Bijou Drains
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Wez – “I doubt that it was as intense and lasted so long as football violence did in this country”
Genuine question, are you being serious?
The British union of Fascists were active across all cities across the UK from the mid 1920’s to the outbreak of the 2nd World War.
My Dad and his uncles were involved in the anti Fascist movement in the 30’s.
If you think this is comparable with a few hundred or even thousands of football hooligans running around Cambridge, closing a few pubs, you need to give your head a wobble.
If you are unaware of what went on in the late 1920’s and 1930’s you seriously need to do some reading.
This is an account of what was going on in the North East. This was a very small part of the fascist campaign.
My old fella (my dad) wasn’t a member of the SPGB but I am proud when he explained to me why he was there at many of the anti fascist protests in the 1930’s, especially at the famous Newcastle Town Moor event.
I knew a few of his old friends who ended up fighting in the Spanish Civil War. He and his marras chased the BUF off Newcastle’s Town Moor
This as an account of what happened in my part of the world. It was much worse in other parts of the UK
I’m honestly surprised that you are unaware of this.
If you think this is even slightly comparable to what you described as “football culture”, which we have established includes junior football, local leagues football, the hundreds of thousands who attend non-league football games, and the 16 million people who play, watch and volunteer as part of “football culture” I would really appreciate an explanation of why think this way.
“The fascist campaign reached a watershed in the early summer of 1934. An unsuccessful Blackshirt attack on an ILP May Day rally in Gateshead effectively decided their fate. The fascists were planning a major rally with Mosley at Newcastle’s Town Moor during Race Week and a series of meetings were arranged to promote the rally. In response to the May Day attack, on 13 May several thousand anti-fascists, led by the AFL in “plainclothes”, stopped a fascist meeting in Newcastle, followed them back to their Headquarters and laid siege to it – with broken glass and blood everywhere.
The next night the BUF meeting was in Gateshead. Thousands turned out to oppose it and it was forced to close down early, and only a large police presence prevented the thousands who followed them back over the Tyne from getting hold of the fascists. Once again the BUF HQ was put under heavy siege. On 1st June the Gateshead BUF office was wrecked (probably by the AFL), Beckett and Moran were moved out of Newcastle in disgrace, and with fierce opposition promised, Mosley’s Race Week Rally was cancelled.
Attempts were made by the BUF to move their operations to North Shields, but this failed after two rallies got turned over in the summer of 1934. The fascists were in disarray, unable to do what they wanted, and Newcastle BUF duly split in August ’34. They did reorganise in 1935, and Mosley spoke at Newcastle City Hall in May, but the opposition was so loud that he stormed out after only 15 minutes.
Other smaller meetings were tried but the tide had turned, in July 400 miners smashed a BUF meeting in Sunderland. In November Mosley had one more try with a rally in South Shields, next to the Arab “quarter”, hoping to start a race riot. Fascist stewards were bussed in from all over the country, but the anti-fascists mobilised thousands, and with fighting inside and outside the hall, and fascist buses bricked on their way out, the meeting wasn’t a success.
After 1935, BUF activity petered out in the North East, the fascists being mainly confined to London from then on. Undoubtedly, without the level of opposition they faced, the outcome would have been different.”
Was Fascist violence was a big thing in the 1930s? Are you genuinely asking that question? Surely you have a know about the amount of very serious right wing violence occurred in the 1930s.
And not just in the 1930s. The NF violence in the UK in the 1970s was incredible and in the 1980s our branch was regularly the scene of attempts to intimidate us by far right nutters.
If you don’t think that nazi inspired violence has any part of the modern UK, who the hell do you think has been attempting to burn down asylum seeker accommodation and trashing towns and cities across the country, the bloody Women’s Institute
Rodshaw, Funnily enough, I had the same experience of not being asked about my view of football during my application to join the party in 1982. Perhaps this crucial question about socialist consciousness was inadvertently overlooked in that period of time.
I also enjoyed the article.
I do think that there is an awful lot of emphasis on the 92 league clubs and especially on the Premier League, when discussions take place about football and its impact on the general public. Although the Premier League has a big impact with an average of around 800,000 people attending Premier League matches per week, there are still over 300,000 people attend the non league teams that operate within the top 5 levels of the non league pyramid, with even more attending games below that level.
Attendances in non league football are growing year on year and it seems to be that a significant number of spectators are choosing to leave the glitz and glamour of the elite game and enjoy football in a way which has probably more connections to their own lived experience.
Rodshaw “I still enjoy watching it though.” Careful mate, enjoying football and seeing some positive aspects in any part of the sport (including grass roots and local league football) will hinder your ability to form socialist consciousness. Wez reckons perhaps you’d possibly be less socially destructive if you became a Nazi.
Wez, saying that the violent fools who were involved in football violence have over exaggerated their exploits to make them look like heroes for financial gain is not a denial that they were and still are violent, nasty arseholes. In saying that the plethora of “cowboys and Indians” films we all watched as kids exaggerated the exploits of the violent vicious gangsters to make them out to be heroes is not excusing the gangsters. Denial according to the Cambridge Dictionary means “an unwillingness to accept that something unpleasant is true”. I stated that “That is not to say that there weren’t some very bad things that happened and that disruption to normal life took place, people got hurt and some seriously,”. Does that sound like denial to you?
So football violence might “perhaps” be comparable (not worse) than Nazism, makes you look like an even bigger fool than you the posts you have made so far. Congratulations, I didn’t think was possible.
So I infer from that that you think that the whole of football culture (you stated football culture not football hooliganism) is sicker than Paedophilia, People Trafficking, etc. Your words not mine. If you agree that the culture of paedophilia is less worse than football culture, can you for the sake of clarity, acknowledge this?
You also by omission, have put forward the view that boxing, as sport that involves people punching each other in the face with the aim of knocking the opponent into a state of unconsciousness, whilst being cheered on by sometimes, hundreds, sometimes thousands and often tens of thousands others are cheering them on as they do it, is less violent than football. There were something like 6,200 boxing bouts held in England and Wales last year, last year there were 2,037 arrests in total across organised football matches across England and Wales of which 36% were for violence or threats of violence. You work out which sport was the more violent.
As I have said before, the entirety of football culture is a far great thing than football violence. You have tried consistently to conflate the two as being exactly the same thing, you have failed completely in this attempt.
As to trawling through “your endless apologies for the violence and criminality”, please trawl through them all again and clearly point out where I have apologised for violence and criminality. I think you will find there have been no apologies for any of it. What I have done is point out that whilst there has been a small sub culture of violence, which has grown smaller and smaller, there is a larger whole of football which if you wish to designate as being a “culture” has as many varieties as their are football fans and participants.
You have tried again and again to state that football violence and football culture are one and the same thing, I have clearly pointed out with explicit examples backed by facts and figures that this is not the case. As to snide comments, I read your comments and learned from the master.
Wez, as I have said several times, you have accused me of whitewashing. The Cambridge Dictionary defines whitewashing as “an attempt to stop people finding out the true facts about a situation“. I have never in any of my postings attempted to stop people finding out the true facts of a situation. What I did was responded to the ridiculous hyperbole of your posting which stated that football is the “sickest, racist, atavistic and most violent” culture in the country. Rather than whitewashing football, I responded to you by pointing out some of the undoubtedly positive aspects of the sport (if you think that children enjoying football is a bad thing please explain why). I was in fact responding to your hugely overstated comment that the whole of football (you described it as football culture) is unremittingly bad. Introducing balance to an argument is not whitewashing
I challenged that by saying that this was a silly and unsupportable statement. As you used superlative adjectives in your denunciation of football, I have asked you to explain clearly
- why football is sicker, more racist more atavistic and violent than any other culture in England?
So if, as you say, football culture is the worst, please clearly explain why the following cultures are better than football? So:
Why is football culture worse than Nazism?
Why is football culture worse than Paedophilia?
Why is football culture worse than dog fighting?
Why is football culture worse than badger baiting?
Why is football culture worse than People trafficking?
Why is football culture worse than bare knuckle fighting?These by your definition are cultures. They are by your definition not as sick, racist, atavistic and violent as football.
If you don’t give precise reasons why these cultures are not as bad as football, I can safely assume it’s because you can’t.
Moving on, in terms of football you stated that football is the most violent sport in the country. Do you seriously think that the sport of boxing which revolves around people training, preparing and promoting people to continually punch each other in the face is less violent than football. A simple yes or no that one would suffice.
As to the real football factories and the similar stories of great bravado that ex football hooligans write about, I actually have watched bits of them and looked at odd articles that are of a similar vein. I have to say, as someone who went to club football matches all over England, home and away, in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s and encountered some of the knuckle dragging clowns who write these tall tales about their exploits, they are generally massive exaggerations to make money out of their experiences.
That is not to say that there weren’t some very bad things that happened and that disruption to normal life took place, people got hurt and some seriously, but all of the “our crew went down to their end and sorted them out and we did this and we did that” “we took the such and such crew and we hammered them etc.” is a huge load of baloney which attempt to make these nutters some kind of war hero. In the same way that war heroes try to claim that they were fighting for us, these morons weren’t fighting for anyone but themselves and were generally despised by the vast majority of football fans. The majority of those who attended matches in those days had nothing to do with the hooligans.
In reality most of the time these so called hooligan heroes ran around threatening each other and most of it ended up like a giant version of British Bulldog or as it was usually described by the majority who attended as “handbags at 10 paces”. As I have said most genuine football fans of that era despised the football gangs. Many of the hooligans often didn’t even bother to go to the match and would be found afterwards asking what the bloody result was. The majority of non hooligans fans were described mockingly by the hooligans as being “Shirts” (those who wore football tops), Scarfs (those who wore team coloured scarfs) or beer monsters (those who wanted to go to the pub, have a bit of crack with the opposition fans, have a laugh and a joke and drink beer). I was very much of the beer monster persuasion.
Even taking into account the stupidity and violence that football hooliganism used to bring, this was a minority within those who attended professional football, they account for 92 teams. England alone has over 40,000 teams organised through the FA and many thousands outside of the UK. Are you saying that all of those teams, all of those players, all of those volunteers, all of those supporters are sick, racist, atavistic and the most violent? Slandering the many because of the actions of a few is the cornerstone of prejudice and discrimination, are you happy to be party to that?
Apologies, then, if you think that this is long and rambling, I had always assumed that as a socialist you had a greater concentration span than the average goldfish.
Moo, re reading what was written on page 2, there was a typo, my bad. I wrote “The abolition of private property does not mean the abolition of private property. Socialism wouldn’t entail common ownership of my vinyl collection.” I meant to write “The abolition of private property does not mean the abolition of personal property. Socialism wouldn’t entail common ownership of my vinyl collection.”
You have made exactly the point I meant to make. In a world of common ownership most trophies or awards, etc. would be personal property, therefore the comment you made, that trophies could not be in existence in a society of common ownership, is in my view wrong headed.
Going back to the trophy question, I would argue that my under 11s Northumberland area cubs football medal is personal property.
With regards to the “world cup” as it goes backwards and forwards between competitors, it would probably be best described as communally owned property that was temporarily in the safekeeping of whoever was the trophy holders.
If in a society of common ownership I can’t think of a reason why it would not be possible for the community in which that person to gave some kind of trophy or medal or certificate to a member of the community who rescued a child from drowning, or carried out some kind of especially kind act, et.
But are they any more naive by believing Trump’s horse shit than believing the horse shit the democrats feed them, implying that all or many of the problems that capitalism creates can be reformed away. In some ways that’s a more pernicious lie than the one Trump is selling them.
One of the things that I think would, should change in terms of education in a sane society would be getting rid of the idea that we can only learn in groups that are stratified strictly by age. Prior to the development of the education system where would any body find themselves in a social situation where a person spent most of their time with 30 odd people of more or less the same age. When I was a kid although you spent your school time with an age group, most of the valuable lessons were more or less learned on the street, playing out in fields and woods, etc. In that setting you had some of the kids who were five years older than you and some that were about five years younger. You learned to mentor and support younger children and you learned from the older kids. Surely in a socialist society we would move back to something akin to that system, older and younger children learning to play cooperate with each other, learning to support and being supportive. I’ve always found in adult learning that when there is a diversity in a class room, age, experience, gender, ethnicity, etc. the learning is much more profound and enjoyable.
I have two grand kids who are in primary school at the moment, and to be fair it is a reasonably warm and manageable setting for them, but I do worry about them going off to the bigger schools. Luckily where we live they have a middle school option as well, so kids go off to the middle school at age 8 and stay there until they are 13, which allows a little more time for them to develop before they go off to the local comp.
My granddaughter is only 4 years old and the buggers have her spending time doing bloody homework. Again the idea that learning is something is time limited and only takes place when the state dictates is something I hope will disappear alongside the state. We all learn in different ways, at different times, OFSTED, etc. seem to think that learning can be put into a one size fits all, whilst at the same time encouraging the psychobabble of so called “learning styles”
“But should I be offended that no one has picked me up and said anything scathing (nay personally insulting) on my comments in this debate?”
I think the problem is that you really need to stop providing balanced and well thought through comments, if you really want to get scathing remarks and personal insults.
Looking at things from different viewpoints and taking the views of others is not the way to enrage your fellow socialists. Please try to make outlandish claims and then take offence at the earliest possible moment. Dig your heels in, even if what you have said is unsupportable and whatever you don’t try and be reasonable.
I’m sure if you stick to these basic guidelines you will not only be able to glean unfavourable comment on this forum, if you put the hard yards in you will soon be able to upset close family members during social gatherings at the drop of a hat, be shunned by your work colleagues at staff nights out and generally considered as an all round grumpy old bastard. It worked for me, I’m sure it will work for you
K leather is used in lots of different leather products, however at least one major football boot manufacturer have stopped using K leather.
Just out of interest, TM, and genuinely not having a pop at you, do you make any use of leather products yourself? I have vegan friends who really struggle to get good quality replacements for leather shoe wear.
“exterminated in clearance for landfill for your old computers and gadgets” so how are the computers mine, rather than ours, or even yours TM? Are you trying to shift the blame.
I presume you are using a computer or a smart phone to write on this forum, rather than two old tin cans and a bit of string?
Again, Wez, you attempt to dig yourself out of a hole by conflating “football culture” from your original posting to “football gang violence”. Nice try, but rather pathetic. And again you make the uncomradely, inaccurate and frankly libelous remark that I wish to whitewash these activities.
Saying everything in football isn’t bad, isn’t saying everything is wonderful, as you well know. If you had the courage of your convictions and you had evidence to support your contention that the whole culture is rotten to the core, you clearly wouldn’t have tried to move the discussion away from football culture to football violence.
It is a bit like you blaming the birth of Rock and Roll, Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, et al, for the Teddy Boy violence that broke out in the 1950s and then describe Rock and Roll in the terms you have used. Teddy Boys were a very small aspect of Rock and Roll Culture, Football Gangs were a small aspect of football culture and what remains of football gang culture in the UK is something that the vast majority of football fans and participants used to and continue to condemn, me included.
As I have explained on several occasions, what you describe as “football culture” actually covers a wide spectrum of human activities and belief systems. I have also explained that to describe all elements of such a wide ranging area of human endeavours as being the “sickest, racist, atavistic and most violent” culture in the country (As I have said before, your words not mine), is foolhardy and factually wrong. It is therefore for you to justify your words. It is for you to show that by pointing out that this is such a silly, wide ranging and ridiculous comment I am somehow whitewashing any of the negative parts. It is you who has made universal claims, not me. I still challenge you to explain how football culture is more sick, more racist, more atavisitc and more violent than Nazism, snuff movies, skin head gangs, gay bashing, fox hunting, paedophilia, drug culture, I’m all ears mate.
I have pointed out that there are many areas of football that have very positive aspects, youth participation, sporting activity, mutual organisation, anti racism, etc. Explain to me how these things are sick, racist, atavistic and violent.
You then follow up your silly comments by making even an even sillier one. “No other sport been associated with such levels of violence and criminality”, I didn’t even need to point our how stupid that comment was. Other posters have beaten me to it. Boxing almost by definition is more violent, it has violence as its basic foundation and the level of criminality involved in boxing is legendary. I think the level of criminality of the Kray Brothers alone would knock football gangs into a cocked hat. You could also take a good look at the sport of horse racing, a sport that has had elements linked to organised crime for many decades. Are you saying that Ice Hockey is not associated with violence. You might also even want to look at the civil disorder that broke out in Leicester in 2022 following the India v Pakistan cricket match and spot fixing in cricket for examples of criminally and violent associations.
TM, you said that – “I could be wrong, but I don’t think they socialise much.”, I cannot comment in international football, my only experience of it was when Newcastle hosted group games during the European championships. All I can say in terms of that was that the fans of Romania, France and Bulgaria mixed with the locals in a very friendly way.
The atmosphere in football stadiums and their surrounds has changed immensely since the 1970ss 80s. I have been welcomed as a visiting supporter in Holland, Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. I watched a Newcastle v Paris match in a bar in central Paris as I couldn’t get a ticket. I honestly couldn’t get my hand in my pocket to buy a drink as locals were coming up to us and buying drinks for us all night. They celebrated their luck in getting a last minute penalty and we complained about the same thing. We sang and drank and played pool and chatted until the wee small hours.
I have also been to towns and cities across England and Wales where the welcome has been terrific. I well remember back in the 80s when Newcastle played Swansea at Swansea. The game was called off due to torrential storms on the Saturday and was rearranged on the following day. I heard loads of stories of supporters who decided to stay in Swansea and were about to sleep rough in bus shelters, etc. having local people come around to offer them a bed for the night and breakfast in the morning.
That is not to say that it is all sunshine and roses. I have been at matches which had less than pleasant atmospheres. I particularly remember going to Newcastle play at Nottingham Forest in the middle of the miners’ strike. Lots of North East Miners came down to the match as they could legitimately go to Nottingham without being arrested. There was a huge banner put on the back of the away end which read “Victory to the Miners” and there was a confrontational atmosphere all day.
As I say, “football culture” is not some universal monolithic social structure and to condemn the whole thing, including youth football, participant football at all levels, football spectators, all manner of football clubs professional to the lowest level, etc. is silly beyond belief.
Going back to Wez, I fully understand that you don’t like football. You are fully entitled to not like football, I can’t stand musical theatre, but to question someones socialist integrity because they like football is a bit beyond the pale. As I say, you are entitled to not enjoy football, but life not all about you, is it?
