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Radio War Nerd EP #381 — Football Hooliganism: War By Other Means, feat. Aamer (Patreon)

Published:
2023-06-03 19:03:53
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Guest: Aamer 

Recorded: June 1, 2023

RWN favorite Aamer joins us for a brief & brutal history of football hooliganism, made intelligible to those of us who call it soccer.

Total time: 1:33:42

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

*NEW!! Buy John Dolan's comic memoir "Pleasant Hell" now available in both audio and ebook format here.

Previous episodes with Aamer include the Arab Conquests Series; the 1979 Grand Mosque Seizure; Inglorious Qataris' Bustards...

Sound production by Telescope Audio Studios

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Files

Comments

Eli Cash

Can’t wait for this one! I’m a huge footy fan and I’ve loved the ways it’s crept in in past episodes and Aamer is always a great guest.

Michael

Why is Hillsborough being featured on an episode about football hooliganism and the Sun newspaper the feature photo? I understand that this was not the intention but it seems a little insensitive to the survivors and families who have fought against the British state and police for three decades to overturn this smear.

Mark Ames

Listen to the show, we talk about the smear campaign & the Sun’s role

Jaime Christley

I’m sorry if this gets namechecked in the episode but there’s a fantastic 1989 film about UK football hooliganism called THE FIRM, starring Gary Oldman looking and behaving precisely like Robert Carlyle in TRAINSPOTTING. Twas the final film of UK cinema titan Alan Clarke, who began his career adapting plays to British television in the mid-1960s, gradually becoming one of the most distinctive voices in British film after the Powell & Pressburger era. It’s not terribly rare, although I don’t know offhand where it might be streaming.

Karl Childers

awesome! aamer is one of my all time favorite RWN guests, and what a fun topic, i'm excited for this one

Stateside Reds

Aamer fuckin rules, and fuck the goddamn s*n

a clash of purple

"Some fans urinated on the brave cops" Oh no! Why couldn't they have urinated on the cowardly cops instead! Maybe I'm too used to American police, but shouldn't that headline read "Football fans die after urinating on brave cops?"

Shane

The smear being that the crush was caused by *drumroll* hooligans. It’s all in the episode, worth a listen.

Shane

John with the Oi songs today. Used to listen to The Business, Cockney Rejects, etc. Lots of songs about football that had very little to do with balls, well let’s say very little to do with just one ball being kicked. The Rejects have a good cover for I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.

ElGatoMalandrin

John mentioned oi songs about hooliganism and I have to say imo the best of this genre is Football Violence by Skin Deep, a Scottish band. Saturday again I'm going to town To meet my mates from all around Sit in the pub we all get pissed And go to the match 'cause my mates insist Football violence it happens every week You go to the game and loose You can't help getting angry Half time we're two nil up Full time and we've fucked it up Invade the pitch in disgrace Then get nicked for GBH Locked in the cells with no fags 'Til Monday morning when you see the judge You know it's a waste of time Gonna get three months or a fucking great fine

Eli Burnes

Former coworker of mine was in grad school trying to do his dissertation on Russian football hooliganism. Ended up not being able to go because of the Ukraine war.

Joe Bowden

Italian fans are not that violent!!!! lol. Have you guys not watched the Italian series gomorrah???

THEKILLERWHALE

Love this topic. A few diverse points. 1. I listened to a United fan interview his grandfather about his experience going to matches during the last half-century plus. One of his points was that he used to go to matches with his City fan friend and they would sit together with no problems. His point was that the majority of the guys were dock workers and hooligan like behavior would not have been tolerated by them. His view was that hooliganism comes from a diminished, broken working class. 2. The FA Cup / Coupe de France are some of the greatest competitions in sports. It starts in August/September when your more athletic co-workers are playing on the weekends in the same pool as the top clubs. And there are always these situations where big fish gets an away match against some tiny team in the middle of nowhere. A friend of mine's gym teacher got to play against Nice one year and it was the biggest thing in the town for decades. My favorite one this year was Kylian Mbappe putting five goals past an amateur team in Cassell. Props to him for playing in such a tiny stadium and putting in a shift. 3. I was at a match for the left-wing club in the Paris suburbs. This was during the massive wave of strikes against Macron's retirement plan. For some insane reason, his Minister of Sport thought that it was a good time to visit for a match because of their outreach efforts. She was immediately cornered and pelted with beers and it was a bit of a scandal. But really, what the hell was she thinking?

drewb

I was not expecting to hear such an enthusiastic rendition of the Billy Boys while cleaning the bathroom today, cheers! A very small note, the "Billy" refers to Billy Fullerton who was the fascist leader of a Protestant street gang in the early 20th century - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Boys Here's a skit from a sketch show around the time that Rangers started to allow Catholic signings in the eighties, RIP Rikki Fulton (of Local Hero fame) and Gerry Kelly (of Extras fame) - https://youtu.be/A1zH2x1-7LA

Jim Macfarlane

Black and blue is a luxury steak restaurant in the middle of a luxury food market. There are still some grubby pubs around there, and it's one train stop from Millwall's ground - home turf for fuck you I'm Millwall guy

NYCM&AHole

Is the leftmost column story about famous contra participant and Maxwell associate adnan kashoggi?

PapaSoftPenis411

Great ep! You missed my favorites, the Scum Army or the Scummers from Southampton Saints. My dad's team.

Steven Foster

So good I listened to it twice. And as a Forest fan, John taught me something I didn’t know - Executive Crew, wtf?! Amazing from Aamer - looking forward to pt 2!

Nicholas Levis

Another great episode. Not that you're asking for my advice on marketing, but this one seems like a good choice to make public at some point, draw in people with different interests.

PostmasterFenian

My high school college coach was a former celtic youth, scottish national team youth, and celtic reserve player. Whenever we'd play the horrible fundamentalist evangelical school he'd always make sure to get in lots of catholic remarks and say "god bless celtic" towards the end of their prayer. Also remember getting chased out of some of the smaller towns in alabama that have klan activity because we had a lot of mexican and kenyan players on our team. Love that dude he was totally up the rar if ya know what I mean. Also hey hey I'm from birmingham and have gone to a few legion games while visiting my parents. Pretty sure I've probably seen your second cousin play a few times Mark- one time against former premier league winner and austrian captain christian fuchs (he won the premier league with Leicester city which had 5000:1 odds at the start of the epl season)

CE

It’s true, brawls are rare at NFL games. But I grew up in West Texas and fighting at high school football games was and still is pretty common. Not organized gangs but grandstand-emptying mêlées nonetheless. The clannish violence and dirtiness of West Texas football culture was the subject of the book (and later TV show) Friday Night Lights. Wasn’t all bad though. I’m not a religious person and never really have been, but the closest thing I’ve had to a true religious experience was as a kid walking in complete darkness with what felt like our entire town across a giant field toward a glowing stadium and feeling the vibrations of the drums spread from my chest throughout my entire body as we got closer and closer to the grandstands. The possibility that I was going to see a huge fight was definitely part of that.

xnfec

Tim Parks wrote a book about Italian football and his experiences following Hellas Verona (relegated this season) as a fan around Italy for a year. I found it an enjoyable read, not least because he got to know some of the Ultras.

xnfec

In the UK, Wimbledon (Crazy Gang - who included Vinnie Jones as a player) were moved to Milton Keynes by their owners and renamed MK Dons. So far it's not been a success and there is a phoenix club now called Wimbledon AFC who play in Wimbledon. Growing up in 60's west London, most of my schoolmates supported Tottenham - because they were a successful club though most of them stuck with them during their decline. I had one friend who was a Millwall fan and still was last time I was in touch with him a few years ago, much to his kids embarrasment as he told me. Our local team was Brentford and most of my friends went there for their football. QPR was also a fairly local team. Arsenal were originally Woolwich Arsenal (S.E. London) which was were the Royal Arsenal actually was. They eventually moved to north London. The youtube channel Copa90 have a series called Derby days where they go to famous derbys around the world and hang out with the ultras. My favourite was Union Berlin. The scaries was Boca v River Plate in Buenos Aires If you want to see how violent the NFL was google Jim Plunkett, the Oakland Raiders QB, and his injuries sustained over several seasons. Or watch Joe Theismann get his leg broken playing for the Redskins (as they were).

George P

Enjoyed this one a lot. That Egypt mess is unbelievable. It's interesting how different countries handle issues of fan behavior differently. The UK seems to have done a pretty good job limiting open racial abuse to black players. Meanwhile Spain (just to name one) has been an embarrassment, it's finally come to a head this year after one of the league's star players (a black Brazilian) finally got tired of the vicious racism he received in every away game. Hundreds of people would be waiting for the bus chanting that he was a monkey, local rival ultras hung a dummy with his jersey on it off a bridge, etc. etc. just cartoonish KKK shit. The response from the Spanish public has largely been to say the player is asking for it because he dances after goals and talks a lot of shit to opposing players. It's taken him threatening to leave Spain for anything to maybe be done about it. Somehow the only game in Spain that was stopped due to fan's heckling was a few years ago at Rayo Vallecano, a club in a working class section of Madrid with leftist ultras. They spent the whole first half calling an opposing player from Ukraine a Nazi because he had a bunch of social media posts with the Azov Battalion and the like. This player had previously signed with Rayo Vallecano but the fans objected so loudly he never played in a game for them and left. The game was suspended at half time and resumed at a later date with no fans. This was before Russia's full invasion of Ukraine, but even then the entire media took the Ukrainian player's side, if that had happened post-invasion there probably would have been a movement to forcibly relegate the club and arrest their fans.

Steven Wilsher

Among the Thugs is easy to read, but like all of these well-crafted pieces of reportage, there's a bit too much Chagnon-among-the-Yanomamö for someone with a bit of experience about the subject under discussion (2 deg. of sep.), and it can't help but give it a bit of reverse glamour that these villains don't deserve. Firstly, no account of hooligans fully show how spiteful they are: these are petty men, who find a group of fictive kin to be petty with about foreigners, or gays, or people who look they're doing better. Buford's description of a ruck is just luxury tourism, and is a description of someone who is surprised at his own adrenalin: being caught up in something like that out of necessity feels very diiferent, with no 'emotion caught in tranquility' undertones.

Steven Wilsher

Oh, and I thought that, given the etymology of the word 'hooligan', more would be made of the continual undercurrent of English anti-Irish sentiment.

HeyB00B00

More Aamer! This episode was fantastic

Jimothy Realname

As I recall, the leader of the gang that dress up like nazis in a Clockwork Orange was called Billy Boy

Mark Ames

I know exactly what you're talking about, good description.

teh_drewski

As a football fan Aamer did an excellent job of explaining the nuances of this subject, great episode!

Jennifer Wiren

It's true that football culture is a bit more "soft" today than it was in the 70's and 80's in Britain but there have been benefits from the lack of violence. Crowds pretty dwindled through the 70s and into the early 90s. It's all fun and games having a laugh until 3,000 odd Wolves fans decide their going to invade the home end where you are across the pitch and you're barely 10 years old. A lot of people didn't want to be involved in that.

Broadway Joe

In high school we had a teacher that had just moved from Texas and he was appalled by how little we cared about our football team.

Xander Udo

Great job Aamer! Looking forward to part two. For some reason it was very satisfying hearing someone splaining football to a couple of Americans 🙈 The 'english model' of tackling hooliganism is often talked about in the Netherlands too. The younger generation of hooligans, such as those hoodied kids at AZ, have been more active the last few years. There's quite a few people who see a link with the covid lockdowns. As in people have had trouble adjusting back to larger group social interaction. Kindergarten teachers report kids have shorter fuses, so too in bars, nightlife. Maybe, but these younger hooligans come and go in cycles anyway. And cocaine was/is definitely a big part of hooliganism, over here at least. There was a de facto drugs gang among hardcore Ajax hooligans for a while a few years back. Probably still is.

Mark Ames

Anecdotally, I've seen a trend where (US) football jock culture isn't as strong in the upper end of middle-class suburban high schools as it was when I was a kid; football jock culture seems now much more of a thing at middle/lower-middle class schools and rural schools. Texas may be an outlier here.

Benjamin Cheney

Yes it is! Good catch. I was mostly focusing on the depraved Hillsborough “coverage”

James Evans

This totally needs to be a series - there were so many avenues opening up that there wasn't time to go down. Not-really-relatedly but surely there's something to be said about the different gulf powers buying up chunks of the European football landscape (eg, MBS/Newcastle, the Emiratis/Man City and possible Qatari takeout of Man U, just to take English examples)?

Patrick Fitzgerald

Great episode. I saved this one for today to get primed for the West Ham game. COYI. And second the big thumbs up for the movie This Is England. One of the best depictions of skinhead culture I've ever seen. Plus the UK Subs.

David Andrews

This was the most useless, dull episode you've ever done. It's okay. They can't all be winners. Let's hope the next one returns to your usual high standard.

Xander Udo

On this is England: A friend of mine from Manchester said "it were really like that you know"

Christopher Price

Arsenal, T'ham, West Ham, Millwall, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Chelsea, Brentford, Queen's Park Rangers. I think that's the London clubs

Christopher Price

Also, Fever Pitch has a good depiction of the terrace experience.

xnfec

Orient (or Leyton Orient). Also Charlton Athletic. You could probably include Watford.

Cooper Rodgers

Listening now and I have to bring up the Millwall Brick: an improvised weapon made up of change rolled into a newspaper that is then folded and squashed into crude cosh. It came into vogue after most other potential weapons were banned from stadiums: you could hardly pull someone up for a paper and a pocket of loose change. Tabloids were most common, but the elite choice was a broadsheet copy of the Financial Times for its large size. A group of working class toughs with copies of the Financial Times became a cause for alarm

William

How can you urinate on something that doesn’t exist tho??

William

Nah this was fine

ploob

👎 boo you whore!

Steve Mathews

Comic Book Guy: "Worst episode ever"

JoR

I liked it but i can definitely get why some would consider this a "dud." nothing wrong with having high standards for the show

JoR

Maybe it was a topic before, but if we talk about hooligans again, you HAVE to discuss the Red Star Belgrade saga. The team won the champions league in 91-92 and then their ultras basically became a milita in the Yugoslavia wars. A decade later, the infamous paramilitary/gangster Arkan's football club won the Serbian league (one of the only winners in the last 30 years that wasn't the top two clubs, red star or Partisan). I'm probably butchering the details, but the Balkan scene deserves it's own guest I feel

James Evans

The eventual johndolansings website needs to have an Oi! version of the French are on the sea says the Sea -bhean bhocht.

James Evans

Sean? Autocorrect AI killing me

John

The recently deceased Berlusconi was a huge football fan, the name of his party "Forza Italia" was originally a popular chant.