NO, NO, No, no, no! George, first you must grasp that Europe's mix of xenophobia and soccer violence is a middle-class attitude. Remember George Orwell's Two Minutes Hate story in his 1984 novel? It's about a psychosociological device used by the ruling class to funnel the middle classes' frustrations towards some politically harmless outlet (like a soccer match, e.g.).
Here's an excellent testimony:
Hooligan turned author: You've got us wrong
By Vincent Graff
Daily Mail
June 19, 1998
There must be something wrong here. I'm in a pub with a man who used to spend his weekend beating up strangers -- and I'm the one doing the apologising. For seven years of his life, Dougie Brimson travelled to football grounds across the country, assaulting people he didn't like the look of. There was nothing he loved more than the crack of fist on face, the sight of a rival's blood on the pavement. It was "a buzz". "It's bang, bang, bang ... It's about respect and reputation. We loved it."
With his broad shoulders, shaven head and crooked teeth, Brimson certainly looks the part of a soccer hooligan. "You look at me, I'm the stereotypical football yob. I am. I know I am," he says candidly. "I look like a thug."
But something jars; not everything is as it seems. Dougie, 39, comes from a stable home, he has a wife of 14 years and three children. His parents -- who did not know of his violent past until recently -- still live together; and he had a good education. He says he has 11 O-levels, and claims that by the end of his 18-year career in the RAF, he'd risen to the rank of corporal. Not exactly the sort of person I have in mind when I think of a soccer hooligan. Nor is it apparently the image that is conjured up in the imagination of Sports Minister Tony Banks, who, referring to events this week in Marseille, talked of "drunken, brain-dead louts".
This is where the apologies must begin. Both Banks and I have got soccer hooligans wrong. Drunken? Dougie is teetotal. Drink does not agree with him, and, he tells me, every self-respecting soccer hooligan knows that alcohol deadens reaction times -- which does not aid one's fighting technique.
Next apology. Brain-dead? Again, wrong. It is exactly people like Dougie -- and his brother Eddy, a self-employed graphic designer -- who are soccer hooligans: intelligent people from the suburbs. "There isn't a profession I haven't met or known about [among hooligans]: Lawyers, teachers, policemen, doctors, dentists, firemen, servicemen, City traders," says Brimson.
"We were fairly typical lads," he says. "I can't believe that now people are still coming out with: 'But these guys are educated! They come from good homes! They've got good jobs! They've got families!' " he tells me. "Where do you think the lads go when they're not at football? Back to some f---ing cave somewhere? These myths didn't apply to us, they didn't apply to anyone we knew."
At the time of his violent behaviour, Dougie was a serviceman, for God's sake. "If I ever got any grief off the coppers, on the periphery of a fight, I'd show an ID and be all right. They'd come steaming in, or stop your car, and ask: 'Where are you going, lads?' When you showed an ID, they'd say 'OK lads, carry on.' " Brimson was not once arrested, or even thrown out of a football ground.
Dougie gave up hooliganism in 1984. It was a gradual process of disillusionment, but one which seemed to quicken noticeably when he received a particularly harsh beating. He found himself in a football ground car park, surrounded by 20 other yobs. Unfortunately, these 20 yobs were not Watford supporters. He and Eddy are.
"We got a kicking, I broke two ribs and had a big strip of nails stuck in my thigh, and Eddy got a fractured skull. It wasn't funny any more. It was f---ing dangerous."
The crowd dispersed, and Dougie hobbled to his car -- only to be offered the option of an action-replay, courtesy of the rival fans. "Luckily this bloke said: 'Leave him, he's had enough.' I said: 'Cheers mate.' He came back and said: 'I'm not your f---ing mate.' But they left me alone."
Now Brimson's an author, drawing on his experiences with best-selling books on hooliganism, the latest of which, Derby Days, "studies" the violence at local grudge matches. His prose style may not win him any prizes but it is tailor-made for an audience that doesn't often opt for Booker-nominated novels. A dependence on those who see fighting as inevitable at football matches as pie wrappers might explain Brimson's ambivalence to his former lifestyle. [snip]
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