What is it with football supporters?

[Kermit power]

I was just having a look through the Hillsborough thread, including the report from the Independent about the spat between Liverpool and UEFA. There was one particular quote which caught my attention...

Some bloke called Parry said:

"To have a stadium with no counting system and no turnstiles is unforgivable for any standard of game, let alone a major final,"

Why is it that every other major sport is perfectly able to have the fans all mixed up together with minimal security, alcohol on the stands and no turnstiles anywhere I can think of, whereas football fans, and seemingly only football fans have to be segregated and treated more or less like criminals?

[75_Steve]

If you need to ask, you'll *never* understand, no matter how it's explained to you.

[Prof Beard]

75_Steve said:

If you need to ask, you'll *never* understand, no matter how it's explained to you.

Indeed, and that is probably much to his credit... I have no ing idea why either!

[Evil Jack]

I'm a Leicester City fan. My best mate is a Coventry fan. We're supposed to be sworn enemies, and yet we often sit together when our teams are playing each other...mind you they're bloody rubbish games...

[BoRED S2upid]

I think the answer is as simple as ... because its football and British football at that, I can't see this kind of trouble at American "Soccer matches" you would have thought rugby would cause the trouble after all they are knocking the shite out of each other on the pitch, you would have thought off the pitch as well? it doesn't happen, maybe if fotball was more like rugby on the pitch it wouldn't be like rugby off the pitch after a football match. (Does that make any sense?)

[TheLearner]

Thing I've never understood is Rugby fans get tanked up pre-game, haul packs of booze in with them (if they can) continue drinking and then go for either a post match celebration or commiseration piss up. No major trouble.

Football fans, get drunk and cause a ruk.

Yes football is not a contact sport (compared to ruby). I just don't get it.

[deevlash]

Because football is a working class game and many of the fans lack breeding, discipline and any sense of decency, its true and everyone knows it

[mackie1]

Less to do with the sport and more to do with the people that watch it?

Edit: beaten to it

Edited by mackie1 on Monday 27th August 00:41

[Cotty]

TheLearner said:

Yes football is not a contact sport (

[Tunku]

Rugby is played at public schools and football isn't. Decent public schools, that is.

[markmullen]

BoRED S2upid said:

I think the answer is as simple as ... because its football and British football at that, I can't see this kind of trouble at American "Soccer matches"

Could it be that in the US very few people actually care about "soccer"?

[NorthernBoy]

Tunku said:

Rugby is played at public schools and football isn't. Decent public schools, that is.

And played by misogynist racist homophobes with a strange propensity for "manly" games with nude male friends.

[Loafer]

As the old saying goes "football is a gentlemen's game played by hooligans , and rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen"

[Biker's Nemesis]

Rugby: A game played by men with odd shaped balls.

My brother in law has played for Gosforth, and he didn't go to private school.

[BoRED S2upid]

Could it be that some football players are paid £100,000 a week for kicking a ball around and sometimes, when your team looses they don't do their job, they don't deserve to earn more than you will in 3 YEARS! in one week so you feel you need to hit something and the nearest thing is the opposition fans?

Im sure Rugby players don't earn £100,000 a week. They work hard play hard and deserve every penny they earn. I watch both sports and admire rugby players who are told by the ref to go off because they are bleeding to death "what! its only a nick I will be fine!". Football they get a slight knock on the ankle and are rolling around like they have been shot!.

[sheets tabuer]

Evil Jack said:

I'm a Leicester City fan. My best mate is a Coventry fan. We're supposed to be sworn enemies, and yet we often sit together when our teams are playing each other...mind you they're bloody rubbish games...

Yeah Leicester are crap

[moleamol]

NorthernBoy said:

Tunku said:

Rugby is played at public schools and football isn't. Decent public schools, that is.

And played by misogynist racist homophobes with a strange propensity for "manly" games with nude male friends.

No, that's gay rugby. The proper rugby we play up North isn't like that.

[Cotty]

Tunku said:

Rugby is played at public schools and football isn't. Decent public schools, that is.

Rugby was also played at comp schools. I know I was in the school team.

[Kermit power]

BoRED S2upid said:

Could it be that some football players are paid £100,000 a week for kicking a ball around and sometimes, when your team looses they don't do their job, they don't deserve to earn more than you will in 3 YEARS! in one week so you feel you need to hit something and the nearest thing is the opposition fans?

Im sure Rugby players don't earn £100,000 a week. They work hard play hard and deserve every penny they earn. I watch both sports and admire rugby players who are told by the ref to go off because they are bleeding to death "what! its only a nick I will be fine!". Football they get a slight knock on the ankle and are rolling around like they have been shot!.

The only problem with this theory is, as I understand it, that there has been a relative decrease in football crowd violence over the last 2-3 decades, whilst footballers' salaries have been skyrocketing?

[TheLearner]

Cotty said:

TheLearner said:

Yes football is not a contact sport (

Well it's not. Football has the odd nasty tackle but it's not as bad as rugby. Of course "Professional Football" is just overpaid hooligans on a pitch looking for an excuse for a ruk... but...