Is Football hooliganism a fashion?
I have three big passions in my life, family, writing and football. The sad thing about football, it's tarnished by some idiots who use it purely for violence.
Like many, I'd hoped it was a thing of the past, I hoped football and its fans had learned from the past.
Back in 1985 a 'football match' will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
(https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/feb/15/luton-millwall-1985-fa-cup)
This was England 1985: Luton Town versus Millwall in the sixth round of the FA Cup.
Wednesday 13 March was, said the Guardian, "a night football died a slow death", but a fatality was the only thing missing from the roll call of ultraviolence. Luton's stadium was stripped, houses and cars smashed, and the image of the national game – already bruised by a battery of hooligan incidents – given another going over. The following day England, who had been favourites to host the 1988 European Championship, lost out to West Germany. The Football Association chairman, Bert Millichip, blamed the violence, adding: "The scenes at Luton were the most disgraceful I have seen – and I have seen a lot."
David Pleat, the Luton manager at the time, concurs. "There were people being carried away on stretchers, fans on the edge of the pitch and players constantly looking up at their families because billiard balls were being thrown at the directors' box," he says. "I can't tell you much about the football, because there was so much else going on. It was completely out of control."
Millwall fans riot in 1985 after their team lost 1-0 at Luton Town in their FA Cup quarter-final. Photograph: PA Archive/Press Association Images.
Not football's finest moment and as I read it was luck more than anything that nobody was killed that night.
The one thing I don't understand is what hooligans get out of it?
'I broke a bloke's jaw and kicked another one's head in!'
That's great, you hurt another human being because he doesn't support the same team as you and he should die! Really?
So let's fast forward to 2016 and the Euros in France, a country already on high alert due to terrorism, they won't put up with any nonsense or so I thought.
Now I'm not blaming any country in particular as they all brought a few 'fans' with them, some live in the country.
When reports started coming in of trouble before a ball had even been kicked I knew the game I love was going to get dragged through the mud once more.
(http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/leicester-fan-battered-coma-russian-8339686)
A Leicester City fan who was brutally beaten into a coma by Russian thugs has lost all memories of his team's historic title win.
Stewart Gray is slowly recovering after the sick assault - thought to have involved a hammer or metal bar - in Marseille before England's Euro 2016 opening game with Russia.
The 47-year-old engineer has been flown back to the UK and is slowly on the mend after he started breathing on his own.
But his family have said he is "lucky to be alive" and fear he may have lost parts of his memory - as his brother claims he has forgotten Leicester's unbelievable 5,000-1 Premier League victory in May.
I'm sorry but these people that attack others at a football game, be it a tournament or a league game, are nothing more than vermin.
Who in their right mind takes a metal bar to a football match and how the hell did they get it in the ground?
Believe it or not I think Stewart Gray was lucky, by that I mean he was lucky to escape with his life, some fans made it home in coffins over the years and that's the hardest part of all.
At this point I'd love to tell you what can be done about it. Violence rarely happens inside grounds these days and the Police are already at breaking point on match days.
It's organised by phone or over the internet, a place to meet etc... these 'fans' will then pick on people that just want to go and watch a football match and the reason to hit them? They don't support the same team as you.
Some say bring back national service and it will get rid of the problem, what else can be done as the game I both love and adore can't seem to get rid of this virus called hooliganism?
Your thoughts as always are welcome.
