After the Act?   The (re)construction and regulation of football fandom

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abstract - introduction - Govt and regulation - Criminal Justice Act - Other CJA provisions - Conclusion Introduction: As means of regulating and controlling the participants of cultural industries, the restriction of a person's civil liberties, like censorship, is one of the most basic. Football supporters suffer more than most participants in cultural industries from this form of control...[t]his is the day to day reality of being a football supporter. The increase in the last ten years of legislative and security measures that are available to police, clubs and stewards, has been dramatic, reflected by its impact on the civil liberties issue. (See footnote 1). Football and football supporters have been the subject of a number of legislative provisions in the past, many of which have resulted from flashpoints, in particular those resulting from the Taylor Report (Cmnd.962) that followed the Hillsborough disaster(2). The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (CJA 1994), controversial for many reasons, has a number of potential ramifications for football supporters. This concern has resulted in the formation of Football Fans against the Criminal Justice Act (FFACJA), a body that has been acting both as a watchdog of how the powers under the Act have been applied and as a pressure group campaigning along with established organisations such as Liberty who have a much broader remit. This article examines these provisions of the CJA and considers their application to football fans. Recent Government responses to football fandom that have culminated in the passing of CJA 1994 demonstrate a history of gut reactions induced by moral panic(3). The overall effect has been to seriously challenge the civil liberties afforded to supporters wishing to watch the 'beautiful game'. Our analysis demonstrates the ineffectiveness of some of the previous panic measures and suggests that those contained within the CJA may well, in the long term, prove to be equally as ill conceived. Foster(4), like Brown above, argues that such recent regulation is in fact a byproduct of the decline in sporting autonomy that has been seen in recent years. This is manifested in state intervention in the game in a post Heysel/Hillsborough/Bradford landscape that has embraced identity cards, specific 'football' legislation,(5) Royal Commissions and other attempts to tackle 'the hooligan problem'.(6) The game of football has in fact been subject to state regulation from its some of its earliest incarnations. Football in one form or another has a long and chequered history; references to the kicking of a ball as a form of sport are to be found in Egyptian relics and religious paintings, in Grecian vases and even in the Bible.(7) Football has also always been a popular game existing in the Americas and China and Japan before the onset of the European 'missionaries' in the late nineteenth century. Whilst today football stems from the rules of the English Football Association,(8) originally the term football was used to distinguish between those games that utilised the foot and those that were played on horseback - there were within this term many gradations that now can be seen in terms of Association Football, Rugby Football, Australian Rules Football and Gaelic Football amongst others. Most games of football in their earliest form were memorable for their violence, either institutionalised or endemic. Murray notes that the football games of pre Columbian America were closely linked with religious celebrations - in the Aztec game of tlachtli the losers were ritually sacrificed! Much of football's early history is in fact one of condemnation and suppression by the state,(9) largely on the grounds that it was a game played by common people, that served no military purpose and was potentially destructive; Unlike archery, riding and fencing, it has no obvious military value, and while it may have kept its adherents fit, it was just as likely to maim them, for before the formalization of football, first into the Association game in 1863 and the codification of other kicking games in the next few decades, it was little more than a half tolerated mayhem(10). Sports such as tournaments had been periodically banned or frowned upon - whilst tournaments were at one level perceived as the embodiment of chivalry and honour, rather than acting as a form of training for the Knights they often degenerated into anarchic skirmishes. In 1236 for example a vacillating King John saw his pro-tournament ethos shattered when an encounter between his southern and northern knights turned into a bloody free for all that required the intervention of the papal legate. The first state intervention as regards football appears to have been that during the reign of Edward II in 1314 where following a series of football related injuries and deaths, the Lord Mayor of London 'issued a proclamation on the King's behalf forbidding rumpuses with large footballs in the public fields'(11). In 1337 with war with France imminent the King's call for all sports with the exception of archery to be banned was supported by the general public along with the chivalric classes as the war was seen as being more than merely the petty squabble of class interest but actually in the interests of the country as a whole. This attitude towards sports and especially football continued for well over the next 100 years; the King stopped 'idle games' in 1349 to encourage practice with bow and arrows or pellet and bolts, this was followed in 1369 with a further curb on civilian sports when a list of banned games was issued by the King to be implemented by his sherrifs. This perspective was shared by Richard II who implemented the 1388 hunting laws that also forbade 'importune games' (this applied to the labourer/working class and to football/handball derivatives with the threat of a years imprisonment as potential penalty) and was continued with vigour by Henry IV and Henry V: Henries IV and V regularly renewed Edward III's bans on popular sports, with new acts in 1401, 1409, 1410 and 1414, and they tried to apply the same disciplinary standards to the upper classes of society as to the lower orders.(12) However, whilst some decried the lack of military value that football had to offer others such as Boccalini had long advocated its use as a political safety valve. For example in 1530 'calcio' was said to have been played whilst the troops of Charles V laid seige to a city and this theme was returned to during the First World War when on Christmas Day troops laid down their weapons for a one day armistice to play football with the enemy in No Mans' Land (13). In the new society of the sixteenth century the playing of ball games became more socially acceptable although football was still seen by some such as James IV as being 'abominable enough and ...more common, worthless and undignified than any other kind of game'(14). This shift towards the more acceptable face of sport came to full fruition in the Victorian era with sport being seen as part of a Corinthian ideal that in some way might 'civilise' the participants. CLR James notes the role of Thomas Arnold the uncompromising champion of discipline and self reliance in embedding sport within the English public schools and the accompanying shift towards sport being seen as a more noble pursuit; The next step came with the realisation that football and other games were not merely useful as substitutes for undesirable activities but might be used to inculcate more positive virtues - loyalty and self sacrifice, unselfishness, co-operation and esprit de corps, a sense of honour, the capacity to be a "good loser" or to "take it" (15). The game of Association Football as we know it today can be said to derive from the formation of the Football Association in 1863. Whilst the game had been appropriated by the public schools as part of this civilising process, there was a resurgence of working class football in the industrial era that saw Saturdays established (at least in part) as a day devoted to leisure and looked forward to by working men: Within twenty years this free time was to be dominated for millions by football in the winter months, with the consequent further transformation of working-class social experience (16). This shift towards working class leisure began to be perceived by some as a matter of national concern as to the effect that such 'holidays' might have upon the economy. Nevertheless the game grew and football became the prime focus for many if not all working men. After the euphoria of the victory in World war II the social as well as economic backdrop of Britain found itself changing. Suddenly, from a position of being able to rest on its laurels safe in the knowledge that football would continue to be consumed in the same way as before, football was forced to reevaluate its position as: More and more people found themselves with more spare cash and more free time than their parents could ever have dreamt of. as society lurched into that first phase of material prosperity which shaped the face of modern Britain, football, like most other recreations, found itself confronting problems of adjustment on a scale and a pace it could scarcely comprehend (17) Essentially this manifested itself in the attempt to move into Europe, but the football authorities could scarcely have anticipated the problems it was to face in the more distant future. The dark days of English football followed the crowning glory of the 1966 World Cup win. Within 20 years football was seen as a social menace and in need of radical legislative surgery. FOOTNOTES: 1. Adam Brown (1994)'Football Fans and Civil Liberties' Journal of Sport and the Law Issue 3, 22. 2.The 1980's saw three highly significant football tragedies, the fire at Bradford City Football Club in May 1985 when 56 people lost their lives, the incident at the Heysel Stadium less than three weeks later involving Liverpool supporters where 38 Juventus fans were killed and the Hillsborough Stadium disaster in April 1989 where 95 Liverpool fans were crushed to death. A significant feature of all these three incidents were that they were televised live emphasising their very public nature. 3.For example the immediate aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster led to the an inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Taylor (The Taylor Report), a report that was generally warmly greeted (see Taylor I (1991) 'English Football in the 1990's: taking Hillsborough Seriously?' in Williams J & Wagg S British Football and Social Change) This was followed by a frantic (and many would argue ill advised in places) 'gut reaction' on the part of the Government with The Football Spectators Act 1989 receiving its Royal Assent before the year was out. Another instance of what Redhead calls 'panic law' (see Redhead S Unpopular Cultures (1995)) can be seen in the attempted implementation of football membership schemes in the same act. On the history of identity cards generally see 'Identity Cards' Thomas P Modern Law Review 1995 702. 4. Foster K (1993) 'Developments in sporting law' in Allison L .ed The changing politics of sport Manchester University Press. 5. See Football Offences Act 1991 and Football Spectators Act 1989. 6.In particular Lord Justice Taylor noted regarding the hooligan problem; 'There is no panacea which will achieve total safety and cure all problems of behaviour and crowd control. But I am satisfied that seating does more to achieve these objectives than any other single measure' (Cmnd.962, para 61) This call was greeted with mixed emotions; on the one hand it was seen as part of a civilising process that would rehabilitate the football fan back into society and on the other as an ominous force that would destroy 'terrace culture'; My grandfather stood here; my father stood here with me; why shouldn't I stand here with my son? (Cmnd.962, para 67) 7. Murray B (1994) Football. A History of the World Game Scolar Press 8. The FA was founded in 1863 principally to distinguish association football from the emerging sub species of rugby football that was favoured by other public schools at the time. 9. Football, pila pedalis, was banned, as Strutt put it "not, perhaps from any particular from any particular objection to the sport in itself, but because it co-operated, with other favourite amusements, to impede the progress of archery" Birley (1993) Sport and the making of Britain Manchester University Press, p36. 10.Murray B (1994) op cit 11.Birley's book provides an excellent and authoritative review of the growth and regulation of sport in Britain. Much of the history of regulation of football in this piece draws heavily upon his account. 12. Birley (1993), p41.The negative aspect of such sports was felt to be so strong that Henry VI was persuaded to ban the importation of tennis balls form France in 1453 and James II proclaimed in 1457 that 'the fut bal and the golf be utterly cryit downe and nochte usit'. Similarly Henry IV issued edicts to prevent the playing of idle sports at the expense of archery in 1474 and 1477 and James III (Scotland) prohibited football once more in 1471 in an attempt to stress the need for military skills to be utmost. 13. The story of this event later formed the basis for a song by Liverpool band The Farm 'Altogether Now' (Product Records, 1990) which was recently appropriated once more by Everton FC for their 1995 FA Cup song. 14. Birley, p52. 15. James CLR (1994) Beyond a Boundary Serpents Tail, p164. 16. Walvin (1994) The People's Game p57. 17. Walvin op cit p163 Next page: The Conservative Governments and Football Regulation

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