Rise in violence at Southampton FC matches (From Daily Echo)

Rise in violence at Southampton FC matches

11:47am Monday 17th May 2010 in

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While on the pitch Saints have had two of the most turbulent seasons in their history, off the pitch the team hailed as a family-friendly club have been involved in some of the most memorable games – but not for the right reasons.

Five times in the past 18 months big matches at St Mary’s have been marred by disgraceful scenes of violence not previously associated with the south coast club.

Police and football chiefs have become so worried by the growing situation – which they say is tarnishing the reputation of Southampton FC – that crowd trouble before and after games in the city has been raised at a national level.

Controlling the crowds

At the centre of this new wave of hooliganism is a “risk” group of about 60 so-called Southampton fans hell-bent on causing violence and disorder.

The Daily Echo can today reveal how alarmingly, most of them are schoolboys aged between 14 and 16 who appear to pride themselves on generating thuggery. They are a group more interested in what violence they can create by involving others, than what they can actually achieve themselves, say police.

One of the first and most significant matches where officers found themselves facing mass disorder was Saints’ defeat to Charlton Athletic last April, when the club was facing the threat of relegation having already been plunged into administration and set to receive a ten point deduction.

Having lost in the final few minutes, fans spilled out of the ground on to the concourse of the stadium where a swelling crowd of some 500 Saints fans gathered to goad opposition supporters.

Video footage – which can be seen online at dailyecho.co.uk – shows how police armed with batons and stewards quickly gathered to deal with the rising problem and keep the two sets of fans segregated.

Superintendent Rick Burrows, football commander in charge of overseeing the policing of Saints games, said: “What cannot be heard on that video is the clink of coins, pebbles and stones being hurled by Saints fans at Charlton fans who were being held against the wall of the stadium.”

Supt Burrows, who has spent 25 years overseeing the policing of football, describes the “pavement dancing” of scores of Saints fans – described by academics as “ritualised aggression” – who can be seen goading away fans and police, waving their arms in the air and shouting and swearing.

While the situation is brought under control, police can be seen ushering elderly Saints fans caught up in the melee away from the trouble.

Similar scenes of mass disorder have been repeated at Saints home games against Yeovil Town, Luton Town, Pompey, and most recently Swindon Town, where injuries were sustained, multiple arrests were made and many Saints fans brought before the courts to face charges.

Thugs set upon rival football fans in Southampton

But what is behind the growing trend of football disorder in Southampton and what is being done about it?

Next month Southampton police will unveil their new weapon in driving out the problem – in the form of the first ever football banning officer who will be based in the city.

Funded nationally, the new officer will work alongside Supt Burrows and the city’s football spotters and intelligence unit looking specifically at Southampton’s “risk” group.

Football banning orders have already shown their value – with 109 people in Hampshire having been slapped with the order that stops them attending any ground or match, in some cases for between three and five years.

Supt Burrows said: “It is one of our greatest tools to get this tiny minority, who are ruining it for the rest, away from the football scene.

“It’s incumbent on not just us, but the club and even the media to tackle these people and deal with them.

“I don’t want to make it sound like Southampton is a dangerous place for football to take place or for fans to visit – it certainly isn’t. There is no major problem, more a problem involving a tiny number of people that is rising, and we will do all that we can to tackle it.

“We have a very good relationship with the club and its stewards and work really well together and compliment each other to achieve the same goal. The club’s safety officer has been extremely supportive of our efforts to deal with this small minority.”

Supt Burrows believes problems of low-level hooliganism stem back some 18 months.

“During the last season and a half we have seen a steady increase in the number of cases of disorder, with more people going through the courts and more people receiving banning orders.

“Southampton is known as a family friendly club nationally, with a very good reputation with a history of little of no disorder, but that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny at the moment.

“There is a small number of what we term “risk group” who are spoiling the reputation of the club. They have over the past few months sought confrontation, often with individual fans or groups rather than large groups. They are bringing the reputation of Southampton down.

“You find that older fans then respond and get drawn back in to football related violence. The youth risk are more about what they can cause or generate, than what they can actually do themselves.”

So is it significant that as Saints found themselves sliding from the Premiership through the Championship to League One, the incidents of violence increased?

Supt Burrows said: “We saw a change of fan base, as any club does when it comes out of the Premiership. You don’t have that corporate environment that you get with clubs with big money. It’s just a personal opinion, but as clubs go in to a lower division the money disappears and the fan base alters. That then can, given the right circumstances, develop a risk group.

“There is no agreed definition of what a football hooligan is, but essentially I believe it’s what it says on the tin. They are interested in football, but whether at home or away they also seek to get involved in trouble.”

Supt Burrows draws on his vast experience combined with numerous academic studies and research papers into football crowds and hooligan trouble to explain his theory of how football disorder breaks out.

He points to tiers of groups, with a secondary group who will surround the core troublemakers and will join in with disorder if it happens.

The third group can be drawn in to violent scenes, but wouldn’t normally, while the fourth is the remaining vast majority of fans who will stand back and watch.

“There’s often no sense of right, that even though they are breaking the law, there is also something about loss of identity in a crowd. Hooliganism tends to go in cycles and it can flare up when something big happens such as the run up to the World Cup or the build up to a local derby game.

“At the centre of it you find people who are predominantly working class, who have experienced violence in the home or on the street as not only normal but it helps them bond as a group and some feel it gives them status.

“The incidents of hooliganism tend to be when they present themselves, rather than being organised well. I think a lot of it is ‘hold me back’ bravado and the pavement dancing we saw at Charlton, but it doesn’t take much to step over the line and that’s where we have to identify the catalysts and stop it escalating.

“I can sense it when disorder is about to happen, you can hear the tone of both sets of groups rise, you can feel it on the back of your neck. It takes something extra to spark it off and once it starts it can be very difficult to stop. The trick as a commander it ensuring you have the right people with the right skills to handle it.”