h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The centre of Manchester's pretty much trashed this morning, thanks to 100,000 Glasgow Rangers fans.

The Manchester taxpayer laid on three huge "fanzones" for them so the ones without tickets could see the game. One of those screens broke down. Buses were specially laid on and a new screen erected to try and fix it, so what to the Rangers scum do? Riot. And then give soundbytes like this:

"It's an absolute shambles, shame on Manchester, shame on Manchester - it's let the country down."

Tell you what, we'll come up there, cover the centre of Glasgow in another layer of crap, piss in your streets, stab a few opposition fans and then bottle a few coppers. Then blame you. Good stuff.

And they call hooliganism "The English Disease".

I must comment on your forthright and very aggressive journal entry which seems very angry by saying I agree with your sentiments entirely though not perhaps as you probably dont the retaliatin you suggest.

It narks me immensly when people who know they will be in the spot light act like complete [expletive deleted] and bring not only football but their club and city into disrepute.

Glasgow is a rough old place, but I have many fond memories of the place and people this sort of thing is just sickening and as my travels around Scotland have taught me the distribution of Rangers fans is by no means limited to Glasgow.

Aye, I know what you mean there Blicky. There's nothing guaranteed to get on TV like a riot police baton charge, so it's obvious that the same old numpties decided they'd start hurling bottles at the first chance they got.

*And they call hooliganism "The English Disease".*

Its not an English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish disease, its a football disease. Violence, disorder and drink permeate the whole of the football scene, from the premiership right down to the kids leagues played in parks. My brother is the senior parks ranger here and he's had to deal with parents fighting and attacking football officials as well as opposing team parents on the park during the season. Its a sad indictment of the game as a whole. At the top end you have overpaid, overblown egos behaving badly, (thats the players), money has poisoned the game and at the lower levels you have just plain braindead idiots out for a fight.
I stopped watching football way back in the late 70s, early 80s, when all you ever heard or saw was fights and violence. I don't even watch the national teams anymore, whats the point? Until players behave and set proper examples then fans,(if they can be called that), will never behave either. The whole so called sport of football is rotten to the core.
I used to police local matches, (ex-cop), and it was guarenteed that after so called local derbys there wouldn't be a single available cell at the end of the day. We only see the big events like that in Manchester last night but it happens every w/e throughout the season and a lot of it just doesn't make the news anymore.

Nah, I dont htink its a ootball probelm either anymore than its an English problem. I was in Tukey one year and saw Galatasary fans driving through the streets shooting guns into the air. I was scared witless but in all honest most o them were probably about as violent as most fans here are, its just doesnt seem good whne you have joyous crowds being tarred with the same brush as thuggish crowds.

If football in the parks is violent then its not down to money is it?

There is a bigger social problem of people not accepting responsibility and defering to authority. The cause or rather causes of this are maniold and blaming football or even stopping football wont make a blind bit of difference.

I played parks football from the age of about 10 till I was 28, I had less fights doing that than I have had playing rugby for a similar amount of time. Rugby though a hig impact and occassionally outright violent game doesnt have the same problem with crowd violence even in countries where it is the number one sport. Were England fans attacked by gangs of Australian fans when they were sitting unsegregated at the 2003 RWC finals.

Its not the sport its not the money it is the attitude of some people who choose to go to the particualr sport or drink that drink e.g. I have drunk Stella Artois for many a year and not one o theimtes when Ive got drunk on it have I beaten any women the name "wife beater" belongs to the people not the drink and football does not deserve to have the phrase "Football violence".

I went to the FA Trophy Final on Saturday. There were 40,000 people there, and both sets of fans mingled quite happily before and after the game with no problems. I even swapped shirts with an Ebbsfleet fan after the match

As a Rangers supporter* I feel confident in saying that Rangers fans are, on average, more violent and more abusive than most other teams in the UK. Furthermore, Psyc, the same fans who decided to try and trash Manchester would welcome the chance to fight Mancunians back on their own turf.

oops, forgot the footnote, so it's at the bottom of this post instead




*Bearing in mind I'm not a huge soccer fan

Most of the rangers fans I saw yesterday were well behaved, if a little noisy at times. I must say I didn't witness any sectarian chanting though there are reports of it happening. Nor did I witness any violence. Thankfully my place of work is just outside of the city centre and the route to work from the station doesn't pass through the city centre. Even so this morning the main Manchester station was in the process of having a very good clean and I don't think I'll take a look at picadilly gardens till next week.

What I'm (and no doubt a lot of other mancunians) are peeved about is the utter chaos this sent the public transport infrastructure into. Trams and buses were not traveling in the city centre due to the number of fans milling about. Now placing one of the big screens right next to the city's major bus station and the cross city route for trams was always asking for trouble really. OK so picadilly gardens are one of the city centre's main squares but why not set up a few screens and fan areas in say heaton park and a bit closer to the city whitworth park?

People looking for trouble attatch themselves to an identity - it can be an area - near me we had the Keresely Boot Boys - The Holdbrooks Bovver Boys - Radford Skins, etc. It can be a football team, it can be a rqacial group, it can be anything.

The turf wars in London currently - are they about drug sales areas or just about needing an identity in a society that seeks to lose everyone in a single analgous mass.

Half of me's calmed down a bit, so I'm veering back towards Blicky's stance.

Then I saw the video on Sky where a copper gets tripped and stamped on. That's a disgrace.