English Football Fans in Europe - Who is Really to Blame?

For a long time now it has been truly horrible to be a follower of the English national football team. I won't insult your intelligence by explaining why, let's just say that it has nothing to do with the performances (which themselves haven't been too hot but that's a whole new article there alone). I also won't make any excuses for the majority of incidents that happened in the past, but one thing I do know is that things are a hell of a lot better now than they were.

Yet England fans still have some kind of reputation that they seem unable to shake off. No matter how many times they are attacked - including fans of club teams like England fans could spend the month in Germany having quiet tea parties but the press would still interpret a mild disagreement between fans over, I dunno, the slow but sure progression of the poetry of TS Eliot from despair to hope as a sign of that violent "English Disease". Yet over in Italy you'll see Lazio fans with their fascist songs, Nazi salutes and running battles on the streets, in Glasgow the city burns whenever Rangers and Celtic get together and in Argentina hooligans more-or-less run clubs and it is not uncommon for handguns to be found in the grounds. Yet it is still the "English Disease".

I ask you, which leagues in Europe manage to get away with no fences around the pitch and yet little violence in the stadium? Clue: it certainly isn't Italy or Sweden.

Most England fans are aware of many of the reasons for this. Their reputation making them "the ones to beat" is a major one, leading to England fans routinely being attacked by foreign fans and, of course, any attempt to defend themselves is seen as English hooliganism. Another well documented explanation also relies on the reputation of the England fans. Foreign Police seem to expect and almost relish trouble at the hands of England fans and treat them as guilty until proven innocent. When the bar you are in is tear-gassed out of the blue it is hard to remain calm, but any dissent is seen as yet further proof of the evil, violent nature of the English fans.

However, there is one further reason that often escapes the average England fan due to our monolingual nature. The foreign press. England fans are routinely demonised in the press as doing so somehow makes a nation's fans somehow seem better. They can do whatever the hell they want but at least they aren't as bad as that English lot.

Swedish football has had its fair share of hooliganism. Running battles in the streets are common in Stockholm on derby days and a couple of years ago AIK had to play their final few home matches behind closed doors due to the continuing hooliganism of their fans, both inside and outside of the stadium. Yet ask a Swede about football hooliganism and they are far more likely to talk about England fans in Stockholm in 1992 than Djurgården fans in Stockholm in, well, just about every year of the new millennium so far.

Earlier this week Expressen offered up a perfect example of how English fans are demonised in the foreign press, yet few England fans would have been able to read it. The article in question was just the start. I was made aware of the story by Expressen's RSS feed, which told me "Fyra engelska huliganer greps i dag efter ett krogslagsmål" ("four english hooligans were arrested today after a barfight" for those who cannot read Swedish). A quick look at expressen.se showed "Bråkigt inför England-Paraguay - fyra engelska huliganer gripna" ("Violence before England-Paraguay - four English hooligans arrested"). It was only when I got to the actual article did I find out that at least twenty people had been arrested of which four were England fans.

The article is interesting for not only what it says - it brands the fans as hooligans with nothing to back it up, they could have been attacked in the bar by other hooligans - but also for what it doesn't say. No mention is made of how the fight started and no mention is made of the nationalities of the other at least sixteen people (four times the amount of England fans) that were arrested. The story here, as far as Expressen is concerned, is not that there was a barfight but that there was a barfight and English football fans were arrested and thus they were hooligans. How the fight started and the nationalities of everyone else that outnumbered the England fans by at least four to one is not important. It was those dirty English hooligans again.

I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less. The Swedish press is notoriously smug in the belief that they are better than everyone else. They are quick to remind you of their standards, such as not printing names or pictures of people who have only been accused of a crime. All well and good, but they also seem incredibly quick to forget about these standards if the person is in a foreign country, if the accused kills Anna Lindh, if the accused rapes some women and gets the nickname "Hagamannen" and so on. Which is worse, to be open about having no standards or to publicly pat your own back about your standards only to throw them out the window for the sake of a few more sales?

I have two hopes for this world cup. Firstly that England fans will stay out of trouble and secondly that reporting of any trouble will be impartial and objective. Oh well, there is always 2010.

M Panda