Why do you think a rugby crowd is so different from a football crowd? Even if it isn’t that different in demographics and profile, the spectator experience certainly is.
Basically, football fans are not trusted not to monster each other. So we’re all on CCTV in and around the ground, and the whole area around the ground is treated as a potential problem waiting to happen. Riot police and vans are everywhere. Pubs often have ‘no football colours’ statements on their doors, but none have ‘no rugby colours’. We all think we know why.
A friend was telling me of how 81,000 England and Australian fans co-existed peacefully at Twickenham in November, even though many were “clearly seven sheets to the wind”.
So, the contrast between the two sports is really remarkable. Football fans are treated like dangerous wild beasts, rugby crowds are treated like grown-ups. Although there is very little trouble at football games these days, it feels as though this is simply because of how heavily it is policed. If football supporters could be trusted to behave decently, segregation would not exist, but at no game of any size would fans not be kept apart. We are never trusted to stand shoulder to shoulder until you get down to the fifth and sixth tiers. In a supposedly civilised land, that’s simply incredible.
Of course, in football, there is a long history of violence between fans. It’s often said that rugby union is a middle-class sport and that this explains why people behave better, but I don’t believe this is true, not least because we all know a few middle-class people who are absolute rotters and behave terribly. It’s also an insult to the vast majority of decent working-class football fans who wouldn’t dream of putting a brick in someone’s face. And also, while there are some very middle-class people at the rugby – what I would call the red trouser brigade – mostly it isn’t that sort, it’s just regular people. The peaceful posho element is very overstated, as is the violent working class. I don’t believe we’re all that different.
It’s sometimes said that the aggressive on-pitch mano-a-mano nature of rugby somehow dissolves the urge for violence or aggression in the spectators. This seems a bit far-fetched as football is physical, athletic and can be aggressive too.
Others have speculated that footballers set a bad example by swearing at refs and generally throwing strops and trying to cheat all the time. That this facilitates and normalises similar behaviour amongst some fans, as players and crowd get caught into a self-feeding emotional loop. That, I feel, is getting closer to one of the core issues. Because it must largely be down to history and expectation. The totally different crowd experiences must be as a result of copying behavioural expectations and standards.
Maybe football is trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of negativity and aggression, in the same way rugby is trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of positivism and respect. It is not explainable in any other way as to why we’ve ended up with two popular sports being so divergent. I look forward to the day being in a football crowd is as enjoyable as being in a rugby crowd, and when going to and from a big game doesn’t involve skirting around metal barriers and being herded by riot police. But I’ll be honest with you, I’m not holding my breath
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