Well the worst violence I have ever seen as been at football matches in the late eighties and early nineties.

Blame it on an attack of the working classes if you want but there was a hell a lot of fighting and hooliganism going on and fences were erected. It was only 4 years before Hillsborough that Heysel happened and the banning of english teams in Europe for fighting, this happened and it wasn't the government demonising the working classes they shouldn't have been bloody fighting in the first place using football and 'passion' as an excuse.

Now having said that I am not saying Hillsborough was caused through hooliganism, it clearly wasn't, but lets not paint a picture of nice piece loving football supporters being demonised by nasty people in power, its surely not as black and white as that.

From the mid-60s onwards I was growing up watching the Don Revie Leeds Utd and so of course wanted to go to Elland Road like my dad did - he wouldn't let me go even with him because of the violence and bad language (parents sort of cared about that sort thing then), instead he encouraged me to go to Headingley where my Uncle worked and my first season ticket there was in 1968 - the rest, as they say, is history.

Although not as ancient history as Mintball if she can remember a bottle throwing incident from 1906.

I wasn't. I was attempting to point out a number of things – including but not limited to fighting not being new and how, when the ruling classes behave badly, it's ignored.

I am well aware of Heysel and the ban that followed.

Incidentally, the worst violence I've ever personally seen was around three years ago at the Etihad, when Birmingham were visiting and their particular bunch of thugs (the 'Birmingham Zulus') had decided that they were going to celebrate their 25th birthday by starting a riot.

But the idea that fighting and 'hooliganism'* are new or limited to football is, I'm afraid, simply a myth.

There have been gangs fighting in pretty much every major city in the UK for donkey's years. As just one example, look up the Scuttlers.

Nor, as I have suggested, is it limited to class – no matter what some of the media pretends. More history: go back to the 18th century and their were gangs from across the class divide, who had a favourite trick of holding up coaches and then burning them.

The underlying issue is why young males (primarily but not exclusively) feel the need to fight and be destructive – whether this is a 'problem' and whether it can be solved and, if so, how.



I'm wearing well.






* As mentioned before, a word coined in the 19th century, as a result of a music hall song, to name the behaviour that the song was about (a badly-behaved Irish family called the 'Hoolies'). Which in itself tells you something.

I have never said thih, but we are talking about a football related incident, and as such football related violence and hooligans are more prevalent to the discussion. It wasn't RU hooligans that had recently been convicted of killing opposition fans and subsequently got teams banned from competitions and made it so fences had to be erected at stadiums.

Indeed.

My – attempted – point is that there had been, for some years, a demonisation of a particular type of hooligan, as though there were only one, and that that contributed to what happened at Hillsborough.

Which rather takes us back to class, to government needs for a group to demonise/scapegoat (and try their ID cards on) etc and so forth.

I suppose my point was that there behaviour was a contributing factor, as I said no fences - no crush.

I think that, there are two separate issues which IMO seem to be getting blurred in the coverage etc.

1. The actual tragedy, which I personally think there were quite a few factors (of varying degrees) which built up to this happening and there isn't one single cause/person/group that we can point a finger at and say it was your fault.

2. The cover up. This IMO is the most shocking thing to come out of the whole thing.

The last cuckoo of the year.

Take your word for it! Must be the oils you use.

Some interesting posts on here lads. I with the Government would release a similar fanfare when the crime figures are released! We might just find out a few facts which might enlighten people regarding the crime rate for Liverpool as opposed to other cities and large towns. That way, those people who have never set foot in Liverpool and who have been no nearer to it than Widnes and St Helens but who think they know all about the place might keep quiet. But you know Tories. They'll get out of anything except Rupert Murdoch's bed.

Quote Doc Holliday="Doc Holliday"Some interesting posts on here lads. I with the Government would release a similar fanfare when the crime figures are released! We might just find out a few facts which might enlighten people regarding the crime rate for Liverpool as opposed to other cities and large towns. That way, those people who have never set foot in Liverpool and who have been no nearer to it than Widnes and St Helens but who think they know all about the place might keep quiet. But you know Tories. They'll get out of anything except Rupert Murdoch's bed.'" Certainly on the hate crime front you're not as bad as Manchester. Long way worse than Sheffield though: www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... land-wales

Quote Doc Holliday="Doc Holliday"Some interesting posts on here lads. I with the Government would release a similar fanfare when the crime figures are released! We might just find out a few facts which might enlighten people regarding the crime rate for Liverpool as opposed to other cities and large towns. That way, those people who have never set foot in Liverpool and who have been no nearer to it than Widnes and St Helens but who think they know all about the place might keep quiet. But you know Tories. They'll get out of anything except Rupert Murdoch's bed.'" Certainly on the hate crime front you're not as bad as Manchester. Long way worse than Sheffield though: www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... land-wales

Perhaps McKenzie and South Yorkshire Police should hold up a big sign saying 'friendship' towards the Liverpool fans and all will be forgotten?

Or perhaps the Pie Eaters could hold up a sign saying "Sorry our grandparents were scabs!" Just to remind everyone (as if we didn't already know) how you blacklegs got your nickname.