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England fans: the racism and the violence

Im surprised there wasnt more trouble afterwards considering the outcome, on the level of Trafalgar Square getting smashed up in 1996, perhaps the rain helped.

It seems like the stadium security isnt cut out for a major England football match, in the videos it looks like the guards are mostly slim built local men who are only in a high vis to get a pay packet at the end of the week. It says a lot when the only people trying to stop people rushing the gates were other England fans.

As for the racist abuse online, i think quite a lot of it comes from people abroad, you can tell by the poor use of English. No excuse for it of course.
 
Im surprised there wasnt more trouble afterwards considering the outcome, on the level of Trafalgar Square getting smashed up in 1996, perhaps the rain helped.

It seems like the stadium security isnt cut out for a major England football match, in the videos it looks like the guards are mostly slim built local men who are only in a high vis to get a pay packet at the end of the week. It says a lot when the only people trying to stop people rushing the gates were other England fans.

As for the racist abuse online, i think quite a lot of it comes from people abroad, you can tell by the poor use of English. No excuse for it of course.
It wasn't so much Trafalgar Square that got smashed up in 96 as the surrounding streets and the cop car burned on the strand. But then I saw it and I don't suppose you did.
 
Good that this thread started by a Welshman concentrates on the issue of racism associated with English football fans and chooses not to touch on Scottish, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Hungarian and so on’s equally as despicable racism associated with their national teams.
Surely it is football that has an issue with racism and yobbery. Which is why any right thinking person knew long ago to bin it off.
I’ve not seen any with Scotland and have spent an inordinate amount of time following them. Wanky cringey piss artistry yep but other stuff isn’t tolerated. There is a big difference between the national team and the background sectarianism seen in some of the league
 
Im surprised there wasnt more trouble afterwards considering the outcome, on the level of Trafalgar Square getting smashed up in 1996, perhaps the rain helped.

It seems like the stadium security isnt cut out for a major England football match, in the videos it looks like the guards are mostly slim built local men who are only in a high vis to get a pay packet at the end of the week. It says a lot when the only people trying to stop people rushing the gates were other England fans.

As for the racist abuse online, i think quite a lot of it comes from people abroad, you can tell by the poor use of English. No excuse for it of course.
I was actually wondering last night about the famous Cafe Italia. When Italy won the last WC it was a focal point for London’s Italian nationals. I wouldn’t be surprised if they closed sharp at the end of the game, or were told to do so by the Old Bill. Because sadly I fear a street full of celebrating Italians would have been a massive magnet for any knuckle-dragger among the England fans in Trafalgar Sq and the vicinity.
 
tbf the vast majority of people in Bromley and Bexley write Kent on their addresses. I know i do. It feels like Kent, and historically it is Kent. Even the NHS for example
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Yeah, that's because that is their postal address. The Postal spatial arrangements were never changed to reflect the changed arrangements after the 1965 local government re-organistion that brought into being Greater London including the outer boroughs that absorbed areas of the former, historical counties. Where I live, in Sutton, our addresses say "Surrey".

So, yes historically Eltham would have been in Kent but now, as part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, is firmly within Greater London.

Whether or not any part of GL feels like Kent rather depend on which respective parts you're thinking of. There are a few parts of SE London that feel like the Kent I know (Medway & Swale), but most of Bex & Brom feel very different to the parts of North, East Kent I'm familiar with.
 
I was actually wondering last night about the famous Cafe Italia. When Italy won the last WC it was a focal point for London’s Italian nationals. I wouldn’t be surprised if they closed sharp at the end of the game, or were told to do so by the Old Bill. Because sadly I fear a street full of celebrating Italians would have been a massive magnet for any knuckle-dragger among the England fans in Trafalgar Sq and the vicinity.
A couple of my Italian friends went to watch the game, somewhere around Granary Square I think, but was speaking to one of them today and she said it was really unpleasant and she wasn't really able to enjoy the game. I couldn't quite tell if stuff was being directed to them personally, or just being said/chanted generally, but I got the impression it was the former. Stuff about Brexit and shite like that.

Shameful, embarrassing, disappointing... there remains a lot of work to do in this bloody country :(
 
I had a squint at O'Neill's latest banged out in 5 minutes brainfart and made it as far as this bit.

And of course booing the taking of the knee is now being lumped in with the foul practice of sending monkey emojis to black players. It’s all racism, apparently. It’s all the same. This is a way of delegitimising criticism of BLM and its divisive politics of identity by linking it to expressly racist comments. We aren’t even 24 hours on from the Euros denouement, and already it is being cynically exploited to demonise fans and chill opposition to the hyper-racial virtue-signalling of the new elites.
 
I’ve not seen any with Scotland and have spent an inordinate amount of time following them. Wanky cringey piss artistry yep but other stuff isn’t tolerated. There is a big difference between the national team and the background sectarianism seen in some of the league
Same thing with Wales fans from what I know. Doesn't stop Cardiff City from having some of the worst racist cunt fans in the country. But it's just not the culture of following the national team.

England has a problem in this regard that Scotland/Wales don't have. That's long been true and still is true. I don't know how you change it. I'm not sure it's a thing you can change actively. It is something that hopefully dies out over decades as the cunts die off and aren't replaced.

The last 24 hours have been thoroughly depressing tbh. I think winning something might have helped. Helped break the spell. It might help show people that winning is nice, but life then goes on. The likes of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc, aren't different places to live in just because they've won a bunch of football trophies.
 
In terms of racism directed at members of the national team by so-called supporters of that team, I get the impression (as a non-football fan) that the England team has a higher proportion of black players than, say, Scotland or Wales.

I can only name three members of the current England team, and two of them are black - Rashford and Sterling (the other one is Kane).

And I'm sure I've read in the past about racism directed by some eg Italian and Spanish fans against members of their team, though whether at club or international level I can't remember.

What actually seems to be positive in this latest situation is that, far from sweeping it under the carpet, the team collectively, including the manager and a number of the players (and other commentors etc) are actively speaking out against it, to an extent I don't remember seeing before.
 
These people who make racist posts then claim "my account was hacked" - it's f***ing laughable, who do they imagine would be interested in hacking Joe Bloke with 41 followers? Mossad? Putin's FSB? Surely they know the game is up, or will be up eventually, and - as well as losing their job - there's the possible additional problem of being charged with wasting police time: "the staff member connected with the racist comments claimed his account was taken over by a third party, adding that the matter had been passed on to police"

Wouldn't it be more honest for them to just say, sorry I was pissed and gakked up and I posted some racist shit.

Then again there's the equally comical response: "I'm not a racist" after making racist remarks in front of an audience - so, as well as the roomful of witnesses, there's no chance of claiming they were hacked, unless: "I'm not a racist, that's not me - I was temporarily possessed by the spirit of a racist pirate" - would be just as convincing surely?
 
It's not really a problem it's just Russian troll bot farms sending racist tweets. It's not like it's rewarded in our culture with well paid jobs and the like is it?


'My account was hacked.' Literally the same excuse as some people on this thread are using.
 
It's not really a problem it's just Russian troll bot farms sending racist tweets. It's not like it's rewarded in our culture with well paid jobs and the like is it?


'My account was hacked.' Literally the same excuse as some people on this thread are using.
Sorry which posters are using this as an excuse?
 
Is it fundamentally any different to the way in which Brexit enabled the racist underbelly to emerge in a flurry of “we voted for you fucking foreigners to go home” hate crime attacks the length and breadth of the country? Racism and xenophobia bubbling under in society doesn’t need much of a catalyst to be shown openly, and thank god it gets slapped down and condemned whenever it does show its ugly face.

Unless we think racism in England is worse than in other European countries (or indeed in the rest of the U.K.), it makes no sense to label it an English problem IMHO. Condemning (and ideally arresting) the idiots who feel they’re empowered to be openly racist is absolutely right though.
I think you're avoiding the issue. Of course racism isn't unique to Britain, but we're talking about Britain.
It's not really a problem it's just Russian troll bot farms sending racist tweets. It's not like it's rewarded in our culture with well paid jobs and the like is it?


'My account was hacked.' Literally the same excuse as some people on this thread are using.
Aside from the self aggrandising publicist tone of their tweet, I don't really disagree with (another) estate agent falling from grace. What it means to be suspended (is he on full pay?) is another matter.

As a working class type I can't say I'm overly thrilled with people losing jobs, but I've no sympathy for racists. You could always have chosen a different path.

The whole thing is ugly and our culture is basically shit
 
I think you're avoiding the issue. Of course racism isn't unique to Britain, but we're talking about Britain.

Aside from the self aggrandising publicist tone of their tweet, I don't really disagree with (another) estate agent falling from grace. What it means to be suspended (is he on full pay?) is another matter.

As a working class type I can't say I'm overly thrilled with people losing jobs, but I've no sympathy for racists. You could always have chosen a different path.

The whole thing is ugly and our culture is basically shit
I’m not avoiding the issue, my main point was that if it’s not football, it will be something else which allows this kind of behaviour an outlet. The problem IMHO is that it still exists in society, not whatever has been the latest catalyst for it to bubble up and show its face. I don’t see it as an England football team problem specifically.
 
Same thing with Wales fans from what I know. Doesn't stop Cardiff City from having some of the worst racist cunt fans in the country. But it's just not the culture of following the national team.

England has a problem in this regard that Scotland/Wales don't have. That's long been true and still is true. I don't know how you change it. I'm not sure it's a thing you can change actively. It is something that hopefully dies out over decades as the cunts die off and aren't replaced.

The last 24 hours have been thoroughly depressing tbh. I think winning something might have helped. Helped break the spell. It might help show people that winning is nice, but life then goes on. The likes of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc, aren't different places to live in just because they've won a bunch of football trophies.

This dying out thing comes up a lot when bigotry of various shades is discussed. But the racism of this scum is not the ignorance and prejudice some of our grandparents generation may have displayed. It's political, it revels in an anti liberal antisocial mindset. It's alive, not a relic.

Look at who's doing it too. not the traditional bogyman of Guardian commentators, the white ignorant urban working class, failed by education and economic opportunityy, blah, blah. This is like an online fostered identerian thing now.
 
Same thing with Wales fans from what I know. Doesn't stop Cardiff City from having some of the worst racist cunt fans in the country.
Got anything to back up that remarkable claim? What are you basing it on, exactly?

Total of football-related arrests where racism was a feature during the seasons 2014-15 to 2017-18

Cardiff City: 2

Of course, that's two too many but makes your claim of them having the "worst racist cunt fans in the country" look like utter bollocks.

And then there was this nonsense.

See the list of racist arrests here. You'll have to scroll a long way down to find Cardiff:


And a reminder of how the Welsh fans were received during the last Euros that they were permitted to attend:


 
Cardiff City has a long history of violence associated with it. It doesn't help this situation to try to underplay that.

The point is that the fact that Welsh or Scottish fans as a collective do not have the same problems as England fans as a collective isn't because Welsh and Scottish people are better or nicer. It's because of the particular dynamics of the various groups and the people who do or do not associate with them.
 
Cardiff City has a long history of violence associated with it. It doesn't help this situation to try to underplay that.

The point is that the fact that Welsh or Scottish fans as a collective do not have the same problems as England fans as a collective isn't because Welsh and Scottish people are better or nicer. It's because of the particular dynamics of the various groups and the people who do or do not associate with them.
You said "Cardiff has some of the worst racist cunt fans in the country"
And now you're changing it to "long history of violence"???

Any evidence for your first assertion?
 
Look at who's doing it too. not the traditional bogyman of Guardian commentators, the white ignorant urban working class, failed by education and economic opportunityy, blah, blah. This is like an online fostered identerian thing now.

On the former point, that this is seemingly the fact of the matter has not stopped middle class Guardian wankers and others taking the chance to spew out their festering hate towards the great unwashed has it? Or twitter, replete with language portraying ordinary people having a good time as little more than savages. It's glaring and yet passes unchallenged again and again.

On the latter point I'd love to see some proper research on the demographics. My hunch is that it isn't builders or plumbers from deindustrialised places posting this stuff. If anyone is aware of any serious research or investigative work please point me in its direction.
 
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