Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Cultural Studies - Miscellaneous, grade: A-, , language: English, abstract: Wandering the ground outside Old Trafford Buford tried to find some hooligans that he could interview. However, he could not find any because initially he could not tell the hooligans apart from the average fans. Instead, Buford saw thousands of fans all behaving in the same manner; singing, dancing, shouting, drinking and celebrating, and he realised that the hooligan fan in many ways behaved exactly like the average fan. Buford finally found one of "them", a fella named Mick, who belonged to the Manchester United firm known as ICJ, the Inter-City Jibbers (named after the British Rail commuter service). Through Mick Buford was introduced into the subculture of hooligans, and through Buford and many others, certain conclusions have been drawn about the hooligans and the hooligan phenomenon. Most sociologist, anthropologists, and psychologists thus agree that roughly six primary features underpin the construction of the hooligan identities; 1) excitement and pleasurable emotional arousal of violence, 2) hard masculinity, 3) territorial identifications, 4) representations of sovereignty and autonomy, 5) individual and collective management of reputation, and finally, 6) a sense of solidarity and belonging. These shared features or commonalities allow us to begin the analysis of football hooliganism as a subcultural activity which will be the focus of the following sections.

Football hooliganism periodically generates widespread political and public anxiety. In spite of the efforts made and resources invested over the past decades, football hooliganism is still perceived by politicians, policymakers and media as a disturbing social problem. This highly readable book provides the first systematic and empirically grounded comparison of football hooliganism in different national and local contexts. Focused around the six Western European football clubs on which the author did his research, the book shows how different clubs experience and understand football hooliganism in different ways. The development and effects of anti-hooligan policies are also assessed. The emphasis throughout is on the importance of context, social interaction and collective identity for understanding football hooliganism. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in football culture, hooliganism and collective violence.

Association football is the richest, most popular sport in history with a multicultural global following. It is also riven with corruption, racism, homophobia and a violence that has for decades resisted all attempts to tame it. Cashmore and Cleland examine football's dark side: the unpleasant, sleazy and downright nasty aspects of the sport.

This systematic historical and sociological study of the phenomenon of football hooliganism examines the history of crowd disorderliness at association football matches in Britain and assesses both popular and academic explanations of the problem. The authors’ study starts in the 1880s, when professional football first emerged in its modern form, charting the pre and inter-war periods and revealing that England’s World Cup triumph formed a watershed. The changing social composition of football crowds and the changing class structure of British society is discussed and the genesis of modern football hooliganism is explained by tracing it to the cultural conditions and circumstances which reproduce in young working-class males an interest in a publicly expressed aggressive masculine style.

This book, available in paperback due to popular demand, is an ethnographic account of English football fans, based upon sixteen years' participant observation. The author identifies a distinct sub-culture of supporter – the ‘carnival fan’ – who dominated the travelling support of the three teams observed – Manchester United, Blackpool and the England national team. This accessible account follows these groups at home and abroad, describing their interpretations, motivations and behaviour and challenging a number of the myths about ‘hooliganism’ and crowd control. The text will be of value to anyone studying, researching or interested in ethnographic modes of enquiry or the behaviour of football fans. In particular it will be of value to anyone involved in the academic disciplines of policing, criminal justice, sociology, criminology, sports studies and research methods. It also makes recommendations for the management of football crowds that will be of use to practitioners involved in policing, crowd control and event management.

Focusing on a number of contemporary research themes and placing them within the context of palpable changes that have occurred within football in recent years, this timely collection brings together essays about football, crime and fan behaviour from leading experts in the fields of criminology, law, sociology, psychology and cultural studies.