooliganism expert Dougie Brimson, KICKING OFF picks up the debate where BARMY ARMY left it – Euro 2000 and the horrific murders of two Leeds United fans in Turkey.
In his own uncompromising style Brimson exposes the truth and paints a disturbing picture of what lies ahead for the game if the culture of hate, racism and violence remains unchecked.
Controversial points examined include: The issue of racism and in particular the idea that the anti-racist groups have exploited football to further their own objectives. It also examines the thorny issue of Asians within football and for the first time explores the reasons why so few Asian players have made the grade. Policing football. This includes an explanation into how the game has been manipulated to allow the development of ever more intrusive and subversive surveilliance techniques as well as to place increasingly draconian legislation onto the statue books. The media’s role in the continued existence of hooliganism and an explanation as to why the problem looks certain to increase if the game continues to do nothing.
Finally, the book lays out a unique and totally workable long-term solution to the issue of football related violence.
Dougie Brimson
Born in Hertfordshire in 1959, Dougie Brimson joined the Royal Air Force where he trained as a mechanical engineer. After serving for over eighteen years he left the forces in 1994 to forge a career as a writer.
Now the author of 13 books, his often controversial opinions on the culture of football have frequently attracted condemnation from the games authorities yet he has become firmly established as one of the worlds leading authorities on the subject of football hooliganism and is regarded by many as the father of the literary genre known as ‘Hoolie-lit’.
An accomplished screenwriter, he co-wrote the multi-award winning ‘Green Street’ starring Elijah Wood and is currently working on the screenplay for ‘The Top Boys’ which is due for release mid-2012.
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www.dougiebrimson.com
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For Tina, Rebecca, Kayleigh, Ben, Lee and our beautiful granddaughter Betty.
Introduction
In 1968, when I was a mere nine years old , an event took place which ended up shaping my life - my dad took me to football.
As it happens, it ended up being the only game he ever took me to and, somewhat bizarrely given that in his youth he was a bit of a footie fan himself, he didn't even take me to watch his beloved Spurs. Instead, he took me to watch our local side, Watford, then a lowly second division outfit.
The game in question was against Bristol Rovers and finished up as a 1-0 win for the Hornets, but for me, sitting in a freezing cold and half-empty Shrodell's stand, it was tedious in the extreme. Even though, like most kids back then, if I wasn't at school or asleep I was kicking a ball around, I really couldn't see the attraction of paying to watch someone else playing the game and, given that the old man showed even less inclination to take me back than I ever had of going, the professional game and I stayed strangers for a few years.
The 1970 Cup final changed that forever. My brother Ed had somehow developed a strange affinity for Leeds United, and me, being a typical pain-in-the-arse older brother, chose to cheer for Chelsea simply to piss him off. It worked. More importantly, as a result of this game, me and my mate Clive began to sneak off to Stamford Bridge, where I not only discovered the delights of watching live football, I fell in love with it.
However, for a variety of reasons mostly connected with a reluctance to get the shit kicked out of me by any of the marauding nutters who haunted London's Underground network each and every Saturday back in the early seventies, I soon ended up back at Vicarage Road and, by 1975, at the tender age of sixteen, was a confirmed disciple of the Golden Boys. I've been one ever since.
In all honesty, I am incredibly grateful for this. After all, one of the reasons I started going to games in the first place was to escape into a world devoid of family and, although these days parents and brothers have been replaced by wife and daughters, the basic reason for going remains the same. The fact that I can share those experiences with my son is an added bonus, even though he now shuns the company of his old man for that of his own mates once we leave our favoured public house!
And what experiences they have been. From the incredible highs of the Elton John and Graham Taylor era to the nightmare periods under Dave Bassett and Gianluca Vialli, the ride on the emotional rollercoaster that is football fandom, which began when I first walked into Vicarage Road over thirty years ago, has certainly been more interesting than most. It has also given me plenty to talk, think and write about.
However, much as I love the Golden Boys, like most people who support a club that enjoys only fleeting periods of success, many of my feelings towards them are negative ones, born mostly, out of frustration, anger and disappointment. In truth, I have always found this to be one of the more liberating aspects of fandom, because, as a natural pessimist, not only do I like a good moan, I also bear a grudge. And thirty-odd years following Watford has certainly given me an ample supply of grudges. Most of these would be regarded as both pointless and irrational by anyone who isn't a football fan, but will be instantly recognisable to anyone who is.
For example, until the day I die I will continue to wish nothing but ill fortune on our former manager Glenn Roeder, because in 1996, despite repeated assurances that he would never bring a former L*t*n T*wn player to the club, he ended up signing one. Not just any old one either, but their former striker and self-confessed Scum fan Kerry Dixon. As a result, like many Hornets at the time, I refused to attend games while he was in the squad, because the very idea of him wearing a yellow shirt, my yellow shirt, made me feel nauseous.
Similarly, to this day the mere sight of a certain steward at Vicarage Road brings forth an expletive or two, because about five years ago he refused to let me leave a freezing cold home end and go to the warmth and comfort of the main sponsor's box, despite the fact that my invite came direct from the head of the company who could clearly be seen gesturing me up. Bastard.
I have dozens like that and others not limited to Watford. My supporting years have equipped me with a dislike of people ranging from ex-Liverpool striker John Aldridge through to Soccer AM presenter Helen Chamberlain, together with a hatred of numerous clubs, including Oldham, Crystal Palace and Grays Athletic. Like I say, I bear a grudge.
Grudges are, however, limiting in one specific respect. They are very personal. While I know why I don't like the so-called comedians Reeves and Mortimer, no one else does and even if they did, I doubt they would care. Similarly, you can't really have a grudge about the ineptitude of the authorities or the exploitation of hooliganism by academics, but you can have both a moan and an opinion. And as anyone who knows me will testify, I love a good moan. Indeed, the great joy of writing about football has been that it has allowed me to broaden my moaning horizons and become even more opinionated.
I should stress, though, that many of my opinions are not that different from those you will hear in any pre- or post-match pub on any given Saturday, because, in truth, there isn't much about the game which gets me particularly hot under the collar. For example, I absolutely agree that the wages paid to certain individuals are obscene and believe that the only way the game will ever regain control of this is for the FA to impose a rule whereby clubs can only pay out fifty per cent of their turnover in wages. However, until that time arrives, I have no problem with players taking whatever the clubs are stupid enough to pay them. I certainly would if I were in their shoes.
Similarly, if clubs can get away with charging a fortune to walk through a turnstile then good luck to them. We might believe that we are addicted to our chosen team and therefore have no choice but to take our places each and every matchday, but of course we're not. It's down to personal choice. I also believe that, aside from a few obvious exceptions, the Premiership is hugely overrated and while it might be lacking in quality, game for game the Championship generally provides far more excitement.
But none of that really concerns me too much. I'm actually more pissed off that they don't sell Pukka pies at Watford, although even this is tempered by the knowledge that if I'm really desperate I can always buy one from the chip shop in Market Street before or after the game.
There are, however, things about our beloved game that I do care passionately about, although they tend to be issues that are universally regarded as being either unsavoury, controversial or dangerous. As a result, they are all too often swept under the carpet in the hope that they will wither and die on their own or, worse, are left to the devices of so-called 'experts', the bulk of whom have nothing but self-interest at heart.
Yet these are issues that, in one way or another, impact on every single football fan and to abdicate responsibility for them is an extremely dangerous thing for the game to do, because by allowing outside agencies to set the agenda you allow them to stifle debate, which in turn allows the problem to fester unchecked.
Sadly, that is the risk the game seems prepared to take, largely, I