Landeskunde GB Football hooliganism /

A Maligned Game Fights

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hat a mad, sad, joyously unpredictable game soccer can be. One year
5
ago, witnessing the crushing to
death of 95 spectators in an overcrowded
Hillsborough stadium, I would have given
anything to be elsewhere.
This year, in the same competition at the
10same stage and involving many Hillsborough
survivors, I stayed at home to watch Englands
Cup semifinals on television. And so
compelling was the action, so enriching the
bond between players and fans, I knew I was
15again in the wrong place. But we cannot wash
away the horror of deaths in a sports stadium,
nor indeed heal those maimed in mind and
body from last April 15.
Yet here, in another stadium, here again
20was Liverpool FC, the club whose spectators
died, defending the cup it ultimately won last
spring. But, unexpectedly, Liverpool this time
lost a pulsating contest against Crystal Palace,
a lower team whose spirit simply refused to lie
25down. Liverpool, the team and spectators,
accepted in a sporting manner that the underdog had outfought them fiercely but fairly.
Indeed, Crystal Palace, twice behind, overhauled Liverpool to win, 4-3, after extra time.
30It is the spirit of a maligned game fighting
back. Courageous men, believing their day had
come, had a go and upset opponents of
greater wealth, power and experience.
The match excited 40,000 spectators in the
35stadium. Neither Hillsborough, nor the catastrophes of Heysel and Bradford in 1985, have
broken the addiction to soccer spectating. Indeed, English crowds are steadfastly rising.
Sensible things have happened at last: im40proved policing and safety, removal of killer
fences, the comparative restoration of spectator sanity and more attacking play. The hooligan plague is contained, not beaten and there
is alarm that some English as well as some

45Dutch thugs still threaten to make the World

Cup in Italy their stamping ground.
Damn them.
But how can we reconcile such horror and
joy around what so many people dismiss as an
50irrelevant game? A social worker who counsels the bereaved, comments: Theyve been in
prison for the past year. Theres so much raw
feeling for the football club and so many
people trying to make sense of it all.
55 Sense? There is no rational explanation, of
why men kicking a windbag around a field
become the focal point of so many peoples
lives, or why even in death the compulsion
draws their next of kin. The game is a release
60valve for tensions and divisions, and as Crystal
Palace reminded us, can sometimes mock the
laws of privilege and riches.
The victory, for the players and the game,
was broadcast around the world. Also tele65vised, three days previously, was the Spanish
Cup final. Here were Barcelona and Real
Madrid, multi-millionaires infinitely richer in
technique and guile, and woefully bereft of
sportsmanship.
70 King Juan Carlos sat somberly through an
exhibition of cynicism, of boots aimed at
opponents, and players feigning fouls that
werent there. The Kings Cup was ceremonially handed to Barcelona, whose goalie was
75then bloodied by a missile thrown during the
lap of honor. Later, Barcelona fanatics became
drunk on this hollow victory, looted, rioted
and stabbed to death two people in the street.
No gloating from this quarter, just a ques80tion: Can it be that sport played passionately
but in the proper manner soothes the savage
breast while sport played by hoodlums is a
catalyst to murder?
[Rob Hughes in THE INTERNATIONAL
HERALD TRIBUNE, 11 April, 1990; shortened;
543 words]

hm-abo Mai 1990