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Will we learn from this?
Posted: Wednesday April 12, 2000 10:01 AM
Two Leeds fans, Kevin Speight and Chris Loftus, were murdered in Istanbul last week. They were killed not just because of their passion for football or because, as one media outlet put it, "they were in the wrong place at the wrong time." The reasons they are dead, the reasons why Kevin's two kids will never again share a beer in the late afternoon while watching the first stars appear in the twilight or Chris won't be giving his parents a grandchild, have to do with stereotyping, incompetence and man's basest instincts. Their deaths brought the thorny issue of soccer violence back into the press, leading to finger-pointing between England and Turkey and head scratching from UEFA. How can we make sure it doesn't happen again? The simple answer is: we can't. What we can do is examine what is behind it. And when you dig a little, you may find the truth is a lot scarier than you think. For starters, every time English teams go abroad, Hooligan Hysteria sets in. The local media whips itself into a curdled frenzy, to the point where, if everything goes smoothly, it is almost disappointed. Most English supporters are peaceful and about as threatening as Winnie the Pooh on Prozac. The problem is that much of the continental media don't like that idea. It's more fun (and a better story) to depict English fans as an invading army of shaven-headed, tattooed, beer-guzzling louts whose sole purpose is to break windows, defile women and vomit over national landmarks. A minority of English fans do indeed fit that stereotype. And fifteen or twenty years ago, many more traveling English fans were like that. That's how they built their reputation as the scourge of continental soccer and that's why English clubs were eventually banned from European competition. Today however, you're more likely to see an English center back trap the ball elegantly and pass it accurately up the pitch (still, admittedly, a rare sight) than witness fan violence in a Premiership match. But the myth of the English hooligan endures. And in the twisted minds of demented pseudofans, they are still "the best". It's like those awful biker movies from the 1950s. The rebellious leather-clad outsider rolls into town on his Harley and all the local toughs want a piece of him. To these people, being "the best" means beating the bejesus out of the opposition and having their reputation spread around the world as the nastiest, meanest, toughest supporters around. And to that, you've got to beat the English, since in these fans' minds, they still hold the dubious title. It matters little that, apart from a few morons stuck in 1977, most English traveling supporters today are as innocuous as Japanese tourists. What counts is their reputation, and when the media turns up the heat, the fans are bound to believe the hype. Few sets of fans endure the provocation that English supporters abroad put up with and (this is part of the problem), few sets of fans are as quick to respond as English supporters. Police incompetence doesn't help matters either. There is a reason behind the fact that English fans are generally well-behaved on home soil. The cops know how to handle them. They don't engage in mindless baton charges. They don't use teargas indiscriminately. And they don't treat supporters like cattle. When somebody steps out of line, they go in, and they go in hard. They take the offender out of the crowd and arrest him, without bothering those around him. Contrast that with countries like Italy, where the attitude is: "Let them do whatever they want. Then, when it gets too much, attack in full riot gear and beat the pants off everybody in sight." Go to San Siro's Curva Nord and you'll see a free-for-all zone. People smoking pot, ripping up seats, defecating in plastic bags and chucking them at opposing supporters, communing with Satan... You can basically do whatever you want, as long as you're wearing the right colors. Until, of course, the cops decide they've had enough. At that point, a battalion of riot police storms in and plays drum solos on your head. It doesn't matter if you're behaving like Jeffrey Dahmer, Josef Mengele or Mahatma Gandhi. They'll still kick your head in. I know. It happened to me, more than once. Until the police get the message, until they realize that you must punish the individual, not the group, things won't get better. These two factors greatly contributed to the violence in Istanbul. The third is a little more complex, but just as important. Some English fans abroad carry with them a colonialist, siege mentality. To them, it's not just about getting a few days off and watching their team play abroad; it's about conquering cities. Then there's the basic fact that being violent can be extremely satisfying. We may not like to admit it, but in the recesses of our minds, many of us like the idea of physically overpowering an opponent who has provoked us. Maybe it harks back to our caveman days. Maybe it's just testosterone-laden stupidity. But dating back to the time when our fathers urged us to stand up to the school bully and we responded by punching him in the nose, many of us have always cherished the physical confrontation. Now, toss alcohol into the mix and you've got a powder keg. Violent English fans (and remember, this is just a minority of all English fans) come in two categories. A few always go looking for fights and, indeed, often start them. The rest will gleefully join in if provoked, drunk or both. Reportedly, this, is what happened in Istanbul. A gaggle of Neanderthals masquerading as Leeds fans (whether consciously or not), thought it would be funny to rip a Turkish flag off the wall of a restaurant, pretend to wipe their butts with it and then urinate on it. Hilarious, no? Yes, and pretty darn stupid as well, especially since a gang of marauding thugs (most of whom, incidentally, were banned from attending Galatasaray games due to their criminal records), was wandering the streets armed with knives and bats looking for a reason to go to war. When they got word of the flag incident, they attacked the first group of Leeds fans they saw, which happened to include Speight and Loftus. Both were stabbed to death. In a fair world, both groups of scum would have found each other and they could have beaten each other to a pulp to their heart's content. Instead, as so often happens, innocent by-standers got in the way. Did we learn anything from this?
London-based Gabriele Marcotti writes a weekly column on international soccer for CNNSI.com. To submit questions or comments to Gabriele Marcotti, click here.
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