Tottenham4life
24 Mar 2009, 02:03 PM
THIS ARTICLE I FOUND VERY INTERESTING AND DECIDED TO POSTED ON HERE, I READ SOMEWHERE ON ONE OF THE FORUMS OF THIS SITE THIS FEW YANKS TALKING RUBBISH ABOUT OR SAYING THAT IN THE STATES AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT HOOLIGANS AND ROWS AT THEIR FOOTBALL MATCHES LIKE WE DO IN EUROPE, I THINK IS BOLLOCKS AND HERE IS THE PROVE THAT THEY DO HAVE HOOLIGANS IN AMERICA WAY FAR A LOT WORST THAN HERE IN EUROPE SO PLEASE READ ON AND WAKE UP PEOPLE YOU YANKS ARE NOT SAINTS, AND SORRY IF I OFFEND ANYONE, IT IS NOT MY INTENTION
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A few weeks ago I was in a Philly pub with a mixed party of Brits and Americans when I mentioned in passing the fact that US sports have a far worse hooligan problem that UK sports (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2005/dec/07/ussport.football).
This made one British woman very angry. How dare I compare proper British hooligans to the obviously inferior American brand? The Americans present seemed confused. Wasn't every single English soccer game a seething maelstrom of racism, hatred and knife violence?
Which got me thinking: what if one were to write about American sports hooliganism the way the US media talks about soccer hooliganism?
Is Europe in danger of being swamped by a tidal wave of US style sports fan thuggery? I ask because of a recent letter about American fan violence (http://www.velonews.com/article/86102/readers--letters-on-philly-week-masters-racing-and) in the competitive cycling mag Velo News. Referring to fan-on-fan violence at the U.S. Cyclocross Nationals (http://www.velonews.com/photo/86090) in December, Jim Wheeler of Cupertino California wrote: "I've never heard of such a thing happening in Europe … It's just terrible and all participants should be ashamed. This is the kind of crap I expect to see in US-dominated sports like baseball and football, and it's also why I no longer follow those sports."
Barely a day goes by without yet another example of American fan thuggery. Take for instance last week's much anticipated college basketball game between Wake Forest and Clemson. Not only was the game spoiled by the sort of violence more usually associated with mixed martial arts, but when a Wake Forest player lost his footing, he was treated to a brutal body slam by a crop-haired hoodlum in the crowd (http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the~sep~dagger/post/Clemson-fan-tackles-Wake-Forest-player?urn=ncaab,135081).
These are not isolated incidents. As California Congressman Dan Lungren put it: "America is, by far, the most violent country in the [industrialised] world … Violence is deeply rooted in our society and has become woven into the fabric of the American lifestyle."
And nowhere is this more apparent than in American sport. Bestial supporter behaviour is the norm across all sports and at all levels. Here are just a few examples of North America's out-of-control berserker fan culture taken from the last 13 months:
January 2008: a San Francisco man was shot to death when he left his daughter's high-school basketball game to have a cigarette (http://cbs5.com/crime/sacred.heart.shooting.2.628790.html).
In April Montreal Canadiens fans celebrated with a riot that involves the mass torching of police cars (http://www.nationalpost.com/sports/nhlplayoffs/story.html?id=463718). And Red Sox and New York Yankees fans once again set about trying to kill each other (http://deadspin.com/381980/you-know-its-baseball-season-when-fat-yanks+red-sox-fans-are-killing-each-other).
In May a Yankees fan driving a car (http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1092028&srvc=home&position=recent) ran down and killed a Red Sox fan who yelled: "Yankees suck".
June, fans of the Boston Celtics celebrated their NBA championship with a traditional window-smashing riot (http://www.complex.com/ENTERTAINMENT/FEATURES/Sports-Riots-A-History-of-Violence). This was after fans of the defeated Lakers mobbed up and savagely beat (http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/sports/laker-fans-brawl-at-the-staple/) Celtics fans in LA. And the month also saw an unusually well publicised mass donnybrook (http://phillies.fandome.com/video/103246/Most-Shocking---Fans-Brawl-at-a-Phillies-Game/) at a Phillies v New York Mets baseball game.
In July Columbus Crew fans greeted visiting West Ham fans with a proper US-style fan punch-up (http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2008/07/21/crew~sep~side21.ART~sep~ART~sep~07-21-08~sep~C2~sep~R0AQ9IL.html?sid=101), inspiring one muppet to ask (http://www.doubleazone.com/2008/07/soccer~sep~fan~sep~violence.php): "We almost never see large-scale fights in other sports. Why does this happen in soccer?"
Also in July, a mob of baseball bat-wielding, "rabid" Red Sox fans (http://www.nypost.com/seven/07072008/news/nationalnews/bat~sep~snit~sep~crazy~sep~118830.htm) beat up a 69-year-old grandad they wrongly suspected of being a Yankees fan. Meanwhile another Red Sox fan lost an eye after being beaten by Cubs fans at a children's party (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=224019).
August, two Chicago Cubs fans went on trial for beating a Brewers fan so badly he had to have his jaw wired (http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/aug/01/local/chi-cubs-fan-charges-webaug02).
September, an NFA game between the Utica Yard Dogs and Troy was abandoned after mass brawling in the stands spilled onto the pitch (http://www.wktv.com/sports/local/28376684.html). And gunfire broke out among the crowd (http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/possible~sep~gangrelated~sep~shooting.html) at a high school game in Portland, Oregon.
In October Phillies fans rioted in celebration of their World Series win, engaging in brawls, slinging beer bottles, flipping cars, destroying streetlights, smashing bank windows, wrecking bus shelters, attacking a TV news van (http://cbs3.com/video/?id=67450@kyw.dayport.com), setting fire to trees and looting a luggage store.
This was after "knuckle-dragging Neanderthal" Phillies fans had visited Tampa where, says Tampa Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, they engaged in "behaviour more suitable for a prison yard than a family ballpark." The Philadelphians allegedly cursed at children before throwing food at them, called women "whores", poured beer over a terrified nine-year-old boy, and frightened one Tampa fan so much that he locked himself in a toilet stall until the Philly fans outside got bored of making death threats. That same month police attacked fans of Penn State football team with pepper spray after a victory party turned into an orgy of violence and destruction (http://blogs.usatoday.com/gameon/2008/10/penn-state-fans.html).
In November a high school soccer game in Massachusetts "almost degenerated into a European-style football brawl" according to a local newspaper. Because, as we all now know, brawls in proper American sports hardly every happen.
Oh, hang on: over in North Carolina a pee wee American football game was stopped after fans and coaches start hitting each other (http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/local/34944604.html).
In December a mass brawl stopped a high school basketball game in Connecticut (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/sports/othersports/29sportsbriefs-BRAWLAMONGFA~sep~BRF.html). And the NFL (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/nfl) game between the Patriots and the Arizona Cardinals saw mass drunkenness, 22 arrests, and a fan slamming into a player on the sidelines.
This month five teenage basketball fans were gunned down (http://www.momsteam.com/team-of-experts/gun-violence-at-athletic-contests-an-administrators-nightmare) after a high school a game in Chicago. And just a few weeks ago Giants fans responded to a play-off loss against the Eagles (http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/2009/01/15/2009-01-15~sep~giant~sep~idiots~sep~caught~sep~on~sep~tape~sep~fans~sep~smash~sep~c.html) by going on a car-smashing rampage in the parking lot (http://www.sbs.com.au/blogarticle/108989/Yet-another-football-riot/blog/Matthew-Hall-Open-Season-br). This followed soon after the news that the NFL has asked fans with cell phones to rat out the worst offenders in an effort to curb the league's notorious thug-fan problem.
The NFL has long played long played host to a boorish, violent, drunken fan culture where, in the words of the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04sun4.html), games are ruined by the "thuggery" of "bibulous (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bibulous) loudmouths" and "drunken louts [who] can be heard vilely abusing and threatening fans of the opposing team, and lewdly harassing women."
The story of the NFL rat-line (http://www.hereticalideas.com/2008/09/the-tribalism-of-sports-or-why-soccer-fans-riot-and-football-fans-dont/) was reported on Yahoo news with the headline: "Tattletales: NFL teams ask for text messages about rowdy fans". (I love that word "rowdy". It summons up images of recalcitrant toddlers. Or schoolchildren making a bit too much noise on the back of a bus.)
The big question is: can it happen here? Is Europe in danger of being infected by America's terrifying culture of sports mayhem, mass substance abuse, rioting and horrendous fan-on-fan violence (http://www.the700level.com/2008/06/fights-and-nitr.html)?
Let us hope not. Perhaps we Europeans (who let us not forget, have a few sports hooliganism problems of our own) will this time fail to copy the worst excesses of what the Buffalo News (http://www.buffalonews.com/248/story/488611.html) recently called "the most violent of all modern democratic nations in the world".
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A few weeks ago I was in a Philly pub with a mixed party of Brits and Americans when I mentioned in passing the fact that US sports have a far worse hooligan problem that UK sports (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2005/dec/07/ussport.football).
This made one British woman very angry. How dare I compare proper British hooligans to the obviously inferior American brand? The Americans present seemed confused. Wasn't every single English soccer game a seething maelstrom of racism, hatred and knife violence?
Which got me thinking: what if one were to write about American sports hooliganism the way the US media talks about soccer hooliganism?
Is Europe in danger of being swamped by a tidal wave of US style sports fan thuggery? I ask because of a recent letter about American fan violence (http://www.velonews.com/article/86102/readers--letters-on-philly-week-masters-racing-and) in the competitive cycling mag Velo News. Referring to fan-on-fan violence at the U.S. Cyclocross Nationals (http://www.velonews.com/photo/86090) in December, Jim Wheeler of Cupertino California wrote: "I've never heard of such a thing happening in Europe … It's just terrible and all participants should be ashamed. This is the kind of crap I expect to see in US-dominated sports like baseball and football, and it's also why I no longer follow those sports."
Barely a day goes by without yet another example of American fan thuggery. Take for instance last week's much anticipated college basketball game between Wake Forest and Clemson. Not only was the game spoiled by the sort of violence more usually associated with mixed martial arts, but when a Wake Forest player lost his footing, he was treated to a brutal body slam by a crop-haired hoodlum in the crowd (http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the~sep~dagger/post/Clemson-fan-tackles-Wake-Forest-player?urn=ncaab,135081).
These are not isolated incidents. As California Congressman Dan Lungren put it: "America is, by far, the most violent country in the [industrialised] world … Violence is deeply rooted in our society and has become woven into the fabric of the American lifestyle."
And nowhere is this more apparent than in American sport. Bestial supporter behaviour is the norm across all sports and at all levels. Here are just a few examples of North America's out-of-control berserker fan culture taken from the last 13 months:
January 2008: a San Francisco man was shot to death when he left his daughter's high-school basketball game to have a cigarette (http://cbs5.com/crime/sacred.heart.shooting.2.628790.html).
In April Montreal Canadiens fans celebrated with a riot that involves the mass torching of police cars (http://www.nationalpost.com/sports/nhlplayoffs/story.html?id=463718). And Red Sox and New York Yankees fans once again set about trying to kill each other (http://deadspin.com/381980/you-know-its-baseball-season-when-fat-yanks+red-sox-fans-are-killing-each-other).
In May a Yankees fan driving a car (http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1092028&srvc=home&position=recent) ran down and killed a Red Sox fan who yelled: "Yankees suck".
June, fans of the Boston Celtics celebrated their NBA championship with a traditional window-smashing riot (http://www.complex.com/ENTERTAINMENT/FEATURES/Sports-Riots-A-History-of-Violence). This was after fans of the defeated Lakers mobbed up and savagely beat (http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/sports/laker-fans-brawl-at-the-staple/) Celtics fans in LA. And the month also saw an unusually well publicised mass donnybrook (http://phillies.fandome.com/video/103246/Most-Shocking---Fans-Brawl-at-a-Phillies-Game/) at a Phillies v New York Mets baseball game.
In July Columbus Crew fans greeted visiting West Ham fans with a proper US-style fan punch-up (http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2008/07/21/crew~sep~side21.ART~sep~ART~sep~07-21-08~sep~C2~sep~R0AQ9IL.html?sid=101), inspiring one muppet to ask (http://www.doubleazone.com/2008/07/soccer~sep~fan~sep~violence.php): "We almost never see large-scale fights in other sports. Why does this happen in soccer?"
Also in July, a mob of baseball bat-wielding, "rabid" Red Sox fans (http://www.nypost.com/seven/07072008/news/nationalnews/bat~sep~snit~sep~crazy~sep~118830.htm) beat up a 69-year-old grandad they wrongly suspected of being a Yankees fan. Meanwhile another Red Sox fan lost an eye after being beaten by Cubs fans at a children's party (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=224019).
August, two Chicago Cubs fans went on trial for beating a Brewers fan so badly he had to have his jaw wired (http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/aug/01/local/chi-cubs-fan-charges-webaug02).
September, an NFA game between the Utica Yard Dogs and Troy was abandoned after mass brawling in the stands spilled onto the pitch (http://www.wktv.com/sports/local/28376684.html). And gunfire broke out among the crowd (http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/possible~sep~gangrelated~sep~shooting.html) at a high school game in Portland, Oregon.
In October Phillies fans rioted in celebration of their World Series win, engaging in brawls, slinging beer bottles, flipping cars, destroying streetlights, smashing bank windows, wrecking bus shelters, attacking a TV news van (http://cbs3.com/video/?id=67450@kyw.dayport.com), setting fire to trees and looting a luggage store.
This was after "knuckle-dragging Neanderthal" Phillies fans had visited Tampa where, says Tampa Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, they engaged in "behaviour more suitable for a prison yard than a family ballpark." The Philadelphians allegedly cursed at children before throwing food at them, called women "whores", poured beer over a terrified nine-year-old boy, and frightened one Tampa fan so much that he locked himself in a toilet stall until the Philly fans outside got bored of making death threats. That same month police attacked fans of Penn State football team with pepper spray after a victory party turned into an orgy of violence and destruction (http://blogs.usatoday.com/gameon/2008/10/penn-state-fans.html).
In November a high school soccer game in Massachusetts "almost degenerated into a European-style football brawl" according to a local newspaper. Because, as we all now know, brawls in proper American sports hardly every happen.
Oh, hang on: over in North Carolina a pee wee American football game was stopped after fans and coaches start hitting each other (http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/local/34944604.html).
In December a mass brawl stopped a high school basketball game in Connecticut (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/sports/othersports/29sportsbriefs-BRAWLAMONGFA~sep~BRF.html). And the NFL (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/nfl) game between the Patriots and the Arizona Cardinals saw mass drunkenness, 22 arrests, and a fan slamming into a player on the sidelines.
This month five teenage basketball fans were gunned down (http://www.momsteam.com/team-of-experts/gun-violence-at-athletic-contests-an-administrators-nightmare) after a high school a game in Chicago. And just a few weeks ago Giants fans responded to a play-off loss against the Eagles (http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/2009/01/15/2009-01-15~sep~giant~sep~idiots~sep~caught~sep~on~sep~tape~sep~fans~sep~smash~sep~c.html) by going on a car-smashing rampage in the parking lot (http://www.sbs.com.au/blogarticle/108989/Yet-another-football-riot/blog/Matthew-Hall-Open-Season-br). This followed soon after the news that the NFL has asked fans with cell phones to rat out the worst offenders in an effort to curb the league's notorious thug-fan problem.
The NFL has long played long played host to a boorish, violent, drunken fan culture where, in the words of the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04sun4.html), games are ruined by the "thuggery" of "bibulous (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bibulous) loudmouths" and "drunken louts [who] can be heard vilely abusing and threatening fans of the opposing team, and lewdly harassing women."
The story of the NFL rat-line (http://www.hereticalideas.com/2008/09/the-tribalism-of-sports-or-why-soccer-fans-riot-and-football-fans-dont/) was reported on Yahoo news with the headline: "Tattletales: NFL teams ask for text messages about rowdy fans". (I love that word "rowdy". It summons up images of recalcitrant toddlers. Or schoolchildren making a bit too much noise on the back of a bus.)
The big question is: can it happen here? Is Europe in danger of being infected by America's terrifying culture of sports mayhem, mass substance abuse, rioting and horrendous fan-on-fan violence (http://www.the700level.com/2008/06/fights-and-nitr.html)?
Let us hope not. Perhaps we Europeans (who let us not forget, have a few sports hooliganism problems of our own) will this time fail to copy the worst excesses of what the Buffalo News (http://www.buffalonews.com/248/story/488611.html) recently called "the most violent of all modern democratic nations in the world".