Flags, the world cup and hooligans

Flags
They’re starting to turn up everywhere here. Their appearance marks the beginings of a ritual of mass self- delusion repeated every four years. It's much like a man getting married for the third time: optimism triumphs over past experience. The newspapers are full of world cup trivia as well as endless supplements examining down to the smallest detail the "degree of danger" posed by teams likely to cross England's path.

They really believe they have a chance to win.
They won't.

Germany, Brazil or Italy will win, not Beckham and the boys.

There's been an almost psychotic fixation with the state of Wayne Rooney’s foot. Rooney is the 18 year old striker wonder kid, upon whom the nation rests its hopes.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/tm_objectid=17188653&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=roo-boots-are-shoe-in-name_page.html
News on the war in Iraq has been repeatedly pre-empted to report live from outside the hospital where a scan is being made on his foot, or at the airport where he's flying back from his scan or variations of similar dramas. The front page of every newspaper (tabloid and quality) have featured stories dedicated to the injury everyday this week.
Its official he’s fit to play.
England will still lose.

Back to the Flags.
It used to be considered racist to fly the Cross of St George ( the flag of England). Highjacked by the National Front in the late 70’s and early 80s, the flag was associated with skinheads and football hooligans in a way the Scottish and Welsh flags never were. It’s now part of mainstream pop culture (McDonalds has even enlisted it to sell Big Macs) and doesn’t have that smell of nastiness from days past. Pubs are swamped in red and white, and people are attaching little flags to their car rear windows. There is even a debate in the the media on "whether or not it's terribly common", to fly the flag whilst driving.

How very English.

The flag has been reclaimed. The mainstream media and man on the street has adopted it within the context of supporting the team and praying for a positive result. It will returned to a source of shame however, if the travelling fan gets up to his old tricks.

Today, football hooligans seem to have less of a profile in the national conciousness. In the bad old days, families never ventured anywhere near a football ground on game day. Since big money has taken over the league , hooligans have been stamped on hard. They're banned from all stadiums for life at first infraction.Violence has been all but eliminated from the terraces. Outside the grounds however, trouble still flares occasionally.

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=17051472&method=full&siteid=50061&headline=thugs-jailed-for-city-s-worst-football-violence-name_page.html

The police in the UK have dedicated units dealing with football related violence. There are undercover officers, game day helicopters, mounted police units etc. The domestic game, despite the story above has become much less prone to inciting pitched battles in the streets.

During the 90's English hooliganism moved out of the domestic arena, (where it had less and less room) to the international stage. Largely unemployed, it's always amazed me that gangs of thugs seem to be able to afford to follow the English team all over the world and create mayhem.

This year the World Cup is in Germany. Germany is the "hated enemy" for English fans ( so is France and Argentina). When the two teams play, the English chant "Two world wars and one world cup!" to wind up the opposition . Bands in the stands play the theme to the movie Dam Busters, over and over again ( actually they play this at every game and its really irritating).

The German's have their own hooligan problems as do the Dutch, Czechs and Polish.

There are real worries that the main source of trouble during this tournament will be as a result of the growing problems of East European hooligansm (especially Poland and Czech), characterized by virulent racism, xenophobia, and a culture of violence.

The World cup in Japan/Korea in 2002 was the first event of its kind which didn't feature nightly reports of English fans trashing the host cities and fighting pitched battles with police. The government had taken away the passports of known trouble makers preventing them from travelling. This seemed to work, though many believe that getting to Japan and Korea was beyond the financial means of the yobs anyway. This year 3,100 passports have been confiscated and the police are searching for 800 people who have failed to honour a court order to surrender them. The operation to stop these guys from travelling is on a similar scale to activities preventing terrorism and organised crime. There are over 500 UK policemen in Germany (with the power of arrest) to help the German authorities spot and deal with troublemakers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5057214.stm

The Brits are determined this June will not feature tattooed English yobs destroying orderly German town squares . Lets hope they're right.

That's it for today

I've been working mad hours lately and haven't had much time to do anything else. Next Thursday I fly to Dehli and start a 12 day dash through Asia once again.

I hope all is well with all of you.

T