AMONG THE THUGS essay
The phenomenon of crowd has been studied for centuries and approached from different sides. It obviously attracts the attention of sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists and so on because there is still much to explore in human being and human race on the whole. The behavior resulting from the ineradicable beast instincts and at the same time being stimulated by social environment causes a lot of questions and correlating debate. Hooliganism is not the same as simply crowd effect, but it intersects with this problem intensively, and can probably explain much about what a human being is. At least that is what Bill Buford opens slightly in his book Among the Thugs: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence. In this book he shares his own experience of participating in British soccer hooliganism. Being an American himself, he changes the role of an outsider for the role of an insider and reveals much interesting about the social culture of contemporary United Kingdom.
What is football hooliganism by definition? In fact, this term stands for any violent, uncontrolled and destructive behavior of football fans. It may mean anything from small fights and scuffles at the stadium between the supporters of rival teams before or after the match. It may equally mean larger brawls, vandalism and spontaneous eruptions far from stadia. Deadly weapons, from knives and glass bottles to pistols are often utilized as well. Huge riots are also a conventional development of hooliganism, and it is quite obvious that it presents danger not only to the participants, but for passers-by and any peaceful citizens as well as their property and municipal economy. Police can seldom rule a crowd of hooligans and fatal outcome is not rare. So what are the hooligans driven by? Where does their aggression come from? And why is it so typical for the British society specifically?
If to look back to history, the United Kingdom received a worldwide reputation of the heart of football hooliganism already in 1960s. This phenomenon even became known as the English Disease. And although the British government tried to lead a widescale crackdown against violence related to football games (for example, the Football Spectators Act was introduced), it is still spread, especially occurring at pre-arranged locations. At least, if earlier the roughs could be easily recognized by their specific clothes of a working class, now they tend to wear expensive designer clothes not to attract attention of the authorities. And Bill Buford got engaged in it himself to see and understand it from the inside. Attending football matches for eight years, he not only witnessed riots, but revealed violence in himself and learnt what it was like to be free in a crowd.
To be more specific, the author mostly spent time with the Manchester United fans and even visited the gatherings of the National Front even. He had conflicts with police and was beaten by them several times. Still, the violence turned out to be unexpectedly pleasurable. Each of the hooligans is aware of all physical risks he takes and moral boundaries he crosses, but persists on participating. There must be some clear explanation, but that is not the very task of the journalist. He aims at creating a full picture, and conclusions are to be made by the readers. However, there are certain statements which pretend to become a key to the issue.
The roots of the problem go to the current social situation. There is no working class anymore in Great Britain, and another style of life is required. But there is something protesting inside of common men who have now become the representatives of the middle class. For them these hooliganic adventures are something like drugs and alcohol for others. “Violence is their antisocial kick, their mind-altering experience, an adrenaline-induced euphoria that might be all the more powerful because it is generated by the body itself, with, I was convinced, many of the same addictive qualities that characterize synthetically-produced drugs,” Buford (1992, p. 44) claims. A former working class has a profound sense of cultural pride attached to it, but they have no the status anymore. Their incomes are higher, but their needs are still unsatisfied and the awkwardness of the social and economic shift has left them disaffected. From deep inside a protest rises and this is a protest against everything: against the values of capitalistic world, against their own routine suburban lives, against authorities and power, against each other after all. It begins with aggression directed at the fans of rival team and ends up at the violence directed at anyone who does not share their values, opinion or struggle. On the other hand, barbaric behavior becomes the symbol of revolt of unemployed and uneducated against class distinctions; therefore, first-class businessmen become the victims of hooligans more often. Their expensive huge cars are damaged, the symbols of their prosperity are destroyed everywhere on the way of the aggressive fans.
Vicious attacks repeat because in spite of the danger they feel being on the top of the world. Walking on the edge gives a terrific sense of supernatural power; adrenalin is filling blood and the brain receives the signals of unknown pleasure. Being in a crowd gives them a feeling of having no responsibilities. “The crowd is not us. It never is” (Buford 1992, p. 37) Being together, they never more are the ones they are separately from each other. And giving freedom to their inner wills, they are not afraid or confused of not only fighting or wrestling for their seats, but also urinating on each another and doing other antisocial things.
Apart from that, much explanation, according to Bill Buford, comes from the very design of English football. The stadiums are always overcrowded; there are not enough seats and conflicts arise while fighting for a seat; those who do not get a seat stand close to each other in a remarkable intimacy. After the game, already hot fans have to walk through narrow gates and are forced to herd together in a “stampede”. What is more, the author recalls: “the single toilet facility overflowing, and my feet slapping around in the urine that came pouring down the concrete steps of the terrace, the crush so great that I had to clinch my toes to keep my shoes from being pulled off, horrified by the prospect of my woolen socks soaking up this cascading pungent liquid still warm and steaming in the cold air. The conditions are appalling, but essential: it is understood that anything more civilized would diffuse the experience” (Buford 1992, p. 88). Therefore, much is already explained by conditions. Still, a few details in their behavior could be changed essentially as there is definitely something more than that.
The author notes that crowds are mindless, and that is not a secret for anyone. They are primal and barbaric, immature and fickle, unpredictable and impulsive, dirty and vicious. Crowds are, moreover, “unable to think for themselves, are vulnerable to agitators, outside influences, infiltrators, communists, fascists, racists, nationalists, phalangists, and spies” and that is a biological nature. Modern man has been taken away from the soil, deprived of roots and placed in an artificial concrete world. That is a typical characteristic of modern Western civilization, and the United Kingdom has a quintessence of it. The modern bourgeois world has made the conscience of a man fragmented and discreet, but crowd hooliganism is where one can get the experience of absolute completeness, as the researcher reveals.
