Football Hooliganism

Shay Riordan 09882529 Hooliganism, The rise of Deviance. This essay will try to gain an insight into the deviant acts of football hooliganism, the many theorist views on why it occurs and the impact it has on those who partake in it. How society is affected and the way in which it deals with the problem. We will try to understand the Medias obsession with it and how they often play an important part on its social and economical effects of society. To fully understand these phenomena we need to look at the profile of a football hooligan and answer the vital question: ‘Who are they and why do they do it? Football hooliganism has no specific legal definition. The term was created by the media, the tabloid press in particular, in the mid-1960s and since then they have been extremely flexible in ascribing the "hooligan" label to different incidents. Football hooliganism is seen by most to mean uncontrollable violence and disorder involving football fans. However there are two very specific 'types ' of disorder that have been labelled 'hooliganism ': (a) Spontaneous and usually low level disorder caused by fans at or around football matches and (b) Deliberate and intentional violence involving organised gangs also known as “firms” who attach themselves to football clubs and fight rival firms from other clubs. Cohen. S (1970) It is difficult to speculate what makes a person become involved in football-related violence because there so many causational factors. Football hooliganism is not a single phenomenon; as such it does not have a single cause. In terms of organised violence between 'hooligan gangs ', a certain feeling of community, tribalism and just the sheer enjoyment of being involved in football disorder is obviously in evidence. We will now try to establish what the causes for this deviant activity are. To fully understand this subculture of deviance, we will draw from the work of Travis Hirschis “Social Bond theory”. Hirschi

Bibliography: ■Stahler, G. J., Cohen, E. (1995). Homeless and substance abuse in the 1980s. Contemporary Drug Problems 22. Cohen, S, ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics’, in Images of Deviance, 1970, Harmondsworth: Penguin Hartwell, S. W. (1999). The working life of homeless street addicts. The Journal of Substance Use 4(1):10–15. Hirschi, Travis. 1969. Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press FOOTBALL INDUSTRY (2006) [OLINE} at http://www.liv.ac.uk/footballindustry/hooligan.html accessed at 19 Nov 2011-12-01 Crime and the media [online] available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/2940164/Crime-and-the-media-moral-panics-lecture accessed Nov 21 2011-12-01 Football hooliganism [online] availablehttp://www.coursework.info/GCSE/Sociology/A_Study_of_Football_Hooliganism__ http://champpenal.revues.org/71 accessed 20 Nov 2011-12-01 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1992.tb01093.x/abstract