I've just been watching the European Cup (Soccer) and a match in Italy between AC Milan and Inter (also a Milan team) has been abandoned due to crowd trouble. Tomorrow night Liverpool travel to Turin to play Juventus. I don't know how many Americans are aware of this, but in 1985 36 people were killed at the final of the same tournament when rampant Liverpool "fans" caused a wall to collapse at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels. It was generally considered to be football's darkest hour and the two teams have not played each other since. Until last week when they played in Liverpool. The evening passed peacefully, but a minority of Juve "fans" snubbed the tribute to the deceased and booed throughout the minutes silence. Most people connected with the game are expecting violence at tomorrow night's match.

All this got me thinking about violence at sporting events in general. Even as a fan of a small team over here (Peterborough United) I have experienced problems, but, it's not specific to football or the UK

However, I cannot recall ever hearing of trouble at a sporting event in the US. Does it go on? Is it simply not reported over here? Are there enough fucked up things going on elsewhere that people don't feel the need to vent their anger and frustrations at the local stadium?

Just wondering.

soccer is not a sport. at least in this country it is not.

more orange slices please!

Very good Mr Malling, not to mention unpredictable.

waltermalling wrote:soccer is not a sport.

Tell that to the 36 victims at Heysel, funny boy.

hip priest,

can you quote me the statistic's on how many soccer/football fans die from being crushed at every game? I heard it was astronomical.

Why don't you ask Steve?

hey, people of heysal, soccer is not a sport in america. nobody really cares about it here. it's about 9th on the tier of sports that matter in this country. sorry people died there though.

tell the story about the soccer dude that celebrated his goal by running up and jumping on the fence surrounding the playing field. only to have his wedding ring catch on to the fence and then rip his finger completely off.

or, the story about the soccer guy that claims he was kicked in the shins and rolled around on the ground in what appeared to be life ending anguish. but then, he didn't get the call, hopped to his feet and continued t run for the next 80 minutes straight.

hip priest wrote:
However, I cannot recall ever hearing of trouble at a sporting event in the US. Does it go on? Is it simply not reported over here? Are there enough fucked up things going on elsewhere that people don't feel the need to vent their anger and frustrations at the local stadium?

Just wondering.

Anyone else?

hip priest wrote:
However, I cannot recall ever hearing of trouble at a sporting event in the US. Does it go on? Is it simply not reported over here? Are there enough fucked up things going on elsewhere that people don't feel the need to vent their anger and frustrations at the local stadium?

Did you hear about this over there?http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1927380

It was pretty ugly, but also hugely entertaining to watch on TV. And nobody got hurt too bad.
I think the reason there is nothing quite equal to the hooliganism you see in soccer is that there is no sport in the US that provokes the same kind of allegiance. In the US, baseball, basketball, and football are all major sports. In the past 30 years, I think there were different times where each sport could claim to be the most popular spectator sport in the country. There are certainly people who are fanatical about their teams here, but my impression of soccer is that there's more to it than just rooting for a team -- people of certain backgrounds (rich, working class) align themselves with certain teams. Maybe I'm wrong?
And while there are certainly lots of drunks at US sporting events, and many of them are angry, I don't think they reach the critical mass they'd need to get to the full-scale soccer riot level.
People here are very angry, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Anger and frustration are plentiful. But we have guns. Fistfights don't really work as an outlet for anger when people are so quick to shoot each other.

Our sporting violence is not antagonistic so much as celebratory. I've lived near Michigan State University most of my life, and I've witnessed a lot of this - in fact, just a week or two ago, our men's basketball team reached the semifinals of the national tournament, and there were riots in the streets of East Lansing. But they weren't rioting against anything or anyone, just celebrating by setting fires and stuff. That's most of our sporting violence. I've heard other college campuses have the same type of thing happen.

waltermalling wrote:soccer is not a sport. at least in this country it is not.

BIG can of worms.