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2.1 Medieval origins:
The first time football is mentioned is in the early beginning of the 13th century in England. From the beginning on, it has always been associated with violence. The original "folk" form of the game has been played most on Holy Days, involved only unstructured battles between the youth of neighbouring towns and villages. The reason for playing this game was very often to set land disputes and "manly" aggression.
In other European countries, such as in Germany and in Italy, some kind of parallels existed, but the roots of the modern game, as we know it now is to be found in these ancient English traditions.
These rituals, which were often accompanied by a lot of alcohol, often lead to serious injuries and sometimes even to death.
While the sporadic outbursts of violence in football nowadays raises general hysterical voices, our ancestors had no problem with this far bloodier origin of the modern game.
But even though, in the 14th century the first voices to control the game were rising. This was not because the people had a moral problem with the violence after the game, the reason was that the ordinary citizens went away from the market towns on match days and that was bad for business. When the game spread to London, orders forbidding the sport were swift. The Mayor of London was the first one who made a proclamation against football in 1314. Anyone who played football had to be arrested because he was of the opinion that this kind of violence resulting from the game was not good for the city.
The effect of this proclamation was limited, and despite a lot of arrests, the game continued. Fifteen more prohibitions were made until 1660 everywhere in England and Scotland, but they were all ineffective.
Throughout the 17th century, it was common that several hundred-football players were causing mayhem in the towns.
The Changing of the game itself from an unregulated battle on the field to the modern sport with certain rules came largely as a result of urbanisation and industrialisation which was forcing the game from the traditional battlefield which was very big, into smaller and smaller arenas.
Soon, the disorder of the game that had no rules at all aroused a harsh judgment. In 1829, a Frenchman who saw a football match in England asked: "If this is what they call football, what do they call fighting?"
Pupils made the early rules of the game. This sounds a little bit strange, but the situation was like that: the game was played in all school and it was very brutal. A lot of headmasters wanted to ban the game because the older boys showed a very rude behaviour among the younger ones. This was not very useful, until Dr. Thomas Arnold, a headmaster legitimised the game and encouraged the pupils to formalize a set of rules to govern it. The real violence on the football field was ritualised by regulation.
The new "regulated" game was calming down the rest of society and in this form; football was exported to the continent.
2.2 Export of the new game:
In France, Germany, and Italy mainly the higher class adopted the game because they liked the sporting values of the so-called "British gentleman". But by the early 1900s, the number of aristocratic players in France decreased, and the middle class for whom it was the symbol of freedom mainly played the game.
To the North, the Scandinavians also modelled their behaviour on the British one by adopting this new game. In Denmark, for example, large but well-mannered crowds often including royalty attended football matches in the early 1900´s. It was not allowed to make bets, but there was also no police watching the games.
In Sweden, spectators were largely segregated into upper- and working classes. The press was writing positively about the behaviour of the fans as long as it added atmosphere to the game. Combined with drinking, these "organized expressions of feeling" gave some cause for concern. The cause of rude behaviour was because of incidents on the field itself, such as fights between players, which heated up the public.
At the turn of the century English style football clubs were opening up all over Europe, where the founding members were engineers, technicians, traders, doctors or university students. The inter-war period saw a rise in nationalist feelings and the public got more and more interested in the game. In these 20 years, football teams made their own style, technique and strong national allegiances ready to challenge the British.
The acts of violence in this time were not caused by organized groups, it was more likely caused by overcrowding in the stadiums, so violent disturbances in the terraces were not uncommon and they were normally seen as understandable outburst of collective feeling.
In 1909 a riot broke out which included 6000 spectators and led to injuries of fifty-four policemen, serious damage to the grounds and the destruction of every street lamp in the city.
The disturbances were mostly against the players, but fighting between fans was very uncommon.
If violence went onto the field, it was the problem of the Football Association, if it spilled onto the streets, it became the case of the police, but if it happened on the stands, it normally went unreported.
2.3 The time between the wars:
No period in the English football history has been completely free of incident, but in the years between the first and the Second World War, the violent acts decreased. While only a few battles on the street were reported, the most incidents were verbal and the number of women as spectators increased slightly.
2.4 The new hooligans:
In the 1960, the match attendance on the field declined because of the invention of television. This not only allowed fans to watch games at home, it also published fan violence.
The 60s also brought a colourful change in fan support: The fans became more organized with chants and slogans and became more mobile. The trains were also vandalized very often. FC Liverpool and FC Everton supporters held the record for the worst cases of train wrecking in the early 60s. Some groups of fans identified and named themselves separately from the teams, and used match days as venues for confrontations with rival groups.
The other thing was the rise of youth protest movements such as the rockers or skinheads - the term Hooligan was often used for this kind of persons. This term and the TV images of undisciplined fans was arising a moral panic in society, which was supported by the press.
Incidents of football violence doubled in the first five years of the 1960s compared to the previous 25 years and football hooliganism was called "the British disease".
To point out how the situation of violence in Britain was, I show some Historical examples:
1314: Edward II bans football.
1349, 1388, 1410: Football was banned from London because of complaints from merchants.
1555: Football banned in Liverpool due to mayhem.
1581: One man killed by two others during a football match.
1740: Football match in Kettering turns into a food riot .
1843: 200 soldiers and 50 policemen were needed to patrol a match between Preston v FC Sunderland.
1881: At a station two railway officials were knocked unconscious by a group travelling to a game.
1893: During a match spectators invaded the field and fought with the players.
1896: While returning from a football match, three young men attacked and murdered a police sergeant.
1946-1960: An average of 13 incidents of violent behaviour by spectators per season reported to the Football Association.
1961-1968: An average of 25 such incidents per season reported.
But the situation was not only like that in Britain, also in other European countries violence occurred:
1908 Hungary: After a Manchester United vs. a Hungarian team the Manchester players were attacked by Hungarian fans as they left the grounds.
1933 France: Gendarmes were needed to calm down a disturbance in the crowd during a match between Nice and the Wolverhampton Wanderers.
1931 Germany: An invasion by the Hertha BSC Berlin-fans resulted in injury to a Greuther Fuerth player.
1946 Sweden: Hundreds of Swedish supporters damaged a bus of the opponent players.
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