Desegregate football

 

I agree with Keir Starmer’s description of the Villa Park ban on Israeli football fans as “the wrong decision” – though for different reasons

Starmer appears to think the potential for violence against Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters is an example of antisemitism. In this he makes the common (and possibly deliberate) mistake of conflating antisemitism with opposition to the Israel government. Antisemitism is hostility, hatred and prejudice toward jews in general, together with the actions and discrimination that result from this hostility. Obviously, the generality of British jews are not responsible for the war crimes of the Israeli state, so the display of Palestinian flags and demonstrating against the Gaza war are not antisemitic: they are anti-Israel.

It follows that even if there were violence against Maccabi supporters in Birmingham, it would not necessarily be antisemitic. It might be motivated by hostility to the Israel government, or it might just be hooligans looking for a fight. The fact that a victim is jewish does not mean that the violence is motivated by antisemitism.

Whatever the reasons for any potential violence, it is the job of the police to enable any person or group to go about their lawful activities in safety – whether demonstrating against Israeli war crimes or attending a football match. They should deploy the necessary resources to protect vulnerable people, and not give in to fears of possible violence.

Underlying problem

However there is a deeper problem for which the police and the football authorities are largely to blame.

When I used to go to football matches in the 1950s and 1960s (usually at Fratton Park, Portsmouth or various London grounds) spectators were not segregated according to their allegiance to one of the competing teams. Anybody could pay at the turnstile and stand (or sit) anywhere in the stadium. Sometimes groups supporting a particular team would congregate together at a particular spot (e.g. behind one of the goals, or around the players’ tunnel), but there were no restrictions. Opposing supporters would stand or sit next to each other and exchange views about the merits of their respective teams. At the end of the match, they would shake hands and wish each other luck and a safe journey home.

Unfortunately, some time during the 1960s, there were a number of incidents of “football hooliganism”, fighting amongst inebriated supporters (mainly outside the stadium) and damage to property or vehicles. I remember one occasion when a British Railways excursion train was wrecked by disgruntled supporters, as a result of which BR stopped running the trains.

The reaction of the police and football authorities was perverse. Despite the fact that most of the violence and damage occurred outside the football stadium, they concluded that the answer was to segregate the supporters into rival camps within the stadium. (One factor may have been that, if increased police presence were needed within the stadiums, the host club would have had to pay for it). Thus each stadium had to separate off an “away end” reserved for visiting supporters, who were not allowed entry to other parts of the stadium (there was an exception for a small VIP enclosure). I can remember trying to buy a ticket for a match at the Hawthorns (West Bromwich Albion) in the 1990s and being asked “Are you a home supporter or an away supporter?” to which I replied “Neither. I just want to watch the match.” This answer was not acceptable, so since I wanted an actual seat rather than having to stand in the “away end”, I had to pretend to be a home supporter.

This segregation can reach ridiculous proportions. When Portsmouth recently played Southampton at St Mary’s, Southampton, not only were Portsmouth supporters not allowed to buy tickets from Southampton, but they could only make the 16 mile journey to the stadium if they bought a combined match and bus ticket from the Portsmouth ticket office and travelled in a convoy of over 20 double decker buses with police escort organised by the club at a cost of £200 000.

The result of this enforced segregation has been the creation or reinforcement of a gang mentality. Mature adults, who would normally behave courteously to strangers, join with their neighbours in chanting hostile slogans and directing obscene gestures at the rival supporters, who then respond in kind. Young children learn to emulate their elders and that this is a normal way to behave.

Yet it need not be like this. In 1996 I attended a number of matches in the UEFA European Championship, including Scotland vs Netherlands at Villa Park and England vs Germany at Wembley. There was no segregation – and no crowd trouble.

It would be nice to think that we could get back to the more civilised behaviour of the 1950s and reintegrate rival supporters. But is this a realistic possibility? Have the authorities entrenched the gang mentality so firmly that it cannot be undone? It would be naive to suppose that segregation could be immediately abandoned without careful planning and preparation, but a start could be made by designating some low risk matches – perhaps in the lower leagues at sparsely attended matches, with some police presence inside the stadium. And then perhaps build up from there. Surely it is worth an experiment?

© Robin Paice 2025