I'm a life long Addick currently at Southampton Solent University, studying Sports Journalism. I'm about to start work on my dissertation, which is based around social problems, mainly hooliganism, within football. If any of you Lifers know anything about the topic, or perhaps were involved, and would be willing to talk to me about the subject, I'd really appreciate it? It would be informal and you may get a pint out of it too! Please let me know and we can get in contact or inbox me if you'd prefer.
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could be useful for you
Pennant or any of that wrote look further afield with Sheffield Wednesday and the Luton books being a good read. Most people don't like talking about the subject for obvious reasons if been involved in past or currently. Good luck with your project i done the same subject. Don't waffle
On too much and use concrete facts or second hand experience were available
http://greatwen.com/tag/chris-lightbown/
"Slap"
"Bang out of order"
"claret"
"homo-eroticism"
"our manor"
"pornography of violence"
Re-arrange these words in any particular order and you have it.
Comments were helpful indie boy
In the 1950s the crowd was almost exclusively white, working class and male. People walked to the ground or arrived by train, bus or tram. In order to shift crowds of 40,000 plus, tram routes 36, 38 and 40 along the Woolwich Road used to run an intensive service. Definitely standing room only on each vehicle. The trams were cheap and reliable.
The folk on the East Terrace were self policing. There was no segregation of opposing fans and anyone using foul language was soon put in his place by the rest. 'Watch the language, there are children present!' was heard occasionally. The gates at the Sam Bartram entrance were opened at half time. Many kids, myself included, would leave our bikes at the entrance and watch the second half for free. When the game was over, the bikes would still be where we left them. In short, all I remember is a very friendly atmosphere.
I can't recall any form of crowd disturbance at that time. There were a few uniformed policemen in the ground and the police horses used to be exercised on a patch of green behind the present Jimmy Seed Stand.
You can get a flavour of those days by reading David Lodge's piece on Charlie Vaughan, which was published (I think) in the Sunday Times supplement. Of course, the atmosphere changed somewhat in the 1960s and 1970s. I believe up until the late 1970s you could still walk round the ground. Unless you paid more, you could not join the people sitting in the grandstand. Again there was no segregation of opposing fans in the grandstand.
The rise of football hooliganism has been put down variously to lack of discipline in the home/school, the ending of National Service in 1960/1, too much cheap booze, too much spending money, lack of respect for authority - you pays your money and takes your choice. The BBC Panorama programme ran a special on Millwall hooligans and this programme probably can still be accessed by researchers. As for Charlton fans, there was a spate of spraying the letters SES on neighbouring walls. I believe this stood for South East Shack - the Covered End's asnswer to the Chelsea Shed.
There's a lot more on the subject, and I did witness several violent incidents in the 1970s. I hope this has given you some ideas for your project.
A lot of the rest are rubbish, although the We Fear No Foe book by Colin Johnson looked at the other side of following football rather than straight up fighting and how 10 lads done 500.
One trap not to fall into is trying to link hooliganism with poor, ill-educated people from troublesome backgrounds because I know for a fact that people have been involved from all sorts of backgrounds; some who you'd expect to be vulnerable to getting involved to others with no history of violence whatsoever.
A whole combination of factors are involved, whilst many who haven't experienced it will scoff at the suggestion, those who have flirted with it or been involved for a long time will know. Not an easy topic to discuss as many people will dismiss any other reason or explanation as excusing the behaviour.
EDIT - also No One Likes Us by some academic is apparently a quite in depth look at the why's etc, must admit not got around to reading it, think it very much concentrates on social issues, external factors etc etc. Apparently a baffling read for your average person!
have i told you about the time we ran Pompey at LondonBridge ? wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Seriously, something slightly different is the Hull book, goes in to a lot of detail about life as a young male in the 70's and the influence of clothing and music along with fv. Really good read.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/crime/football-arrests-banning-orders/fbo-2009-10?view=Binary
I was in Deptford last weekend - my God it's got even worse since I was there last
Also Bill Burfords Among the Thugs and Scum Airways.
And note there are hooligans and there are hooligans. It's impossible to put them all under the same umbrella in terms of background, reasons,causes, activity, danger etc.
Good luck - I think its something that is very hard to explain unless you get it yourself.