Football Fight Club – Channel 4

What were they thinking of?

I have had dozens of e-mails condeming the nature of this TV programme.

The programme seemed to only show the ‘blood and thunder’ of football violence (hooliganism) during the past three decades, in particular the 70s and 80s.

What about the negative implications of this disorder; those that were injured, lives affected and the trauma evoked?

If you took away the dialogue and added rock music, the programmes appeared like a promo video for potential or current hooligans with the message, ‘if you think you’re hard now, you should see what we did back then’.

Unfortunate that such a video should be shown just after the problems at Cardiff, 2 days before riots at Millwall and a few weeks away from the World Cup 2002 in Japan and Korea.

I understand that in a few weeks time Panorama are doing a feature on the same subject. Well I think and I hope that they will think before they ACT.

Comment:

Channel 4 documentary about the epidemic of hooliganism that plagued football in
the 70s was nothing but a shameful, indefensible glorification of violence. …
Welcome to the Top Ten Rumbles

Martin Kelner
Monday April 29, 2002

For the full story go to:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,4284,706740,00.html