[quote=Glice]Have you ever met any of the Brighton heavies? Thoroughly nice chaps, the ones I've met. They do that wonderful thing of arranging fights in such a way as to guarentee that only those interested in fighting will be involved. We were very kindly escorted out of a pub in Brighton where a fight was kicking off. A few large chaps came up to us and very politely said, "There's going to be a fight here. If you want to stick around for it, you're more than welcome, but if not, finish your beers and have a nice day." I quite admire that. Fighting, yes, but only for those who want to fight.[/quot


You must have read that article about arranged football fights on the internet.Hahahaha.How civilized is that?

I haven't, but it's a phenomenon I've observed for myself. I used to live five minutes walk from the Gooners. Generally lovely chaps, so long as you're not a Chelsea fan.

A few months ago I was on a train talking to one of the CHelsea 'firm', and I have to say I came away with largely the same impression. Very polite, intelligent, helpful chap (he rang his wife up and asked her to check the Manchester City score for me). There's certainly a difference between the football hoolligan who hits random targets and the organised fighter who meets up with willing rival participants.

I have no statistics to back this uup, but I'd be willing to bet that the average sentence being served by people who are currently in custody is measured in months, not weeks. That's an inconvenience, not a sentence. And don't get me started on the pointlessness of community service...

When i used to live on the Essex Road in Islington,you'd have all these Arsenal fans getting hammered when their team played but i've rarely seen violence apart from some of the very pissed ones falling outside the pub uncapable of moving.I also worked at Charlton stadium about 5 years ago for about 2 months and the fans were just plain ordinary blokes with wives/girlfriends etc who happened to be passionate about football.To think that football is a cause for malaise in Britain is very,very wrong.And if i say so it must be true because,after all, i happen to be able to stick a pen up my nostril and make it come out of my anus.

Where I live 95% of the people are mindless cunts. They have no ambition and no motivation to go anywhere in live. The people my age just want to wear tracksuits the rest of thier lifes and start fights with the 'alternative' people. I fucking hate them.

Last week my neighbour had a brick thrown through her car windshield as she was driving through Chappel Town in Leeds. You could get killed in there. It seems to me alot of the Asian gangs are even more violent than the british thugs. They don't fuck around they just pull a knife out.

yeah lock em all up for life.

tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

i worked in chapeltown for a few years and only ever felt unsafe once or twice.

a lot of the fighting and violence was gang related and due to drugs but once a place gets a reputation then thats pretty much it.

i think the reason that area has such a reputation is because its a big jamaican and west indian community. armley on the other hand is much more white and much more dangerous but it doesnt have the reputation and i never feel safe when i go through it.

How so?

british football hooliganism seems to be mostly confined to overseas trips of their teams these days... no doubt due to the football act that was introduced sometime in the late 80's/early 90's. i haven't heard of hooliganism within brittain for quite a while now, but i can list several examples of british hooliganism overseas.
most (all?) stadiums in england even have the fences between the fans and the pitch removed nowadays... try finding a stadium like that in holland.

i think the main reason why they stick their hooliganism to foreign trips is the same reason as why a lot of british youth misbehave so much on holiday trips to the spanish coasts, the greek islands or in downtown amsterdam: they simply wouldn't get away with displaying the same behaviour at home... and maybe the binge-drinking tradition doesn't help much either.

Hmm...This really isn't so much of a problem in Cardiff, I've been into town after matches, at xmas and never encountered much of a problem. I think we read and see on televison more of this 'yobbish' behaviour than actually occurs. I'm always out late at night in many areas and I have have seldom ever encountered a problem....This reminds me of a debate I had with someone the other night in which I said I hated the working class, the middle class and the upper class......Seems that I actively dispise the following British publications I am going to blame them

The Sun, The Daily Star and The Daily Mail (perhaps the worst offender)

hooliganism does still exist but i think its more in the lower leagues and when 'fans' travel abroad.

i have to say that i have been to many places that are supposedly very dangerous and never had any trouble or even the threat of it. then gone to small market towns and villages in the uk and felt very unsafe.

i'm not saying jon boy is racist... i was just establishing a fact:

people get bad reputation just because of their race... and that is sick.

Sure but i didn't percieve Jonboy's comment as a racist one.

I know I think a lot of it is middle age paranoia.

I swear if I have to hear 'in my day you could leave your door open all day' argument one more time...

Yes sure but it depends where you live as always! In middle 60's Aston, Birmingham, I'm pretty sure you couldn't, or the the South Wales Valleys for that matter....you could leave your door open in my street now!...

Perhaps not for football, but an Englishman in Cardiff when Wales are playing England at the Rugby is a worried man indeed.

That is valid for a lot of working class british holiday makers who go to the countries that you've listed.The usual british visitor that we get in Italy (and i spotted in France too) tends to be rather civilized and cultured.I always got the impression that it is because that sort of behaviour wouldn't be accepted in both Italy and France.The Sun used to have a rather awful motto that said that going to Spain wasn't exactly a cultural experience(how very wrong) but then,who takes The Sun seriously apart from Glice and some meathead in West Ham?

i never saw any fights in germany other than those caused by british and australian tourists.