HOOLIGANISM RIFE IN ENGLISH SOCCER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30916, 24 November 1965, Page 19

HOOLIGANISM RIFE IN ENGLISH SOCCER

I By

BRIAN SCOVELL]

(")NE place to go nowadays in Britain if you want a good fight or a beer bottle round your head is the local football ground. This increasing problem of hooliganism is getting so out of hand that the English Football Association is currently meeting Home Office officials to decide how best to curb these outbreaks.

What happens now is that the police arrest as many hooligans as they can, who are then convicted on the Monday morning and fined £2 or so for committing a breach of the peace. The Football Association would like to see that £2 increased to something like £5O. The latest missile in soccer’s terrace war was a china cup, thrown at the Dartford goalkeeper, J. Bourne, in a Football Association Cup tie at Barnet. The week before it was a hand grenade at the Brentford v Millwall match which luckily for the policeman who picked it up and put it in his pocket, was a dud. In the same match the Brentford goalkeeper, C. Brodie, complained about bits of wood with nails sticking out of them being flung at him. Millwall promptly countered the threat at its own ground by offering fans a free ticket for the next match if they would “inform” on the bottle, wood and cup throwers. Some critics have said the answer is to close the ground for a month when something like this happens. But why should say 30,000 people be punished for the sins of half a dozen? Especially when the trouble usually comes from visiting supporters. Liverpool and Everton fans are the worst. The British Railways took off special football trains after a wave of train wrecking. At every away game, these two clubs still manage to get above 2000 supporters.

Most of them are the thug type. Manchester United’s away supporters are little better. At Leicester when United came back to form with a 5-0 win, they sang the National Anthem to the words “God Save our Gracious team ...” This may sound flippant but some of their other chants are less funny. A referee who incurs their displeasure is greeted with chants of ".... off, so and so.” And a player who does well is dismayed with a few thousand voices baying: “So and so is a ....” Unfortunately, soccer attracts the tough guys who want to make an exhibition of themselves. Nearly every week there is at least one incident where someone runs on to the pitch and hits a player. A. Stepney, Millwall’s under-23 goalkeeper, was the latest player to be attacked in this way. Much of the trouble is inflamed by indecisive refereeing. Players react violently if a player is allowed to get away with a foul and the sending off, or lecturing that follows nearly always upsets the crowd. If the referee was firm with the original offender the crowd would not have the chance to demonstrate.

The news about Greaves is that he has hepatitis, a chill on the liver, and will be out of action until midDecember. Spurs will miss him and in spite of what the England manager A. Ramsey says about him privately, so will England. That was evident when England struggled to beat Northern Ireland 2-1 in front of 70,000 exasperated fans at Wembley on November 10. Ramsey had to bring in a centre-forward,

Arsenal's J. Baker, to replace him and Baker proved the best of the forwards. England’s soccer officials are thinking about introducing a bonus for winning internationals. At the moment players get a basic £6O match fee. But Scotland paid its players £lOO for beating Italy in a World Cup qualifying game on November 9, thus breaking a British rule on the subject. This unilateral declaration of independence is not likely

to be followed by any sanctions. England is thinking about introducing a similar incentive scheme.

The Football Association secretary, Mr D. Follows, told me: "If England wins the World Cup I’ve no doubt that we would give the players a substantial bonus for doing so.”

Scotland’s 1-0 win over the Italians was a victory for patriotic nationalism — 103,000 Scots roared their

men on to success In a match that had more noise surrounding it than a dozen international airports. Scotland have to win—or draw for a play-off—the return in Naples on December 7 to qualify for the World Cup finals. Naples is rated the most dangerous ground to play football on outside of Vietnam and the Congo and Scotland's chances are not considered too highly, even with that £lOO bonus. The Italian bonus is £BOO and as Chelsea found when it played there, a continual bombardment of missiles from the 80,000 incensed “supporters” is enough to make a coward of any wouldbe football hero. This is where we came in. Seems that football crowds are the same everywhere you go. Only now English ones are catching up with the worst of the Continental ones.!