This article was downloaded by: [University of Auckland Library]On: 27 November 2014, At: 18:33Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

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Hooligans, Casuals, Independents:Decivilisation or Rationalisation of theActivity?Dominique Bodina & Luc Robèneb

a Université Européenne de Bretagne (Rennes 2), Rennes 35000,Franceb Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux 33000, FrancePublished online: 10 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: Dominique Bodin & Luc Robène (2014) Hooligans, Casuals, Independents:Decivilisation or Rationalisation of the Activity?, The International Journal of the History of Sport,31:16, 2013-2033, DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2014.949690

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Hooligans, Casuals, Independents: Decivilisation or Rationalisation ofthe Activity?

Dominique Bodina* and Luc Robeneb

aUniversite Europeenne de Bretagne (Rennes 2), Rennes 35000, France; bUniversite de Bordeaux,Bordeaux 33000, France

If there is one phenomenon which highlights the lack of role distance of certain sportactors, it is obviously hooliganism. In the mid-1980s, Norbert Elias and Eric Dunningbecame interested in the role played by modern sports in the ‘civilising process’ and,analysing the violence of sport crowds, introduced a culturalist interpretation of theactions. They were considered to be the work of members of the ‘rough working class’,who were less advanced in the ‘civilising process’ and had still not achieved sufficientself-control. In these groups, characterised by social functioning in the form of asegmentary bond, violence was thought to be a traditional way of resolving conflicts, asignificant aspect and essential part of their ethos. This is an over-determinedinterpretation of the violence of sports crowds which naturalises and socialises thisviolence. This vision poses a problem, that of the negation of any logic on the part ofthe actors involved. This viewpoint leads us to consider violence as a social product anda ‘practical accomplishment’, the result of the way in which supporters interpret andlive in the world that surrounds them, and, as such, it is the individual and collectivemotives and purposes that should be investigated.

Keywords: Elias; civilising process; hooligans; casuals; independants

If there is one phenomenon which highlights the lack of role distance of certain sport

actors, it is obviously hooliganism. This term should be used with caution and, at least at

first, the term ‘sports crowd violence’ should be preferred. It is true that the word

hooliganism brings to mind contradictory images and social representations, which at

times accurately, but often with many generalisations and errors, characterise what are

considered to be outrageous behaviours. Thus, the term hooliganism, which should

precisely define behaviours, is overwhelmed by images, social representations and media

constructions which are rather more vague and stereotyped.

But to consider them as outrageous, that is exaggerated and inadmissible, contrary to

social norms and to the values commonly associated with sports, makes it impossible to

think about this violence in any other way than as a degree of animal-like attributes attached

to human behaviours. Man would thus be intrinsically violent towards others1 and would

lose all rationality the moment that he became part of a group.2 By perceiving

these behaviours as impulsive and steeped in folly, whether or not for reasons of passion, the

rationality of the acts is relegated, not to say avoided, to the extent that it is described, at times

like a caricature, arising out of the unrest of fanatic, alcohol-fuelled and bloodthirsty packs.3

Such views are greatly criticised, however, by certain authors who analyse this

violence as the result of a ‘histrionic rage’ and the ‘extreme deviation of exaggerated team

q 2014 Taylor & Francis

*Corresponding author. Email: dominique.bodin@univ-rennes2.fr

The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2014

Vol. 31, No. 16, 2013–2033, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2014.949690

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support’,4 while others see in it a chosen means for transforming the inequality suffered

into success and their exclusion into social recognition. Violence thus acquires the

political status of the class struggle, of which popular football is the metaphor, giving the

perpetrators the feeling of remaining the protagonists of their existence.5

But crowd violence above all reverses the pacifying ideal attributed to the genesis and

functioning of modern sports.6 A reminder is necessary. Norbert Elias describes the

‘civilising process’7 of modern western societies, in which violence decreases while

customs become more controlled by focusing on the long term, as the origin of modern

states (through, among other aspects, the state monopoly on violence), the reconfiguration

of social inter-relations and the evolution of the mental structures of individuals. It should

be underlined, however, that he is not talking about any violence but, essentially,

homicides, which, it must be admitted, given the sources available, are difficult to quantify

even allowing that comparisons can be made with our modern societies, considering that

our relationship with violence and insecurity has changed8 and our perception of violence

can be put alongside that of other eras and other locations.9

If the general theory is acceptable it nonetheless ignores a number of aspects. First of

all, that of the ‘pockets of resistance’ to the decrease in violence,10 whether in regard to the

common people or the noblemen, who retained for a long time their right to avenge their

honour in duels. Then the violence exercised in the 1914–1918 and 1939–1945 wars,

which Elias hardly mentions – a sort of ‘forgotten experience’.11 Finally, the origin of

hooliganism, which he has difficulty in explaining, as it goes so much against the general

theory.

When consideration of these manifestations of violence is not avoided, they are reduced

to epiphenomena of ‘de-civilisation’ caused by individuals who are ‘less advanced’ in the

‘civilising process’, or by the weakening of the constraints imposed by certain states or

regimes, which legitimise violence exercised on others. Thus, Elias underlines that

. . . the experiences of the two great wars in Europe, and perhaps even more so, theconcentration camps show the fragility of the conscience which forbids killing . . . It appearsthat the mechanisms of self-control which, in our societies, are at play in the rejection ofdeath, collapse relatively quickly when the control mechanism imposed by the state – or, ifappropriate, by militant sects or groups – supported by convincing collective beliefs anddoctrines, brutally change course and command that people be killed.12

In the mid-1980s, Elias and Eric Dunning became interested in the role played by modern

sports in the ‘civilising process’ and, analysing the violence of sport crowds, introduced a

culturalist interpretation of the actions. They were considered to be the work of members

of the ‘rough working class’,13 who were less advanced in the ‘civilising process’ and had

still not achieved sufficient self-control. In these groups, characterised by social

functioning in the form of a segmentary bond, violence was thought to be a traditional way

of resolving conflicts, a significant aspect and essential part of their ethos. However, Elias

and Dunning go further, not hesitating to declare14 that

because it is difficult for them to find a sense, status and gratification and to establishsatisfying identities in the spheres of school and work, the men from the ‘hard’ sectors of theworking class adopt particular forms of behaviour: physical intimidation, fist fighting,excessive alcohol consumption, sexual relations based on the exploitation of the other.15

This assertion, if it does not necessarily denote a profound disdain for the working class,

does raise questions. The authors exaggeratedly generalise its social and affective

functioning. Unless it reveals, in the precise and even limited domain of hooliganism, a

theory that a certain number of authors16 have not hesitated to denounce as tainted with

latent evolutionism. The equation is in fact simplistic and recalls the description of

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criminality in Paris during the first half of the nineteenth century as working classes,

dangerous classes.17 This point of view was so exaggerated that Dunning, in spite of being

an ardent co-author of these works, returned to one of the aspects of this assertion stating

that ‘it would be false to consider hooliganism as solely linked to one social class whatever

the time and place’.18 What about the sexual relations founded on the exploitation of the

other? What about the excessive consumption of alcohol which, in 1985, was not limited

to the less privileged social classes? The work done on family violence19 is there to prove,

in the same way as that on the violence of sport crowds, whatever the time or place,20 that

manual workers do not necessarily behave more violently than those who belong to the

intelligentsia or the upper classes.

This is an over-determined interpretation of the violence of sports crowds which

naturalises and socialises this violence: they are young, poor and inevitably violent.

Violence is considered as a natural state, an integral part of ‘the animal that is man’. This

vision poses a simple problem, that of the negation of any logic on the part of the actors

involved. Hooliganism is considered as a tropism whereas

violence is not innate in man, in spite of the reality of the rushes of adrenaline which certainlyinduce aggressiveness but which can be mastered. It is always constructed in terms of needs,desires, passions and also the dreams and murderous tendencies of those who govern. It isacquired through education.21

Some measure of social determination is acceptable in explaining these phenomena,

provided, above all, a distinction is made and factor and correlation are not confused. But,

above all, the question that should direct the research cannot be restricted to discovering

‘who the violent people are’. The answer is well known. Violence is considered to be the

result of factors that have been identified since the middle of the nineteenth century: it is

essentially male, juvenile, urban and usually exerted by the most disadvantaged. This

factorial approach, classic in criminology,22 does not, however, indicate the motives, and

barely offers clues as to the sense that the actors give to their actions; especially because

for many years the pre-eminence of the factors of age and sex has not been reconsidered.

The ‘thesis of invariance’23 (that the effects of age and sex remain unvaried in time and

space) is commonly admitted. The age curve, in this issue, reaches its peak at around 20

years. Furthermore, the causal approaches border on tautology, as obviously, if they are

young they are necessarily more or less inserted. The question should rather be:

How (or better why) when they come from different social classes do they end up perpetratingthe same violence, even when the team they are supporting has won and dominates thechampionship; that is, in a way which is totally de-contextualized from the logic of the gameand its results?

This viewpoint leads us to consider violence as a social product and a ‘practical

accomplishment’,24 the result of the way in which supporters interpret and live in the

world that surrounds them, and, as such, it is the individual and collective motives and

purposes that should be investigated.

From the Violence of Sport Crowds to Hooliganism

On Violence

First of all, a distinction must be made between the violence of sports crowds and

hooliganism. An initial observation: if the violence of sports crowds is hardly new,

hooliganism is essentially, if not exclusively, associated with modern football.25 Without

including modern sport in a continuum with the ancient games, it must be observed that in

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other eras, places and events, certain collective behaviours showed a great deal of

similarity with contemporary hooliganism: confrontations among the spectators at

gladiator fights;26 individuals crushed by the movements of the crowd in the great Roman

amphitheatre;27 numerous riots during the chariot races in Constantinople between the

fifth and sixth centuries AD;28 formal prohibitions made to the spectators in the

tournaments and jousts about throwing objects at the competing knights or even about

invading the competition zone;29 the compulsory implementation of special measures for

maintaining order in the matches of Calcio Fiorentino,30 and particularly violent

confrontations of groups supporting different teams.31 Far from constituting a complete

historiography, these few examples, taken from different eras, permit us to propose an

interpretation that highlights a priori the recurrence of these incidents, which seem to

structure the relationship of crowds to the spectacle of competition and to the violence that

it produces. Three factors distinguish hooliganism from the types of sports crowd violence

observed since antiquity: the frequency of the appearance of this violence, its occurrence

in a particular sport (football) and the fact that it was initially limited to one particular

country, Great Britain, before becoming disseminated, but equally appearing

spontaneously, into Europe and around the entire world. Football32 has provided a fertile

soil for hooliganism which expansionist policies both locally (at the club level) and

internationally (at the federation level), with no ‘ethic of responsibility’,33 have

generated,34 like damaging ‘side effects’.35 Hooliganism marks the ‘transition from

ritualized and Dionysian violence related to the logic of the game and the antagonisms

which it provokes, to premeditated violence’.36 A change in the nature of the violence, the

modification of the social space in the stadia, the incorporation of opposing youth cultures

in British cities during the 1960s and later on in the sports facilities; the de-structuring of

the working class at the beginning of the 1970s and the increase in social inequality; the

importance given to football in the media, the emergence of groups of supporters through

opposition, mimicry and the desire for a social existence, form the common basis for the

emergence of a passionate and die-hard supporters’ culture and the hooliganism that

derived from it.37 Hooliganism is for them a ‘way of behaving and a way of appearing to

behave, a way of standing out from the crowd, of cultivating their difference’,38 in short, of

existing socially39 through violence but also through an illusion of violence.40

Very often, possibly too often, hooliganism is characterised by its final expression:

physical violence or damage to goods and property. This violence can be exerted among

groups of supporters in the stadium or at quite a distance away, given the social controls

implemented nowadays (security perimeter, stewards in the stadiums, the police, video

surveillance, fast-track trials), against the police, against passers-by who have no direct

connection to football or also in destroying cars, shop windows and ‘stoning’ the rival

supporters’ buses, etc. This anthology of examples of hooliganism shows the diversity of

observable violence, but it provides no information, however, about the way in which

individuals come to perpetrate it. It is just an observation leading to the consideration of

violence purely from the viewpoint of the perpetration of the act or the repressed

transgression of established norms, thus limiting its sense to the sociological definition of

an offence.41 It is in fact in the successive linking of more or less derisory acts (the stealing

of insignia or emblems, insults and provocations) that the origin of much more dramatic

and worrying events should be sought. The most extreme violence, like the murder in

Serbia of Brice Taton,42 a supporter of Toulouse FC, is just the end of a long process of

subtle and complex interactions among the different actors in the spectacle (supporters,

management, police, journalists), of sporting rivalries, provocations, vendettas and

political oppositions, which in turn are reflections of identity and cultural constructions

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that are part of the ‘minor’ and ‘major’ history of football and its clubs.43 The use of a

restrictive definition of hooliganism thus poses multiple problems. First of all, it prevents

us from taking into account the dynamic of the appearance of violence while at the same

time altering its interpretation. It also makes it impossible to observe the role and status of

each of the protagonists in each instance of the construction of the violence. Finally,

considering the ‘final product’ (the most violent and/or murderous confrontations) it does

not include individual or collective motives or the construction of ‘deviant or delinquent’

careers by the hooligans or their processes for transforming or adapting themselves to the

implemented social control. Moreover, a restricted view of violence brings us back to the

difficulty of defining norms, and therefore just what deviant behaviour is;44 and as a

consequence, to the similarly restricted possibility of thinking about and conceiving a

preventive policy which takes the complexity of hooliganism into account.

Elias’ work cannot escape this criticism.45 While he uses multiple criteria to define

‘civility’ (through the way one eats, blows one’s nose, spits, etc.), he only maintains a very

restricted definition of violence. Curiously, to speak about the same thing he also uses and

interchanges the terms of violence, aggressiveness and impulses. This ‘impulsive theory of

violence’46 limits it to being emotional and reactional behaviour, denying in fact its social

and political aspects and the place of the subject as an actor in his life and destiny.47

Questioning Rationality

Hooliganism should be considered from its diachronic dimension because, as at other

levels such as the deterioration of certain boroughs, violence in schools or juvenile riots,

the smallest event can have spiralling effects on the behaviour of hooligans.48

All this talk about violence is determinant. When related only to hooliganism what can

be done about verbal violence if only a restrictive definition is maintained? What can be

done about racist and xenophobic demonstrations if they do not lead to an actual attack?

How can the place of women be discussed, as victims of violence, but at times also as its

instigators, even though they do not participate in the physical confrontations?49 How can

we take into account the organisation of groups of hooligans, their hierarchy and the

promotion of individuals through their different levels? How can we talk about the

collusion between management and supporters? And finally, how can we interpret

hooliganism without trying to reveal the complex and subtle processes which have

engendered it and encourage its functioning?

To ask these questions is also to ask about the rationality of the hooligans and consider

what makes them adopt violent behaviour, leaving aside any idea of social determination,

as their common point, we repeat, is not their social background but their recourse to

violence.

In order to discuss the rationality of the hooligans, the focal point will be the

transformation of the hooliganism ‘which bears the club colours’ into a more invisible

hooliganism which certain authors refer to as ‘casual’ or ‘independent’; names which

indicate that the ‘modern’ hooligan is no longer a supporter but another individual

unrelated to football.

At the Beginning They Were the Supporters

For a long time the hooligan wore the colours of the club they supported and of the group

of supporters to which they belonged, before progressively becoming a ‘casual’, that is

neutral, with no tangible or identifiable sign of allegiance.

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The Social Functioning of the Groups

Nonetheless, since its origin, hooliganism has been considered as the extreme deviation of

a passionate and impulsive manner of supporting a certain club.50 In each of the groups,

the unconditional support of the team is reinforced by the will to extend the victory from

the pitch to the stands. The comparison is not just sporting; it is also festive, spectacular,

noisy and exaggerated. It can be seen in the organisation of the support (singing in the case

of ‘English’-type supporters or the tifosi51 in the case of ‘Italian’-type supporters), but

equally in the mass formed by each group. In fact, these groups make comparisons and

classify themselves, from the sporting point of view depending on the history and

reputation of the team that they support, in the quality of support that they provide or even

in the number of their members. Two matches are being played, one on the pitch and one

in the stands,52 both of which are reinforced by the instability and uncertainty53 of the

football game.

It is inappropriate to talk about groups of supporters. These groups are veritable

communities with their codes, clothing, emblems, values, language and history.

In short, a commonly shared culture which requires each member to solidly defend the

others. In this competition it is the question of the collective identities that is important.

The collective identity is posed by opposing, understood by differentiating themselves,

by gauging each other and also, at times, by violently opposing each other. Because it

is never a case of possessing an identity which is not recognised and not valued. Two

examples suffice to show this. The first is the creation of the ‘thugs’ league. The day

after the Heysel tragedy,54 Anglo-Saxon journalists created the ‘thugs’ league. The

objective was worthy in itself. It was an attempt to combat groups of hooligans by

stigmatising them and making them the object of popular hatred. However, this

description would be taken up, distorted and used by these young supporters in search

of social visibility. To be first in the ‘thugs’ league would progressively become the

priority of each of the groups. The second example is that of the French magazine Sup’

Mag. First appearing in the 1990s, a magazine entirely devoted to the Ultra movement,

Sup’ Mag would act as a catalyst to the competitive spirit of the groups by inciting

them to do even better and by establishing an officially recognised classification of

the ‘best supporters’. If the original criteria were the quality of the spectacle and

the number of fans, other criteria would gradually be included, such as ‘invincibility’

with regard to violence. A number of articles can thus be found dealing with

hooliganism, interviews with young hooligans, articles implicating the security officials

in the clubs, etc.

One had to be better than the others at all levels. Everything became exacerbated and

exaggerated. Everything was a pretext for differentiation and the depreciation of the

opposing group before, during and after each match.55 The construction and preservation

of the collective identities were accompanied by the construction of individual ones.

Becoming a member of a supporters’ group is socially not a neutral phase. It very often

marks the moment when adolescence is left behind, when youths separate from their

fathers with whom they used to come to the stadium, in preference for a group of friends

with whom they will come from that moment on. This is a prelude to integration into a

group of supporters. The individual identifying strategies of these young supporters are

hardly different from those of fans in other environments like music.56 It is the

confrontation of these two constructions that causes the problem. When they join the

group the young people do not necessarily know the nature of its activity, the way it

functions, its first priorities, even if its reputation makes it easy to guess.

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A Hierarchical Organisation

The group is an entity with three distinct stages. First, the mass of the supporters, often

called ‘followers’, who come to encourage their team, most often when it plays at home,

always for the important matches but not necessarily for all of them. At first the young

people join the followers. It is as much the spectacle as the environment that interests the

followers. Then there is the ‘hard core’ of the group. This name has a double meaning.

In the first place, it means the most unconditional supporters who come to encourage their

team whatever their place in the ranking, the match, the venue or the division. In the

second place, it means the most violent supporters.57 By accompanying the team they have

encountered, suffered and perpetrated violence. But this violence also has a function: it has

allowed them to prove themselves to the group. The number of supporters in the hard core

varies from about 10 to 200–300 members.58 If the term hard core is not comparable in its

definition to the one used in studies on juvenile delinquency, the result is identical. It is a

fact that almost all the examples of hooliganism are the work of an ‘overactive core’ of

about 5% of the individuals.59 Finally, the ‘leaders’ constitute the last level. They possess

all the characteristics of the ‘charismatic leader’.60 The other members talk about them as

having proved themselves, as having committed themselves totally to the group and

defended its values. They find their legitimacy in the qualities that are recognised and

valued in the group, and by the group, through acts of heroism to defend and affirm its

strength and power. There is no need to elect the leaders, nor is there any question of doing

so. They are individuals who, having given proof of their loyalty, their courage and their

commitment, have been recognised, nominated and ‘elevated’ to that status by their peers,

designated by other members who are totally devoted to them.61

On joining the group, the young people are confronted simultaneously with its culture,

the defence of its identity and its organisation and also with the construction of their own

identity. Hooliganism should be considered through a process of acculturation and with

career path logic.62 If violence is essentially the terrain of the hard core of the groups of

supporters, if the leaders are ‘charismatic leaders’, violence constitutes an integrating

element for the group, which needs progressive acculturation. The behaviour of the

hooligans can, from then on, be interpreted as any deviant or delinquent behaviour seen

from the angle of their careers: joining the group, having a first experience of violence,

looking to prove themselves, finding pleasure in the deviant acts, wanting to renew the

experience – making it a long-term career.63

Being Part of the Hard Core of a Group of Supporters: A ‘Hooligan’s Career’

The following ideas are based on the numerous studies which have tackled the structuring

of supporter groups64 as well as a study of the ‘an insider’s view of hooliganism’ type

which shows the progressive acculturation of the young supporters.65. We must be careful

not to think that all the supporters who join a group will become hooligans, but, on the

other hand, all the hooligans have started by becoming members of a group of supporters.

All, without exception, talk about their passion for football. In adolescence, the most

enthusiastic leave their fathers’ homes to live a more consolidated and festive passion with

their mates, far from the eyes, constraints and control of their parents. They move in this

way from the well-behaved atmosphere of the stands or the corners to the zones occupied

by the supporter groups, which sing and encourage their team at the same time as they

heckle the opposing team and supporters in a noisy, colourful and exciting hullabaloo.

This moment constitutes a stage in their lives: that of the break with their parents and the

construction of an individual identity, which will draw resources at least in part, from the

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collective identity of the supporters group. Others follow a different path. They enter the

group at a later stage, around the age of 20, like a festive parenthesis that prolongs friendly

relationships made elsewhere. Their profile is however the same. They play football and

also have loved this sport for a long time. Whatever their age, it is the atmosphere, the

festivity and the support of the team which they evoke. All except one say that at that time

they had no real idea of the violence that could exist or of the fights that could arise during

their travels or in the neighbouring streets.

With regard to their discovery of violence many of the supporters talk about an

‘inaugural experience’.66 For some this happened by chance – their bus or their group was

attacked by other supporters. For others, they had heard about the risks of a fight or a

punitive expedition ‘to avenge an insult’ before going on the trip, without really believing

it was true, without really knowing, but agreeing to make the trip even so. At this point in

the ‘hooligan’s career’, violence is not sought. The young supporters serve their

apprenticeship mainly through the danger involved in the trips. In smaller numbers when

they travel, sometimes in small groups, at times without real police safety measures unless

they are very near to the stadia, they find their rival supporters waiting for them. It is

provocation, vengeance, vendetta, the desire to avenge an insult or to come off boosted by

the violence and victory over the other group that starts the confrontations. This first

experience does not really make a lot of sense for most of them. They had not come to the

stadium to fight but to support their team. They are confronted with violence and have no

other choice but to fight or flee; to fight due to the survival instinct or by mimicry in the

aroused excitement and to continue to belong to the group; or to run away and lose face in

the eyes of the others and be excluded henceforth from the group. Do they really have a

choice? It all happens so quickly. They have come in a group and fight with the others.

Those who come deliberately to fight, from the very outset, are extremely rare.

Violence is quite simply an integral part of the supporter’s activity, both integrated and

integrating, but also programmed as extra time, which accompanies the football match.

Integrated and integrating because violence permits recognition by the senior

members. When they fight, when they stand alongside them, to defend the honour of the

group, the novices are thus recognised and accepted.

If violence is an integral part of the group’s activity, even if it does not constitute the

essential activity, it is equally an integrating part. The more deviant the group, the more

difficult it is to discover its organisation or its real activity. When a supporter declares, ‘If

you are not in the secret . . . You have to be in the inner circle to really know’, he is just

confirming the hierarchy that exists in the groups. From the outside some things are

visible: the position occupied in the corners by the leaders and the members of the ‘hard

core’ (the inner circle, those who have supported the team for a long time, those who

attend all the matches at home and away and those who have also proved themselves and

have attained this status by their activities and their violence). The difference lies between

these leaders, the hard core and the ‘followers’, between those who direct and nobody

contradicts, those who have proved themselves and show the power of their group against

the other groups and, finally, those who just participate in the group’s activities.

If violence permits attaining a place in the group, rising from the anonymous ranks to

that of the recognised members, it also helps to construct the collective identity of the

group (being numerous, strong, never giving way, even invincible) and permit these young

people to construct an individual identity which is recognised (I am capable of) and valued

(in the eyes of the others). The identities of these young supporters are founded through

violence on a three-fold model: for themselves, for the others and in the opinion of the

others.

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The hooligan’s career begins after the first experience which, judged as ‘pleasant’,

makes him want to repeat it. This apprenticeship is carried out in contact with others in the

course of numerous and varied interactions which bring them into contact with the more

experienced hooligans, and leads them to consider these experiences as pleasant, to repeat

them, as a game, because they like them or because they are provoked, to the extent that

they make them a way of life in the long term.

A change occurs, for some, between the occasional violent individual, who can react to

a danger, defend the group or its emblems when he or they are attacked, and the long-term

violent individual, that is the one who will really become a hooligan. The latter no longer

reacts to the dangers that threaten him. The violence he manifests is no longer just reactive.

It is meditated, conscious and constructed. The hooligan who comes to the stadium loves

football, his club and his group, but not only does he not exclude the idea of violence, he

also considers it as a supplementary means, perhaps even the most efficient means of

supporting his team, of acquiring recognition and, more simply, of establishing his

identity. Here there is a reversal of the purpose. In this way, he comes first of all to fight

against the other while still deeply loving football. It is a way of life, a sort of modern day

adventure. Violence not only permits him to become someone, it also gives a meaning to

life for those who seek one in a world which values social success.

This recognition is implicitly acquired when he proves himself, and is explicitly shown

in his integration into the hard core of the group. In this process, the implicit recognition is

essential as it precedes the integration into the hard core, which only constitutes the official

recognition of the ‘competences’ acquired and the values recognised by those who were

already members. To be part of the hard core is to have proved oneself by one’s activities

as a supporter and also by violence. By being integrated into the hard core one attains a

new status, a new place in the group; first, in its hierarchy and, second, in its geography.

Often the members of the hard core place themselves at the centre of the group, visually,

wearing particular insignia that are often difficult to recognise for the uninitiated, and can

even be disguised.

This integration is performed, inmost of the groups bymeans of rites, which recall those

of secret societies.67 The initiation rites and the symbolism that accompany the integration

reinforces the feeling of belonging, the cohesion of the group and the feeling of recognition,

but it also commits the individual long term to deviance through the imposed secret, the

feeling of belonging to a circle of initiates and the learning of newdeviant behaviours. These

rituals are accompanied by the giving of insignia, clothing or emblems which have to be

exhibited at certain times, or not, depending on the context. The initiation rites produce a

change. By becoming aware of the recognition and status they have acquired, the supporters

feel invested with responsibilities, not new ones, but additional ones; to defend the group

and ensure its supremacy, at whatever cost, is no longer considered a normal activity for all

supporters but an essential responsibility linked to their new status. This transformation is

accompanied by the desire to continue to prove to the seniormembers that theywere right to

integrate them, together with the desire for some, to continue to climb the promotional

ladder, even to become the leader or one of the leaders of the group.

Underneath the ‘hooligan’s career’, which is the beginning, can be seen the questions

of identity, of recognition, of visibility, of being accepted. The extreme violence that some

of these hooligans can manifest gives them social recognition and permits them to

construct an identity.68 It is important to state that this is not to confuse identity

construction and social determinism. The common point of the hooligans is not, we repeat,

belonging to a certain class but recourse to violence. Hooligans are from all social

classes.69

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A Career Reinforced by a Context of Social Anomie

Until the Heysel tragedy supporter violence enjoyed a great deal of lenience in the

majority of European countries, on the part of both the public authorities and club

managements. Even though ‘little’ arrangements are less numerous today than before,

negotiations and sometimes negligence have nonetheless greatly helped to create a context

of social anomie. Examples are not lacking throughout Europe. This is notable in the case

of the skinheads in the Real Madrid Ultra-Sur group, which the management has allowed

to develop in spite of extremely violent behaviour, where foreigners were the target and

the sacrificial victims.70 This is still the case in France. A security officer from a club in the

first division came, in 1998, to ask the commissioner and the prosecutor responsible for the

Chaban-Delmas stadium in Bordeaux to abandon the case against two supporters arrested

for violence in the stands: ‘preferring to settle the matter internally’, in this delegate’s own

words. Thus, as suggested by Becker, ‘the norms are broken with impunity because two

groups . . . find mutual advantage in closing their eyes to these transgressions’.71

In this context, the ‘non-application’ of the laws poses real problems in the propagation

of violence. First of all, it endangers any prevention policy, as the legal penalties can no

longer serve as safeguards. In a more philosophical context if nothing is repressed, nothing

is prohibited and everything is therefore possible. This is obviously not the only cause of

the development of the abuses committed by supporters; it is just one factor among others.

But it is with the repetitiveness of these slight offences and the participation in

delinquency, which is not repressed, that one can, eventually, ‘encourage’ certain

supporters to become ‘long-term deviants’ who find ‘violence pleasant’. However, the

aspects of collusion do not end here. What can be said of sport clubs that finance the

spectacles, the premises, the equipment and the transport of the most violent groups of

supporters? Examples are not hard to find. The Boulogne Boys (a group of Parisian

supporters)72 or the South Winners (a group in Marseille) have for many years been the

object of particularly generous attention on the part of their respective clubs’ management.

The reasons are simple. At the beginning it was a matter of taking advantage of the strategic

effect of the ‘12th player’. Then it became important to have a ‘vibrant’ stadium, noisy and

excited in an era in which ticket sales were more important than is the case today. Having

the stadium full was an additional argument for selling the image of the club and finding

sponsors. The policy which has prevailed in the majority of European countries has been

that of closing their eyes to these noisy, even violent, demonstrations which brought about

an anomic context or at least one of ‘social disorganisation’73 related solely to football,

which has for a long time served as a fermenting agent for delinquent and deviant acts on

the part of sport crowds. However, it should not be forgotten that if a certain number of

actions have gone unpunished for a long time, this is not only because it was in the interests

of the two opposing parties but also because the legal and police means available did not

permit the law to be enforced, or a strict application of the law offered more disadvantages

than anymeans of solving the problem. However, the non-application of the law constitutes

a vector of violence.74Without espousing the cause of ‘total security’ and being completely

aware that we are talking from the utilitarian perspective of the prison sentence in which

the threat of repression often serves to avoid the perpetration of the act, it is undeniable that

demonstrations of violence should be penalised. Beyond any simply utilitarian principle

there is the question of the legitimacy of circumventing a law, at times, with total impunity.

Sport is not the only context in which the circumventing of norms is accepted. Driving and

speeding have for a long time both been the object of ‘social disorganisation’. But by

offering at the same time a ‘normative space . . . which is regulated . . . and outside of the

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norms . . . ’,75 sport introduces an ambiguity which fires the imagination and makes all

things possible in a social universe which is totally differentiated from the restraints

imposed by normal civil society. This vacuum, this laxity, this permissiveness, this

‘complicity’ or this complacence on the part of the officials reminds one of the works

carried out in relation to violence in schools: violence which originates mainly in

establishments where there is a team conflict or a lack of regulations.76

From Hooligans to ‘Casuals’ or ‘Independents’

It has been the media interest in this violence that has led, if not to immediate measures, at

least to an awareness of it.77 This can be seen in the European Convention on Spectator

Violence78 issued on August 19, 1985, a little less than three months after the Heysel

tragedy. We should underline, as additional information, which is far from being

anecdotal, that only 11 countries have signed this convention since 1985 and that none of

the European countries to date have made it into a national law.79

It can be seen in the sanctions as well. It is useful to remember that the exclusion of

English clubs from all European competitions for five years after the Heysel disaster led to

a real policy of promoting security and peace in the stadia, even though hooliganism had

existed in its modern form for nearly 30 years.

A Shift due to the Security Systems Installed in the Stadiums

The aftermath of Heysel is characterised by a structural evolution of hooliganism. The

social controls implemented, whether in their legal aspects (European Convention,

national laws and decrees in certain cases, video surveillance) and policing (the

establishment of computer files, exchange of information among the European police

forces since the middle of the 1980s reinforced by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999,

surveillance and monitoring, spotters, security at the borders) or with regard to regulations

and organisational measures (establishment of a security perimeter around the stadiums,

frisking, video surveillance, internal regulations), have caused the emergence of a new

type of hooliganism: the ‘casuals’.80 These are violent supporters who no longer show any

distinctive sign of their belonging to a group.81 Their clothing inspires trust and favours

anonymity. The profiling at the security perimeter of the stadia by the police or stewards

resembles the work of the spotters in nightclubs. It is generally more a case of

discrimination due to visible and/or morphological characteristics (profiling). The young

supporters, decked out with the insignia of their group or football club are the objects of

the frisking, more often than the others. By wearing neutral or normal clothes, the casuals

inspire trust and enter the stadium without difficulty. The hooligans are therefore

becoming invisible and hard to recognise. It is difficult to find them with a supporter’s

scarf, a bomber jacket or a hoodie – there are more clothing signs, among many others,

which attract the attention of the staff in charge of match security.

The casuals are in fact a consequence of the policy of increasing security in the stadia,

an adaptation of the hooligans to the police and security strategies. Their clothing is

obviously not the only transformation; it is simply the most visible result of a strategic

modification implemented to further their aims. The hooligans who have been interviewed

describe this adaptation:

In the stadium you cannot behave like before with all the measures they have taken. But well,. . . we adapt . . . we don’t all arrive together, we no longer carry our teamcolours, we get othersto pass what we want, we don’t travel with the official groups . . . [T, a 28-year-old hooligan]82

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Multiform Well-Tried Strategies

Nothing has changed in the origins of hooliganism if it is not their invisibility and their

spatial movement. Inter-group and inter-cultural sport conflicts, provocations, response to

the provocations and vendettas still continue to constitute the essence of the violent

behaviours.

To be a casual is to limit the risks of being monitored, recognised, followed or put on

file. Calling oneself an independent does not mean not belonging to a group of supporters

or not even frequenting it. In fact, in the majority of deviant groups there is no adherence.

Thus, official societies or associations and informal structures coexist. Both share the same

values, and some groups were the armed wings of others. In all the cases if the

independents are arrested the associations will declare loudly and clearly that ‘they have

not been part of our group for a long time’. This is not an interpretation but rather the

words of a person responsible for supporter groups who knows all about and accepts the

activities of certain of his ‘unofficial’ members.

The regulations issued with regard to the reception of the visiting spectators (controls,

limited numbers, special zones, etc.) have led the hooligans to travel differently, far from

the eyes of the observers and the controls and to adopt a certain number of particular

strategies.

The first such strategy is in connection with ticketing, a very sensitive issue with regard

to the reception of the spectators. Possessing a ticket implies not only admittance to the

stadium but also to be able to regroup or not, to be located in a precise place or not. The

troublesome supporters do not participate in officially organised club trips. They buy their

tickets at the traditional outlets, and at times find themselves in the middle of rival

supporters, voluntarily or involuntarily, causing brawls. The second strategy is to arrive

late at the stadium ‘individually or in the middle of a crowd’. Certain match times during

the week, which coincide with people leaving work, favour these bottlenecks. By arriving

at the last moment, with a lot of other people, the security measures, in the majority of

European countries, are lightened so as not to produce resistance, even riots, at the

entrance.83

The third strategy is the distribution of the roles of men and women. Very often it is the

women who introduce the forbidden objects into the stadium (expandable batons, flares,

rocket pens). There are several reasons for this. First of all, the men are watched more

carefully, spotted and searched as they are suspected of being potential hooligans.

A second reason is to do with the organisation, or at least the lack of organisation in the

private security services or police who carry out the screening at the entrance to the stadia

or the security perimeters. A woman can only be frisked or searched by a woman. Women

are, however, often very scarce in the different control services and cannot ensure full

compliance of this aspect of their work, which in the end consists of frisking a few people

chosen at random.

The fourth strategy is the spatial movement of violence. The increased security

measures in the stadium, although imperfect, have caused the violence to move further

away, essentially due to the video surveillance. Even if strategies exist, such as lowering

the head, pulling up the collar or wearing a scarf to prevent or hinder surveillance and

photographs, the performance of such equipment has considerably reduced violence in the

stadia. Nowadays when there are confrontations, either in the stadium or within the

security perimeter, it is usually a result of a lack of coordination or organisation on the part

of the police and security services.84 The violence takes place further away, even very far

from the stadia, either in the guise of ‘urban guerillas’, with some seeking confrontation

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with other groups before or after the match, or, in traps during the journey, or finally with

fights: organised meetings to settle differences.

The list is evidently not exhaustive and is only offered to show the strategies of

adaptation and circumvention adopted by the hooligans.

Errors of Interpretation

It is precisely the distancing of the violence and the existence of fights that lead to errors of

interpretation. The fact that the violence takes place far from the stadium in no way

justifies saying that the hooligans are individuals who have nothing to do with football

and are only interested in violence, as some football managers and certain journalists

protest.

A certain number of them love violence. They do not reject it and even seek it. This

violence helps them to feel fulfilled, at the same time as constituting a game, albeit

monstrous, which gives meaning to their lives. In the sphere of juvenile delinquency,

Cusson had remarked that ‘the advantages and disadvantages of the two branches of the

alternative are as follows . . . To live an exciting but dangerous life or a boring life that is

risk free’.85 This search for meaning is similar to many other behaviours that are ‘outside

the norms’, such as the practice of extreme sports, illegal street racing and alternative sport

activities.86 It is a question of giving meaning to their lives, which do not necessarily have

a meaning, whatever their social background or profession, and especially in a society

which values and encourages social success.87 These activity modalities thus deeply

oppose both the comfortable and organised aspect of everyday life and also the

prophylactic character of our modern societies.88

To say this is not to deny the existence of a manipulation of certain supporters by

extreme political groups or, even, of others who are ‘less aware’ (not to say less advanced

in the ‘civilising process’) of their actions, but this grants them a certain rationality.

When the journalists, following on from serious events like the death of supporters,

come to discuss the question of casuals or independents, they are only reinforcing this

image of violent individuals coming from outside sport. When they interview the

hooligans, or those who make that claim, they record their words without verifying if ‘they

really do what they say, and say what they really do’. Let us study this aspect for a

moment. Many broadcasts show hooligans who boast about their violence, about

arranging encounters with others and who are unable, when asked to do so by the

journalists, to offer proof. But many also tell a story, which they want to be broadcast, and

which does not place their name or their group or their strategies at risk. Most of the time

nothing is verified by the media, which helps to manufacture an image of the hooligan,

which is totally unrelated to reality. The reasons are simple, on the one hand the journalists

react to the urgency imposed by the media in which they work, and on the other the

hooligans resemble all the other people who are interviewed in a survey, appearing as the

ideologues of their own lives.89 Taking the line proposed by Becker, we must agree that in

the sphere of hooliganism as in many other deviant domains, everything is just appearance,

and what is shown, said and discussed is not reality but a distorted vision of reality as each

individual (journalists and hooligans) perceives it, lives it and culturally wants and is able

to transmit it with the effects that all of them expect to produce in their listeners.90

The result is that violence endures. Fights occur far from the eyes of the observers, and

whether programmed or the result of ambushes, in both cases they bear witness to an

organisation and planning. This question should pull us up short. For, no security policy in

its purely coercive aspect, even in Great Britain, where its officials claim the opposite, has

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managed to solve the problem of violence, which in England occurs in parallel with second

or third division matches.

The hooligans and hooliganism are perpetually evolving and adapting to the world

around them and to the restraints imposed upon them. The policy of ‘pay, sit down, be

quiet’ has little impact on this violence unless it is to make it less visible, and thus more

bearable in the eyes of the politicians and football management: the former administrating

not public order but ‘order in public’,91 and the latter preserving the image of a clean sport

which is thus able to be sold, sponsored and broadcast on the media.

In Conclusion

Football is therefore a clean sport because the incidents take place outside the stadia. Its

management can therefore argue proudly, as it has been striving to do for a number of

years, that the hooligans are not ‘real’ supporters but delinquents who use football and the

importance it has for the media. This is to forget that hooliganism started before matches

were televised on such a large scale. The arguments are simple. These are not authentic

supporters because everything happens at a different time and place from the sport

competitions and they no longer wear the colours of their club.

This approach provides advantages for football, which does not have, or no longer has,

to manage the social context, which it nonetheless induced, generated and up until now

despised, or at least, was totally indifferent to, except for the influence the supporters could

have on the opposing team. Football thus becomes a show promoter that considers itself to

have no more obligations than those who organise concerts or other mass spectacles. It is

leaving behind it, and unloading onto society, the passions that it has consciously or

unconsciously provoked and the perverse effects engendered by its development.

But this transformation of ‘visible’ hooliganism into hooliganism by casuals or those

calling themselves independents in fact indicates two aspects.

The first is that the policies implemented to counteract hooliganism are very seldom

based on an analysis of the environment and the context. Very often they constitute

policies lacking any ‘ethic of responsibility’, ignoring, and above all failing completely to

anticipate, the consequences of their implementation. The Lang Report in 1969 advocating

the segregation of supporters with fences in the stands is one instance.92 Not only did this

measure fail to prevent the confrontations but it has also encouraged the territorialisation

of the stands, served as a catalyst of violence for territorial supremacy and helped to

authenticate and multiply the groups seeking to authenticate their territory by giving

themselves names and displaying banners.

The second aspect is that the laws, rules and norms put into place (and in saying this we

are not denying their interest or their opportuneness), far from decreasing deviant

behaviour, induce the hooligans to improve their deviant strategies. This is all common

knowledge. Many sociologists, philosophers and criminologists have been showing for

some time that the ‘utilitarian use of a punishment’ (the announcement of a severe

punishment and its application) does notworkwith individualswho are already engaged in a

deviant career and are intent on making this deviant behaviour their ‘normal’ way of life.93

Hooliganism cannot be considered as an action by individuals who are less advanced

in the ‘civilising process’. Their social heterogeneity, their manner of interpreting the

world surrounding them, the fact that they consider violence not as a ‘normal or natural’

means of expression but as a game and an adventure and the strategies implemented to

perpetrate it reveals to us the complexity of a phenomenon that cannot be reduced to an

animal-like impulse. The criticism is obvious and easy: the analysis of hooliganism rests

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a priori on a dominant paradigm94 and a hyper deterministic vision of the phenomenon.

This initial observation does not question the quality, or even the veracity of these works,

nor is it a question of devaluing the theories and conceptual models used, but to observe

their limits. It is simply a matter of admitting, as Bourdieu95 suggested, that intellectual

productions are just the emanation and reflection of the social structures of an era. These

works are in fact part of the current or traditional thought in Anglo-Saxon sociology from

the beginning of the 1960s to the middle of the 1980s. Sociology, then called ‘sociology of

suspicion’, revealed above all the violent behaviour of part of the population when faced

with the exhaustion of the post-war modernist momentum. By taking this point of view the

researchers became interested in stigmatisation, in the recognition of the act as being

criminal and not in criminogenics, that is in the interactions and processes which lead to

perpetrating the act, any more than they questioned the judgement made on deviance. But

what is there apart from coercive measures? By considering hooliganism solely as

unlawful conduct it is easier to ask for police and convictions than to implement an actual

prevention policy. The examples of fan coaching in Belgium and the fan projekt in

Germany, however, have shown the merits of presenting a real policy of violence

prevention by accompanying and channelling the young supporters. In saying this, we are

not denying the merits of the convictions provided for by the law but proposing their

relocation in a more general system of prevention including dissuasive aspects (in such a

way that the inconveniences for the offenders outweigh the benefits that they hope to

achieve), rehabilitation (helping the offenders to re-find their place, giving them a role),

neutralisation (imprisonment and banishment from the stadiums), education and

information (for the youngest) and social reinsertion (with measures like accompanying

and/or psychological support).

Notes on Contributors

Dominique Bodin is a university professor at the Universite Europeenne de Bretagne (Rennes 2),Director of the Laboratory ‘Violences Identites Politiques et Sports (http://www.sites.univ-rennes2.fr/violences-identites-politiques-sports/) and of the International Federative Research Structure ‘ Violenceset Prevention des Violences’ (http://violencesetpreventiondesviolences.org/ index.php/fr/); his worksdeal with the relations linking sport and violence through two main prisms: sport as a place for thedramatisation of violence and sport as a way to control this violence.

Luc Robene is a Professor at the Universite de Bordeaux and a member of the Laboratory ‘Culture,education, societe’ (Culture, education and society). His works deal with the history of cultural practicesthrough threemain axes: the history of aeronautics, the history of the body, the knowledge and techniquesof the body, including the history of violence, and the history of popular music.

Notes

1. Homo homini lupus est, the formula borrowed from Plautus and taken up by numerous authors,over the centuries, like Hobbes who in his Leviathan, summarises this way of conceivingviolent behaviours.

2. Le Bon, Psychologie des foules; Freud, Essais de psychanalyse; and Moscovici, L’age desfoules.

3. Brohm, Les meutes sportives.4. Ehrenberg, Le culte de la performance.5. Clarke, Football Hooliganism; and Clarke, “Football and Working Class Fans.”6. Elias and Dunning, Sport et civilisation.7. Elias, La civilisation des mœurs; and Elias, La dynamique de l’occident.8. Aubusson de Carvalay, “De la pacification a l’insecurite.”9. Rousseaux, “Civilisation des mœurs.”

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10. Muchembled, Une histoire de la violence.11. Audoin-Rouzeau, “Norbert Elias,” 105 and passim.12. Elias, La solitude des mourants, 69–70.13. Elias and Dunning, Sport et civilisation, 360–1.14. This is one example among others.15. Elias and Dunning, Sport et civilisation, 355.16. Taylor, “Class, Violence and Sport”; Williams, “When Violence Overshadows the Spirit”; and

Hargreaves, “Sex, Gender and the Body”17. Chevalier, Classes laborieuses et Classes dangereuses.18. Dunning, “Approche figurationnelle du sport moderne.”19. Jaspard, Brown and Condon, Les violences envers les femmes; and Dauphin and Farge, De la

violence et des femmes.20. See also: Harrington, “A Preliminary Report”; Van Limbergen, Colaers and Walgrave, “The

Societal and the Psycho-Sociological Background”; and Bodin, Robene and Heas, Sport andViolence in Europe.

21. Heritier, De la violence, 31–2.22. See for example Braithwaite, Inequality, Crime and Public Policy; and Farrington, “Human

Development and Criminal Careers.”23. Gottfredson and Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime.24. Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology.25. There are, however, examples of hooliganism in basketball in Greece and Turkey or even in

cricket in India with sporadic violence, similar in form if not in its causes, and in water polo asin 2003 at the European Championship final when Croatia played Serbia, a resurgence of thelast Balkan War in another form.

26. Tacite, Annales 14.17.27. Thuillier, Le sport dans la Rome Antique.28. Guttmann, Sports Spectators.29. Jusserand, Les sports et les jeux.30. Bredekamp, La naissance du football.31. Tranter, “The Cappielow Riot.”32. Understood as meaning, its structural transformations, its organisation, its dissemination, its

importance in the media, its relation with the passionate crowds which it has generated, itsculture, etc.

33. Weber, Le savant et le politique.34. Bodin, Le hooliganisme.35. Boudon, Effets pervers et ordre social.36. Bodin, Le hooliganisme 19.37. Bodin, Robene and Heas, “Le hooliganisme entre genese et modernite.”38. Broussard, Generation supporter, 308.39. Clarke, “Football and Working Class Fans.”40. Marsh, Aggro: The Illusion of Violence.41. Durkheim, Les regles de la methode sociologique.42. September 17, 2009.43. Bodin, Robene and Heas, “Racisme, xenophobie et ideologies politiques.”44. Becker, Outsiders; and Goffman, Stigmate.45. Wieviorka, “Sur la question de la violence”; and Lagrange, “Violence, repression et

civilisation des mœurs.”46. Quoting the words of Wieviorka, La violence, 198.47. Note here, curiously, that Elias does not use the same criteria and distances himself from the

general theory in Elias and Scotson, Logiques de l’exclusion.48. See also: Skogan, Disorder and Decline (for delinquency and urban vandalism); Debarbieux,

“Le ‘savant’, le politique et la violence” (for violence in schools); and Roche, La delinquancedes jeunes (for juvenile delinquency in France).

49. Bodin, Robene and Heas, “Une approche de la criminalite.”50. Harrington, “A Preliminary Report”; Zani and Kirchler, “When Violence Overshadows the

Spirit”; Van Limbergen et al., “Aspects sociopsychologiques de l’hooliganisme”; andGiulianotti, “Football and the Politics”; just to cite a few.

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51. Displays of banners unfurled in the corners, flags waved or mosaics created with the help ofmulti-coloured sheets of paper.

52. Broussard, Generation supporter.53. Terms cited from Pessoa by Clanche, “Football, instabilite et passion.”54. Before the European Champions’ Cup Final which was between Liverpool (which had already

won the 1984 edition) and Juventus of Turin (which would win this match), 39 people met theirdeath. This tragedy was retransmitted live on television. The commentaries of the journalistsinsist on the monstrosity of the English hooligans who were the cause, according to them, of theevents. The Heysel disaster is not, however, the archetype of hooliganism but rather a defect inthe passive security of the stadium.

55. Bromberger, Hayot and Mariottini, Le match de football.56. Le Bart, “Strategies identitaires de fans.”57. De Vreese, “Pour une statistique des matches de football”; or also Salas, Diario de un skin.58. Bodin, Hooliganisme. Verites et mensonges.59. Read on this subject the limits to the use of this notion in Debarbieux et al., L’oppression

quotidienne, 105–112.60. See note 33 above61. Read on this subject: Bodin, Le hooliganisme; Bromberger, Football, la bagatelle la plus

serieuse du monde; and Fincoeur et al., “Etude du supporterisme.”62. Becker, Outsiders; and Cusson, La delinquance, une vie choisie.63. Bodin, Javerlhiac and Heas, “Une etape particuliere de la carriere hooligan.”64. It is impossible tomention all of thembutwewill cite among others (other references confirmand

complete these throughout the text): Taylor, “SoccerConsciousness” and “FootballMad” (for theAnglo-Saxon countries); Zimmerman, “La violence dans les stades de football” (for Germany);Dupuis, “Le hooliganismeenBelgique”, 1ere partie and2eme (forBelgium);Duran,El vandalismoen el futbol; andMadrid, Insider (for Spain); Busset et al.Violence et extremisme dans le football(for Switzerland and Europe); and Louis, Le phenomene ultras en Italie (for Italy).

65. See note 63 above.66. Becker, Outsiders, 111.67. Simmel, Secrets et societes secretes.68. As suggested by Van Limbergen et al., “Aspects sociopsychologiques de l’hooliganisme.”69. See among others Taylor, “Class, Violence and Sport”; Williams, “When Violence

Overshadows the Spirit”; and Hargreaves, Sex, Gender and the Body.70. Duran and Pardo, “Racismo en el futbol profesional espanol.”71. Becker, Outsiders, 150.72. A group which has currently been dissolved by the justice system in France.73. Merton, Elements de theorie.74. Bodin, “Football, supporters, violence”; and Bodin and Trouilhet, “Le controle social des

foules sportives en France.”75. Bodin, “En guise de conclusion.”76. Debarbieux, Les dix commandements contre la violence a l’ecole.77. Bodin, Heas and Robene, “Le hooliganisme.”78. http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT¼120&CM¼1&DF¼17/08/

2009&CL¼FRE (accessed March 9, 2013).79. Bodin et al., “Football et controle social?”80. Casual comes from casual clothing. Wearing ‘normal’ clothes provides a certain degree of

invisibility to the most extreme supporters.81. Redhead, Sing When You’re Winning.82. This extract from a conversation comes from a survey of about 30 hooligans the day after the

death of Julien Quemener, a Parisian supporter near the Parc des Princes (the stadium whereParis Saint Germain plays). Bodin, Robene and Heas, “Le hooliganisme.”

83. Boullier, Bodin and Chevrier, “Techniques de climatisation securitaire de la ville evenement.”84. Aswas the case, in France, for example, inDecember 2006, of the death of JulienQuemener at the

match between PSG and Haspoel from Tel Aviv, or again, in February 2010, in the lynching ofYann Lorence, a supporter of the Boulogne stand in Paris by the supporters of the Auteuil stand.

85. Cusson, Delinquants pourquoi? 215.86. We mean by this the practice of combat sports like Thai boxing or ultimate fighting between

individuals from the affluent social classes.

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87. Ehrenberg, Le culte de la performance.88. Le Breton, Passions du risque.89. Bourdieu, “L’illusion biographique.”90. Becker, Outsiders, 189 et passim.91. Roche, La societe incivile: qu’est-ce que l’insecurite ?92. Lang, “Report of the Working Party.”93. Cusson, Prevenir la delinquance; Mucchielli, “Criminologie, hygienisme et eugenisme en

France”; and Foucault, Surveiller et punir.94. Kuhn, La structure des revolutions scientifiques.95. Bourdieu, La distinction.

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