History of Hooliganism

Hooliganism has been associated with football since it began. In the early years of football as a professional sport so called roughs were regularly reported to be causing trouble at matches. The biggest rivalries were, and still are, between clubs from the same city or local area. Trouble was reported at these games as early as the nineteenth century. As well as attacking opposition fans, the roughs used to attack players and referees. After this period, and particularly between the two world wars, football gained a more respectable reputation and crowd violence, although not totally wiped out, started to decline.However, in recent times there has been a move away from this idea of fighting in stadiums and groups arrange to meet outside grounds, before or after matches. Football hooliganism has moved on even from the days of the firms of the 1970s and 1980s. At this time football hooligans thought they were having "a bit of a laugh." Activities like verbally abusing opposition fans and threatening them with attack. The hardcore that were violent cause most damage by causing fights between rival groups of supporters. Due to changes in the 1990s, particularly the introduction of all seater stadia after the Hillsborough disaster, hooligan activity has almost completely moved out of the stadiums. Although a hardcore does remain, most violence occurs outside the grounds. Modern technology is used to organise fights between different groups of hooligans.