Is Britain a breeding ground for thugs?
 

Well,Tokolosh asked me to start this thread so i thought i'd give it a go.If you ever came out of a pub on a friday night in any town in Britain,you'll probably be familiar with your vomit-splattered surroundings by now.

indeed i am. walking around any town or city on a saturday or sunday morning is like walking on a mixture of broken glass, puke, blood and chewing gum.

Isn't that any town that has a pub or a vicinity which serves alcohol?

I knew that it was a bad idea to even mention it...

Are you trying to get me lynched? :eek:

just anywhere.

My favourite will always be the chewing gum-art that you get on tube escalators.All those adverts ruined by chewing gum are fantastic yob-art.

in berlin everything is covered in grafiti.

Let's not forget the coastal areas of southern Europe, that get raided by holiday hooligans in the summertime.

Yes, we are. There are too many, and we've more or less given up on trying to do anything about them.

As a nation as a whole, we're not particularly civilised and we do seem to produce a lot of meatheads, but don't ask me why. Something to do with the class system, I expect.

Hello sonicl. Happy Nw Year, dude.

The yobbery is something to do with a prevailing culture of socialist don't-blame-the-criminal-blame-society-instead attitude that was adopted 30 odd years ago, I would suggest.

yeah that and booze.

I'm convinced that football plays a major role.

I can generally ignore the thugs. They don't really bother me too much. Once you've had a couple of run-ins, you know where to go, where to avoid, how to talk your way out of it, and when to run (paraphrasing Kenny Rogers there).

I will say, being back in the back-arse of parochial no-where coming from London (via Bristol), it's a lot worse in smaller towns in Britain. And, again, back in my cross-dressing days (don't ask) I got a lot of verbal abuse but a lot less threats because (strange logic ahead) I looked a bit too strange to actually get started on.

But it all stems from the fact that we effectively abolished the idea that people should feel personal responsibiliy for their actions.

As a foreigner and a merciless observer,i'd say the biggest problem is the whole attitude towards alcohol that you have in this country.Even though the laws have changed,you still have pub landlords looking down at people who simply want a drink and a good night out as if they are criminals.If you treat people as if they are untrustworthy,they will most certainly end up like that as a result.

We also abolished the ability of the police to do anything about thuggery. The police can't take any action, the courts just don't.

I think that football is merely another convenient focal point for yobs to create a throwback 'community' around their beliefs, with regular opportunities to meet up. The yobs are not just violent around football matches - they really are in town and city centremost nights. Somehow 'dealing' with football will not deal with the problem, because in the final analysis football will in no way the problem.

Exactly. We legitimised the yob's behaviour by not condemning it.

When I was a kid I was terrified of the police. These days kids just laugh at them.

Football violence isn't all that it's thought to be.I've rarely seen scenes of violence provoked by football in England.It does exist but it's not what people who live outside this country think it is.

I don't recall ever seeing "yobs" at cricket matches?
I might be wrong though.

Football violence in mainland Europe is much worse than in the UK. I went to Napoli v Inter a few years ago and it was much scarier than anything I've ever experienced in England.

Well,they introduced this zero-tolerance policy in central London.The only thing is that you can hardly see any cops at all so the pissing against a wall goes on undisturbed.

The pace of a cricket match isn't really one that encourages high feelings and rivalry. It's a much more "gentlemanly" game. But at the end of the day, football is an excuse for thuggery, not a cause.

Football violence in Italy is worse than in England,when it happens.

About ten years ago there was a slight influx during the cricket season (I think Yorkshire suffered a bit). Football is one of many things that attract the yobs, but it's not the cause. Indifference and cultural degradation is the cause.

what about the arrest rates and the fact that we now jail more people that ever before?

They say that the turks are the most fanatical. Feel free to visit a Fenerbahçe vs Galatasaray match, if you don't believe me.
You'll see fans walking around with bush knives and you'll hear gunshots ringing through the stadium.

But do we jail them for the right things? Are we jailing the right people? Are we managing to make them understand that they are wrong? By April 2005, Labour had created somthing like 350 new crimes. I have no idea how many it might be now.

that's true.

There's a lot of tension when English clubs play Turkish clubs. A couple of Leeds fans were killed some years ago.

If one thing ever bugged me about this country is the public transport and its price and service.I went to get a one way ticket this morning and the price has increased by £1(!!!!!).That is fucking outrageous,considering the shitty service that you get.

I think Mr L and Mr Priest and Mr 'Johnny foreigner' Marras are all correct, to an extent. I met a chap recently, only 16, who was getting excited about going to his first football ruckus. He wasn't a fan of the team concerned, and came from an entirely different area, but was going down with his uncle to join in with the fighting. I happen to know, in a casual, be-nice-to-them-because-they're-mental way a few thugs for the team concerned, and they are really not very nice people. I tried to warn said 16-yr-old chap about how I know some of them will start on thugs who seem to be fighting for 'their' team but are actually not from the area/ not 'real' fans. So I warned him of this. And the 16-yr-old started on me. Now, bear in mind that, anyone who's met me, I am not a terrible well-built or hardcore fighter, I managed to dismiss him quite quickly, with a combination of deflections and words. I was astonished that someone so feeble was actively excited about fighting with actual proper hard fuckers.

gladly shit like that dont happen in my country.. . (insert sarcasm here)

You have your Millwall fans(who are awful losers) and you have your Charlton fans(who are,mostly,friendly chaps).It's the spice of life,i suppose.

i say we start a vigilante/militia group and sort these roughians out.

Football might not be the direct cause, but it sure gives them a lame reason to go on the rampage.

Have you ever met any of the Brighton heavies? Thoroughly nice chaps, the ones I've met. They do that wonderful thing of arranging fights in such a way as to guarentee that only those interested in fighting will be involved. We were very kindly escorted out of a pub in Brighton where a fight was kicking off. A few large chaps came up to us and very politely said, "There's going to be a fight here. If you want to stick around for it, you're more than welcome, but if not, finish your beers and have a nice day." I quite admire that. Fighting, yes, but only for those who want to fight.

I really don't see football as the cause of thuggery in Britain.I don't have a visible example in reality,therefore i know it is not true.English(not British,mind) football yobs are mainly a mild concern overseas.