England football fans are still the worst, don't ya know!... *sigh*

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Roma VS Middlesborough game in Italy is to be played tonight.

200 or so Middlesborough fans enjoying a drink in a busy bar in the centre of Rome. Suddenly, a bunch of Roma fans run into the place armed with knives, firebombs and even axes! 15 English fans required hospital treatment after the incident, due to stabs, cuts and burns.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/4808246.stm

But, hey, let's not forget that the English guys are the 'real' troublemakers .

Stinks.

Oh, yeah, the Italian police were watching the Ultras (Roma's firm) attacking an out-numbered group of Boro fans and families, then doing naff all until some of our lot fought back, then they went in clobbering with batons.

Police as much of a disgrace as the hooligans...

Fcuking scum, the lot of them...

I bet this goes unpunished. Yet, was it in England, there'd be bannings, fines and other severe punishments.

I'm really pissed off about this, it's disgraceful .

 

I can't get over the violence revolving around soccer - er, I mean football. And the most violence isn't by the players, it's by the fans. You don't see this in American sports nearly as much. We have fanatical people when it comes to sports, but it seems like every year or two there's some type of major ruckus involving soccer - er football - fans of opposing teams. Is it because it's international - with teams from different countries in the same league? With American sports, almost all of the franchises are all located in the United States (baseball, basketball, and hockey have franchises in Canada).

 

One psychologist reckoned that all the violence associated with soccer was because it was the one contact sport where the players were not really allowed to unleash their aggression on each other. In rugby, American Football, ice hockey etc etc, the players can bash into each other without being penalised so the fans can release their violent tension through the players. Sounds like nonsense to me, but there has to be some reason why soccer fans are more violent than those of any other sport. And don't start telling me it's because they are so "passionate". All sports fans are passionate so that can't be it.

 

Well I think that the psychologist is looking in the wrong end. My experience is that the hooligans are not really connected to football or the teams they claim to support much at all, to them its rather a good excuse to express their violent tendencies and fight.

 

But then why do so many of these fights center (supposedly) around soccer games? If they truly weren't fans of one team, wouldn't we expect to see this type of hooliganism at other sporting events? Why don't we see fights break out regarding cricket for instance? And I agree with Harbourboy that it can't be just the passionate fans of soccer either. Fans is short for fanatic - and they exist in all sports, and in all nations.

 

The reason behind football violence is not the sport but the clubs. The majority of the football clubs during the first years of their existance represented different ideologies, religious doctrines, social classes, neibghourhoods and the fights among these are continued through football. Rangers vs Celtics (protestants vs catholics), Real Madrid vs Barcelona (leftists and catalonian nationalists vs royalists and spanish nationalists), Lazio vs Roma (fascists vs communists) etc. The same thing happens in national level, where the national football teams have replaced the armies of the tribal wars of the previous centuries.

 

not only that but alot of fans worship their club like a religion or as if they are actually a part of it.

when you hear a fan talking about the club they support they refer to it as "we" "weve bought so-and-so" "weve won this cup" they live through the teams because often then have no personal glory to cling to, and this i believe leads to alot of the violence we see.

 

In my country it's rare to see this kind of behavoiur without linking it to a political manouver. I bet it's the same in Italy.
Talking about teams representing different cultural values, I think it's a thing of the past. It's not like that anymore. See, I read in a local newspaper that chinese (wtf!?) people watched today's River-Boca match, even when it's bedtime for them.
Soccer has become much more than a sport, than just entertainment. Like Shoshino said, it's in the people's head as if it were a part from them. And I laugh too when I heard people saying "we won, you lost!" But, in the end, they're part of a club, so it's not wrong, I think.

 

It is the nature of the sport. I am an American, and even I get quite pissed watching every player flop to the ground, pretending to be injured, with each minor incident of contact. Nobody flops like soccer players. And somebody has to pay for all that injustice. Maybe that somebody is YOU!

 

Now that is the truth.

 

couldnt agree more, that magic sponge is a life saver

 

They should use that magic sponge in hospitals.

 

My ...
There are people who genuinely support the team they go to see, they would defend it to the grave. Then there are those who go to games only to cause trouble. These people don't know eachother, so neither of them wants to back down. With that many people, usually some alcohol, and the general energy of the game, it only takes one little spark to set off a riot.

 

To the grave? Are you saying they would die for their team? If so, that is plainly insane.

 

It's an expression

 

That comment shows how little you understand from footballfans' minds. You can fight pretty much anywhere, you don't have to visit a stadium for that, especially not in a metropolis like London. These guys however pay their last penny to attend every match of their team, they travel all across Europe to support them, and they fight everyone who stands in their way. It's a territorial thing more or less, but to claim that they don't care about football is a big mistake, they love football more than any other "regular" fan, or the ones that only show up in good times.

 

Why are the English fans always seen as the worst? What about the two Leeds fans who were murdered in Turkey?

 

cos they get the most media attention