An Americn view of West Ham v Milwall

[Nedved*]

Check out my blog: http://nedvedsnotes.blogspot.com/2009/08/kind-of-violence-americans-dont.html

[three lions]

Thread moved to West Ham Forum..

[harkes6]

The football matches themselves are just a convenient pretext for a bunch of people who appear to like fighting to get together and beat the tar out of each other.

violence is a natural outcropping of football in a lot of boozed up, testosterone filled ways. football has a more central place in the male psyche-- as you touched on-- in the UK and europe. frankly, who really gives a shit about any other sport.

i was recently stranded on cyprus, stuck in a town with mostly british retirees. there were a half dozen hotels and a half dozen sports betting places, touting mostly soccer. it's an island of a few million with its own professional soccer system. oh, a few kids play rugby and basketball too.

but in the library of my hostel was a copy of cass pennant's book 'cass'.

it wasn't particularly well written, but it was engaging and for me enlightening. his proposal is that most of us will never make it on the pitch (in a playing sense, mind you). to help fill the void, and show our love for our sport and our club, we get together and represent ourselves (our club, our neighborhood, our "values").

more often than not when males get together we drink. and when we do and are young and naive (or merely feel young and naive) we are prone to the outlandish. it's like the jack nicholson quote: "a drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts." it's exacerbated when there's a rather large group; and moreso when they're all wearing the same colors; and moreso when there's the added excitement of ones favorite team playing in just a few minutes just up the road. how many hooligans have a) fought alone? and b) fought sober? (a lone, sober hooligan is known as a 'psychopath')

for many hooligans the fighting is more important (or was-- i do think this is a rare, isolated occurrence and i do think that true, widespread football hooliganism is extinct) but who cares. it happens because people live vicariously through history. it's a high. it's a high like any other-- like heroin, like sex, like a game winning goal in stoppage time.

why doesn't it happen in the states? (and it does-- riots are often a part of celebration in much of america. i've seen fights in more than a few of the american sporting events i've been to) but we have playoffs. we have single entity leagues. we don't have relegation. we don't have promotion. we have salary caps. we have revenue sharing. the clippers still play in the NBA, whereas if they were put in a british system they would be at best a semi-pro club by now.

we don't have the pressure and stress of losing the farm by not winning.

and if you lose in america you become a perennial loser. and if you're a team with a large, white fanbase in a large market (like chicago or boston) and you lose spectacularly for decades or centuries you become a beloved, national icon. it's what makes america america :rolleyes:

[Nedved*]

I agree with what you are saying about the 'male' experience in football. Football in the UK is much more 'male' than most sports in the US. At Bath City games the male/female ration is over 10 to 1.

BUT I don't buy that there is something about football itself that is the cause, and I don't buy the argument about relegation. All European sports have relegation and promotion. Even girls netball. This is just a football problem. Also, as I said before, the real problems at these matches are the people who come to fight. Their violence is premeditated. I'm sure the match adds some context to their behaviour, but it is not why they come.

[Devil_78]

There is violence in a lot of other sports out in eastern Europe. For example, in Croatia, you can usually expect some kind of ding dong to go down when Zagreb takes on Red Star Belgrade.

People link themselves to the club, and use it as a unifying force. In eastern Europe, the club acts as a focal point. Something to rally round, and build some pride in your community. Especially if the community is screwed economically, the club gives you something else to focus on.

However, in England, you tend not to get that hassle in other sports as the English clubs dont spread into them. Footballs spread draws in everyone, ranging from normal, sane people all the way to the nutter who wants to fight.

The smaller sports cant command the limelight, and cant draw the groups that football does. Which is probably the reason why you dont see much violence in the crowd. Also, with sports like rugby, the violence happens on the field, not off.

My guess.

[Nedved*]

There is football violence in Europe as a whole, although I think in the 80s England set the standard. I just didn't have enough space to take in all of Europe in my blog post.

Your comment about Rugby is way off the mark, though. You are assuming that a certain amount of violence is normal, and if the game on the pitch is violent this lessens the need for violence in the crowd? Think about this.

Besides, the most composed, calm, and polite crwods in English sports are at Cricket, so that theory is blown anyway. Cricket is a lot of things, but violent is not one of them.

[Devil_78]

There is football violence in Europe as a whole, although I think in the 80s England set the standard. I just didn't have enough space to take in all of Europe in my blog post.

Your comment about Rugby is way off the mark, though. You are assuming that a certain amount of violence is normal, and if the game on the pitch is violent this lessens the need for violence in the crowd? Think about this.

Besides, the most composed, calm, and polite crwods in English sports are at Cricket, so that theory is blown anyway. Cricket is a lot of things, but violent is not one of them.

Ice hockey also exists in England, and there has NEVER been fan trouble at that. In fact, its full of mutual love-ins between fans. Nothing in Rugby, its much more calm. It is something interesting to note, that the more violence on the surface of play, there seems to be less off it. Just my personal observation.

As to cricket. Thats a different animal. Its 5 days, and slow. Not so conducive to building the emotion up. There is a culture of quiet in cricket, rather than the ribaldry there is in football.

However, during the recent Ashes test series, the England fan club, the Barmy Army, has recently been accused of bringing cricket down by bringing in more football-like behaviour to the terraces, such as taking chants past acceptable banter, and just getting too drunk.

[Nedved*]

Ok, the Barmy Army is rowdier than cricket crowds of twenty years ago, and Yorkshire is having some problems with one stand at Headingly. I am talking about organised hooligan violence, though. The Barmy Army has never gotten into a pitched battle with fans from other test countries. It is also not going to happen. I was once part of a pitch invasion at Somerset after a last ball defeat of Kent in the C&G trophy semi-finals - but it was good natured and the club was fine with it. There was no sense of danger. And if you think cricket is all 5 day tests now, you are wrong.

I understand your theory and I'm sure some interesting socialogical research has been done on the issue, but it doesn't apply here. Organised hooligans are, unfortunatly, almost entirely a football phenomenon.

[norwaytips]

Only test match cricket is a 5 day game. County cricket is a mixture of 1/2, 1 day and three day matches.
The strange thing is, that in many cases, it's the same people that go to the football games. Everyone drinks at cricket games too.
The Millwall thing was a one off and there is very little trouble at football games in England now.

[Stretch Armstrong]

There was surprise last night after a football match broke out during a violent assault by a bunch of cockneys on another bunch of cockneys to decide which cockneys were hardest.

The violence occurred between two groups of psychopathic cockneys, each with a penchant for football teams separated by a few hundred yards.

One football hooligan told us, “When those cockneys come onto our manor, us cockneys see it as taking a fackin’ liberty.”

“So we rounded up those cockneys, and us cockneys gave those other cockneys a right good hiding.”

Victory

The violent confrontation was marred by a 3-1 victory for West Ham, in an unprovoked football match which broke out in the midst of the savage fighting.

“It was disgusting, I could hardly see this one cockney having his head repeatedly rammed into a plastic seat because of these blokes in bright shirts kicking a ball backwards and forwards in front of me.”

“My ticket put me almost 100 yards away from the real action, so all I could see were athletic men running around and the odd goal.”

“If I wanted to see that sort of behaviour, I wouldn’t support Millwall, would I?”

Organised

Organisers of both ‘firms’ have been quick to denounce the behaviour of West Ham and Millwall football clubs.

“How are we supposed to finally decide which is the tidiest set of cockneys if they insist on playing football right in the middle of our fights?”

“Is it any wonder attendances are down and proper cockneys are falling out of love with the game when their clubs behave like this?”

Both firms have claimed victory, and the fight is due to go to a replay at the earliest possible opportunity.

[hammer_scout51]

Clubs in England have really buried the football violence of the 60's to 80's.

There are games where the rivalry is more than just on the field. The two Sheffield clubs. The two Glasgow clubs, Liverpool v Everton and the Manchester derby. In London its really Arsenal and Spurs and West Ham v Millwall. I always see Spurs as our rivals as they are a top league club.The hatred between Us and Millwall goes bank a long time. Two Dockland clubs in i guess a poorer working class area. I was at a testimonial years back V Millwall, that was quite a night.
I think you have to be born in the area maybe to understand the passion. I honestly believe this wasn't the work of football fans, who go every week. This IMO was rival gangs using football as an excuse for a fight. Films like Green Street and Cass don't help. My opinion only, the pitch invasion was minimal but a disgrace. Loosing to Millwall would have been the end of civilization as we know it. Equalizing 3 minutes from time caused emotions to run riot. Guys on this board who were born in West Ham and got educated and moved on. Or like myself who married someone from another country and moved out. We may have done more with our lives. Those that still live in the area or are young growing up in the area live a completely different existence. The East End i lived in and loved is no more. Violence is an unfortunate but growing thing in multi racial areas. This was very much a one off in my book. Here in Australia they have banned ethnic names for clubs. There were Greek clubs, Croatian clubs and Italian clubs those rival games saw a fair bit of aggression. Even when Australia played Croatia in the last world cup there was trouble in the streets in Croatian areas. Anyrate some of the more brainy posters may disagree with me. Its just my opinion.

[taffhammer]

Check out my blog: http://nedvedsnotes.blogspot.com/2009/08/kind-of-violence-americans-dont.html

Intresting read mr Nedved.

I think you'll find an early league cup tie would likely get a gate of 12,000 normal attendees of West ham's home matches, so lets guess that an 10,000 second or third generation floating supporters came up from Essex with an average age of 20 and saw it as a chance of a jolly and nothing to lose. They don't really care if they get banned and as most of the time they are surrounded by police and chucking plastic beer glasses they aren't going to get hurt either.
On the you tube clips it looks alot worse than it was due to a lack of police numbers. Any derby match with "history" would be as bad as that when the police seriously underestimate the potential.
Why do they do it ? take your family to Benidorm or Magaluf next summer, plant yourself in an english bar on the front for two weeks and see how we behave abroad day and night. Unfortunately there is an inner need for us to act a certain superior way and let others suffer in our wake. Is it because the real brits have been downtrodden by the upper classes for hundreds of years? maybe. Are we just a culture made up of aggressors? maybe, we did create an empire. So since then its in us to batter each other after ten pints on a friday night or "take" the away end in the 60's, 70's and 80's.unfortunately football violence is still there. Cctv and higher prices has just diluted it. look to priory road and where the old school came out of retirement with old scores to settle away from the cameras.
Incidently i've lived in new york and miami and can honestly say i find it far more violent over here.Sad but true.

[Hammerette 1]

Good read Nedved. Trouble outside football grounds does still go on but it's no where near the level it used to be back in the 1970s/80s. That was a whole world away compared to now.

I know it sounds a cliche but there are few games based on such sheer hatred than Millwall / West Ham therefore we must always take that into account when making comments on the game generally. It's nothing to do with footballing rivalry which is why derbies like Spurs/Arsenal, Liverpool/Everton, Manchester United/City are not in the same league. People who are not aware of the history find it difficult to understand and it's too easy to say it's kids just copying what they see in Green Street or Football Factory games etc. The West Ham Millwall business was around long, long before those films came about.


I think you have to seperate what went on outside the ground to what went on inside it. I was at the game on Tuesday and this is what went on inside. The reason we had a decent crowd was not because there were a load of kids coming up from Essex or people wanting a fight, it was West Ham fans turning out to see a game against a club they hate. Some supporters stayed away because they knew that trouble would be around and that is fair enough. However when the chants of stand up if you hate Millwall started up the whole ground stood. The people standing were not kids or hoolies they were regular West Ham who would never stand for any other game or opponement. I have never seen the whole ground stand throughout the game like it was at UP second half onwards. The atmosphere was electric and deafening. I haven't enjoyed a game as much as this for many years and I'm not a hooligan and I don't condone violence.

The people who ran onto the pitch were all from West Ham, no Millwall got onto the pitch because they were completely surrounded by stewards and police. This left the other three sides open hence fat old unfit blokes, chavs, blokes with kids on their shoulders and lads with their girlfiends in tow were able to walk/run onto the pitch the three times after we scored without much stopping them. I doubt many were season ticket holders but they were West Ham fans. Once they had got onto the pitch most of them didn't seem to have a clue what they should do next so simply wandered off again. There were a handful of fat blokes trying to act big but they got as far as the halfway line and were never going to launch into Millwall fists flying. The ground was ringing out with boos and chants of off, off, off by the 22,000 odd thousand Hammers fans there who thought they looked like complete idiots. Even so being an idiot is not the same as being a violent thug so perspective is needed. My view is that those identified should banned. There were also incidents where West Ham and Millwall fans who were close to each other in the ground started to lunge towards each other but this was contained comfortably by the stewards and police. There are reports of racist chanting directed at Cole and some objects being thrown onto the pitch but those thankfully appear to be isolated incidents. So basically what I am saying is that reports suggesting riots were going on inside UP are way off the mark.

Now outside it's a different matter. As soon as these two teams were drawn for a midweek cup tie everyone knew it would kick off in every sense of the word. As Darren Gough said on Talksport there were lost tribes in South America who could have predicted trouble. A midweek game with people having a chance to drink all day and Millwall not getting enough tickets (at the insisitance of the police) meaning hundreds turned up at the ground just to casue mayhen. Numbers of West Ham hooligans also outside the ground wanting to cause trouble. There are also reports that fans of neither club and indeed people who don't support any club turning up to cause as much havoc as possible. There are a certain underbelly of society who want to act in a lawless, violent way and Tuesday night was an ideal opportunity for them to get involved. You did not need to be an expert to know any of this was a real possibility in advance.

So the question to be asked is, knowing all of that why were they far too few police on duty. When I went to Millwall in 2004 it was the second largest police operation nationally that year, only a G8 conference topped it. There were police drafted in from as far afield as Yorkshire and this was for a midday kickoff on a Sunday. The last time we played then at UP there were 1000 police on duty and again it was a midday kickoff on a Sunday. Last Tuesday there were only around 350 police on duty, what on earth were the authorities thinking of. Policing inside the ground is West Ham's responsibility outside it is the police, and they got it badly wrong. It ended up with the police telling West Ham to let in around 300 Millwall ticketless fans into the away end half way through the first half to avoid them roaming the streets, at least inside the ground they knew were they were. This did increase the threat of trouble inside the ground as the ticketless mob pushed the fans in the away end towards the sides of the grounds where the Hammers fans were. What went on outside was dreadful because it offered little protection to innocent fans and bystanders who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. My view is that with the best will in the world these two clubs are simply not going to meet without the need for heavy policing. Saying play the games behind closed doors will not solve anything as the real trouble was outside the ground. I doubt we'll see anything like Tuesday nights events again any time soon, certainly not at West Ham. With the right number of police on duty nearly all of the violence and disturbances near the ground wouldn't have taken place IMO. We had played Spurs two days earlier without incident and they are not our favourite club either.

[amancalledmikey]

Rugby league had a big hooliganism problem in England for a period. Not on the level of football but Northerners like a fight, no matter the sport.

[Hammerette 1]

Saw this on WHO, apologies if posted already. Made me larff.


Work. Same old, same old. A warrior like me should not be caged. And definitely not as a Waste Management Support Co-ordinator in Lewisham Council. Phone rings. Pick it up.

"Ooo are ya? Ooo are ya? Ooo are ya?" I shout.

"Barry," says the voice. "It's Mr Stevens. Now what did we say about answering the phone in accordance with the guidelines laid down by HR in consultation with designated union representatives?"

"Sorry, Mr Stevens," I say.

"That's better Barry. Now can you please arrange for a member of the cleaning personnel team to go down to the lobby and change the waste paper basket on front desk?"

"Millwall! Millwall! Millwall!" I shout.

"No Barry. Waste paper management now. Millwall later," says Stevens. "Honestly Barry. A man of 48 really ought to be able to control himself."

"Yes Mr Stevens," I say. He's bricking it now, the mug. I hang up and e-mail the cleaning personnel team, and then practice aggressive walking in my cubicle until lunch.

Lunchtime. Free. Outside. The Lion prowls. Trouble though. There's a gang
of muppets on the corner. West Ham? They're only young 'uns, but they're
probably tooled up, the scum. Two of them. I'm outnumbered. But these colours don't run.

"Come on then! Come on then!" I shout, flapping my arms up and down in a
well aggressive way while walking away from them backwards.

The bigger one drops his ice cream. He starts to cry. Soon the other one is
crying too.

"You slaaaaaaaaags," I shout. "Ooo are ya? Gertcha! Queen Mum! Ave a banana. Oi oi saveloy."

But hold up. It was a trap. There's another one. The top dog. Waiting in Boots. Clever.

"What the hell are you shouting at my kids for?" she says. "What is wrong
with you? Scaring a five year-old in the street like that."

"I'm on your manor and I'm taking the piss," I say.

She's coming at me now. Hard. This is more than just a bit of handbags. She's tooled up: with an actual handbag. This is Luton 1985. This is Highbury 1988. This is Toys R Us 1995 when that Palace Young Team pushed me off the bouncy castle.

"Come on then! Do you want some?" I say, running in the other direction.

Course, I'm more built for raw power than speed, and after a few yards I'm
wheezing, doubled up outside Dixons, lungs on fire.

They catch up to me, the three of them. The top dog's got that handbag. The small one looks mental, a proper psycho, covered in strawberry ice-cream like it's warpaint. The littlest one's got a Dora The Explorer lunchbox. The clever, clever slags.

"Why is that fat old man dressed like a young person, mummy?" says ice
cream.

Is this how it ends? On the cold pavement outside Dixons? I'm going out with my head held high. They'll talk about me in the Dog And Fascist for years to come. I'm a legend. I'm a bloody Lions legend. I wait for the
blows.

I feel a hot, wet sensation spreading over me. The blood, the glory, the end. I'm going to the great New Den in the sky a hero, a fighter, a geezer who never took a backward step. I hear a voice - is it God? Asking me to join His Firm, be a top boy?

"Mummy mummy, that silly fat man has done a wee in his trousers."

And then it all goes black.

[Footstomper]

Classic

[taffhammer]

hammerette,
what i mean't was it was a cheap ticket price and a lot of the regular support gives Millwall and a league cup 2nd round a wide berth, so your going to get a fair few once a year west ham fans at a game like that. being from essex myself i can make a safe bet thats where they came from, not a bad thing just an observation.

[Hammerette 1]

Well that's your view but it's not mine so we'll agree to disagree.

[taffhammer]

fair enough no offence intended . are you from Essex?

[Nedved*]

Thanks everyone for your encouragement about the blog. I've enjoyed reading your responses as well.

I don't expect to be a regular in the West Ham section as I am a supporter of a proper, oops, I mean non-league club: Bath City! I will try to stop by from time to time though. There was a time, back when I was trying to develop an interest in the Premiership that I sort of considered West Ham as my team. It didn't stick, though.