Not buying that. The kids are attracted to the edginess of being in the 'crew' of whatever a team's wannabe ultra fans calls themselves. Once there, sure, they might be coerced into daftness but just as likely want to try and ingratiate themselves into the even more edgy men's section and be treated as a man.
Kids are daft, we've all been there, make bad choices. Most find a way to grow up and leave stuff behind, a few don't until later. Hey ho.
As a kid I suppose it would be something you'd do to get in with the 'cool older kids'. It's peer pressure but of a different kind to the usual.
comment by Silver (U6112)
posted 7 minutes ago
Not buying that. The kids are attracted to the edginess of being in the 'crew' of whatever a team's wannabe ultra fans calls themselves. Once there, sure, they might be coerced into daftness but just as likely want to try and ingratiate themselves into the even more edgy men's section and be treated as a man.
Kids are daft, we've all been there, make bad choices. Most find a way to grow up and leave stuff behind, a few don't until later. Hey ho.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't know these lads at the time, but going off what his brother said, it was a case of the older blokes befriending them, getting them into the pubs, buying them beers etc. Can see where he is coming from to be fair. Its a very similar pattern to sexual grooming.
Seems pretty likely. Gangs of thugs are the sort of low lifes who would manipulate kids into joining them.
I think there must be an element of self validation the older lads look for by convincing youngsters they aren't total imbeciles and that they are actually cool and that it's a cool sub-culture. So there is a grooming element to some extent I suspect. Cause if they we being honest they'd tell kids/teenagers not to behave like them.
It took an altercation with hoard of Millwall fans in the Layer Road end at Colchester to persuade me (15 at the time) that football thuggery was not for me.
It's not just a thing with hooligans and sexual grooming, gangs will often recruit people young because they're impressionable.
When I was a teenager there were some kids who seemed to glamorise hooliganism. They were usually kids with tough upbringings who maybe felt wanted within a 'firm'. They also seemed to love the fashion the casuals wore, getting a Stone Island seemed to be the most important thing to them. I think when it came to actual violence most of them were too scared to get involved.
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 52 minutes ago
It's not just a thing with hooligans and sexual grooming, gangs will often recruit people young because they're impressionable.
When I was a teenager there were some kids who seemed to glamorise hooliganism. They were usually kids with tough upbringings who maybe felt wanted within a 'firm'. They also seemed to love the fashion the casuals wore, getting a Stone Island seemed to be the most important thing to them. I think when it came to actual violence most of them were too scared to get involved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeh, you see a lot of that on social media. Little wimpy kids in their stoney's bouncing about thinking they are 10 men.
I just really don't see the attraction in it. I have been in my fair share of scraps when I was a kid, but usually when it was my mates against another group of lads and there wasn't much choice. As a rule I am usually a peacekeeper rather than an instigator.
The fact that our brains aren’t developed until the mid 20s means that “legal adults” (those age 18+) are allowed to make adult decisions, without fully mature brains. Someone who is 18 may make riskier decisions than someone in their mid-20s in part due to lack of experience, but primarily due to an underdeveloped brain. All behaviors and experiences you endure until the age of 25 have potential to impact your developing brain.
https://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/02/18/at-what-age-is-the-brain-fully-developed/
Footy culture absolutely taps into that inate tribalism within us while at the same time being communal. Add-in that allegiance is almost hereditary and it feels like the perfect conditions for grooming as you say
Interesting article tbh
comment by newWAYNEorder nWo nDubz (U23264)
posted 5 minutes ago
The fact that our brains aren’t developed until the mid 20s means that “legal adults” (those age 18+) are allowed to make adult decisions, without fully mature brains. Someone who is 18 may make riskier decisions than someone in their mid-20s in part due to lack of experience, but primarily due to an underdeveloped brain. All behaviors and experiences you endure until the age of 25 have potential to impact your developing brain.
https://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/02/18/at-what-age-is-the-brain-fully-developed/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Funnily enough I did far more stupid things in my 20s than I ever did in my teens.
Whilst I was much more immature in my teens there was still an element in me that I should listen to the adults in my family whereas in my 20s I'd gained the confidence, but still not fully shaken off that immaturity, that meant that I probably had the attitude "I'm an adult now. No one tells me what to do."
It took me settling down, buying a house etc, in my late 20s for me to become the fully rounded adult that you now know and love.
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 1 hour, 11 minutes ago
It's not just a thing with hooligans and sexual grooming, gangs will often recruit people young because they're impressionable.
When I was a teenager there were some kids who seemed to glamorise hooliganism. They were usually kids with tough upbringings who maybe felt wanted within a 'firm'. They also seemed to love the fashion the casuals wore, getting a Stone Island seemed to be the most important thing to them. I think when it came to actual violence most of them were too scared to get involved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FFS, I was about to bring you down there mis-reading you were MU52!
For the record Stone Island were only founded in 1982 so the dates wouldn't have worked for that auld fckr.
MU52 was probably out wearing a zoot suit when he was a whippersnapper.
Surely if half these so called hooligans were serious they could do what the Russia s & poles do, organise to meet up in a field away from prying eyes and have it out
But I guess they’d rather shout “come on” from behind a police cordon while bouncing up and down, or wave their arms at a train full of rival fans as it’s leaving the station
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 12 minutes ago
MU52 was probably out wearing a zoot suit when he was a whippersnapper.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I posted s long time ago I was a coward do never got involved. I preferred reading the pink in the pub sfter with Mick and Ray and often some others.
Away matches we would leg it to the coach, train or car.
I never eanted to worden my looks they were bad enough already.
The lasting legacy of Green Street.
I got talking to a ski rep many years ago on resort, he was an ex-Chelsea headhunter and basically left London because he found he couldn't leave that life behind him. They were his friends, his hobby, his neighbours - he just had to leave it and move abroad.
Interestingly, what made him get out was people bringing knives to the meets. Talking to him, he clearly thought there was absolutely nothing wrong with kicking the sh*t out of someone. I'd go so far as to say he looked like he really missed the fights. Just didn't agree with knives.
One of the lads I was with had run around with some hooligans as a teenager before realising it wasn't for him; but he was sat hanging off every word this guy was saying. That lifestyle was clearly really attractive to him. The rest of us thought it sounded mad, he thought it was rock and roll.
Another lad I know used to get into a lot of fights when he was a teenager. A hell of a lot. He's deeply ashamed of the person he used to be now and the harm he did others.
I guess my point is that it's just within some people. That thrill of the fight, some people never want it, some grow out of it but for some it never goes away. You just learn to control it, if you're lucky anyway.
Green Street lol, the English actor in that who somehow sounds American when he’s playing a cockney is hilarious. The Firm with Oldman is a fantastic hooligan movie.
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 4 minutes ago
Green Street lol, the English actor in that who somehow sounds American when he’s playing a cockney is hilarious. The Firm with Oldman is a fantastic hooligan movie.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apart from Jim McDonald’s atrocious cockney accent
At least he has an excuse not being English.
comment by Tony Le Mesmer (U1449)
posted 40 minutes ago
Surely if half these so called hooligans were serious they could do what the Russia s & poles do, organise to meet up in a field away from prying eyes and have it out
But I guess they’d rather shout “come on” from behind a police cordon while bouncing up and down, or wave their arms at a train full of rival fans as it’s leaving the station
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That does happen to an extent but not in the fields.
Great thread, Elvis.
The worst violence I've encountered at football was at Zenit St Petersburg matches in the late 90s. This was combined with heavy handed riot police who enjoyed fighting as much as the hooligans, and the kind of complacent attitude to crowd safety that we had in the UK pre-Hillsborough.
I once got chatting to a Zenit ultra at a party, and he got all misty eyed as he talked about his reverence for the original English hooligans of the 70s and 80s. He thought it would be a point of connection, but we were all middle class modern languages students and that wasn't really our world.
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 23 minutes ago
Great thread, Elvis.
The worst violence I've encountered at football was at Zenit St Petersburg matches in the late 90s. This was combined with heavy handed riot police who enjoyed fighting as much as the hooligans, and the kind of complacent attitude to crowd safety that we had in the UK pre-Hillsborough.
I once got chatting to a Zenit ultra at a party, and he got all misty eyed as he talked about his reverence for the original English hooligans of the 70s and 80s. He thought it would be a point of connection, but we were all middle class modern languages students and that wasn't really our world.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Zenit fan should just have questioned Osimhen's professionalism and then we'd see Red Russian's dormant violent side being awakened.
Seen a fair deal of football aggro back in the day, (70s and 80s) Not much at Old Trafford as it hardly ever happened, You can name the games on one hand that it kicked off at OT over that period which have become folklore. Attending away games was different.... it happened nearly everywhere United went in them days. Uniteds hooligan fearsome reputation proceeded the Red Army so United away days were always a red rag to the firms. But you felt safe in numbers as Uniteds away support was so vast (before all ticket games) it was like a scene from Ben Hurr descending from over the horizon. Of course if you were looking for real trouble you would know how and where to find it anway, It was often the Dibble that looked forward to United coming to their town and would enjoy the aggro they gave and got as much as the nutcases. Had a few run ins with the Police. Got attacked a couple times by them baztards.
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Football, hooligans and grooming
Page 1 of 2
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
Not buying that. The kids are attracted to the edginess of being in the 'crew' of whatever a team's wannabe ultra fans calls themselves. Once there, sure, they might be coerced into daftness but just as likely want to try and ingratiate themselves into the even more edgy men's section and be treated as a man.
Kids are daft, we've all been there, make bad choices. Most find a way to grow up and leave stuff behind, a few don't until later. Hey ho.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
As a kid I suppose it would be something you'd do to get in with the 'cool older kids'. It's peer pressure but of a different kind to the usual.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
comment by Silver (U6112)
posted 7 minutes ago
Not buying that. The kids are attracted to the edginess of being in the 'crew' of whatever a team's wannabe ultra fans calls themselves. Once there, sure, they might be coerced into daftness but just as likely want to try and ingratiate themselves into the even more edgy men's section and be treated as a man.
Kids are daft, we've all been there, make bad choices. Most find a way to grow up and leave stuff behind, a few don't until later. Hey ho.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't know these lads at the time, but going off what his brother said, it was a case of the older blokes befriending them, getting them into the pubs, buying them beers etc. Can see where he is coming from to be fair. Its a very similar pattern to sexual grooming.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
Seems pretty likely. Gangs of thugs are the sort of low lifes who would manipulate kids into joining them.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
I think there must be an element of self validation the older lads look for by convincing youngsters they aren't total imbeciles and that they are actually cool and that it's a cool sub-culture. So there is a grooming element to some extent I suspect. Cause if they we being honest they'd tell kids/teenagers not to behave like them.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
It took an altercation with hoard of Millwall fans in the Layer Road end at Colchester to persuade me (15 at the time) that football thuggery was not for me.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
It's not just a thing with hooligans and sexual grooming, gangs will often recruit people young because they're impressionable.
When I was a teenager there were some kids who seemed to glamorise hooliganism. They were usually kids with tough upbringings who maybe felt wanted within a 'firm'. They also seemed to love the fashion the casuals wore, getting a Stone Island seemed to be the most important thing to them. I think when it came to actual violence most of them were too scared to get involved.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 52 minutes ago
It's not just a thing with hooligans and sexual grooming, gangs will often recruit people young because they're impressionable.
When I was a teenager there were some kids who seemed to glamorise hooliganism. They were usually kids with tough upbringings who maybe felt wanted within a 'firm'. They also seemed to love the fashion the casuals wore, getting a Stone Island seemed to be the most important thing to them. I think when it came to actual violence most of them were too scared to get involved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeh, you see a lot of that on social media. Little wimpy kids in their stoney's bouncing about thinking they are 10 men.
I just really don't see the attraction in it. I have been in my fair share of scraps when I was a kid, but usually when it was my mates against another group of lads and there wasn't much choice. As a rule I am usually a peacekeeper rather than an instigator.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
The fact that our brains aren’t developed until the mid 20s means that “legal adults” (those age 18+) are allowed to make adult decisions, without fully mature brains. Someone who is 18 may make riskier decisions than someone in their mid-20s in part due to lack of experience, but primarily due to an underdeveloped brain. All behaviors and experiences you endure until the age of 25 have potential to impact your developing brain.
https://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/02/18/at-what-age-is-the-brain-fully-developed/
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
Footy culture absolutely taps into that inate tribalism within us while at the same time being communal. Add-in that allegiance is almost hereditary and it feels like the perfect conditions for grooming as you say
Interesting article tbh
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
comment by newWAYNEorder nWo nDubz (U23264)
posted 5 minutes ago
The fact that our brains aren’t developed until the mid 20s means that “legal adults” (those age 18+) are allowed to make adult decisions, without fully mature brains. Someone who is 18 may make riskier decisions than someone in their mid-20s in part due to lack of experience, but primarily due to an underdeveloped brain. All behaviors and experiences you endure until the age of 25 have potential to impact your developing brain.
https://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/02/18/at-what-age-is-the-brain-fully-developed/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Funnily enough I did far more stupid things in my 20s than I ever did in my teens.
Whilst I was much more immature in my teens there was still an element in me that I should listen to the adults in my family whereas in my 20s I'd gained the confidence, but still not fully shaken off that immaturity, that meant that I probably had the attitude "I'm an adult now. No one tells me what to do."
It took me settling down, buying a house etc, in my late 20s for me to become the fully rounded adult that you now know and love.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 1 hour, 11 minutes ago
It's not just a thing with hooligans and sexual grooming, gangs will often recruit people young because they're impressionable.
When I was a teenager there were some kids who seemed to glamorise hooliganism. They were usually kids with tough upbringings who maybe felt wanted within a 'firm'. They also seemed to love the fashion the casuals wore, getting a Stone Island seemed to be the most important thing to them. I think when it came to actual violence most of them were too scared to get involved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FFS, I was about to bring you down there mis-reading you were MU52!
For the record Stone Island were only founded in 1982 so the dates wouldn't have worked for that auld fckr.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
MU52 was probably out wearing a zoot suit when he was a whippersnapper.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
Surely if half these so called hooligans were serious they could do what the Russia s & poles do, organise to meet up in a field away from prying eyes and have it out
But I guess they’d rather shout “come on” from behind a police cordon while bouncing up and down, or wave their arms at a train full of rival fans as it’s leaving the station
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 12 minutes ago
MU52 was probably out wearing a zoot suit when he was a whippersnapper.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I posted s long time ago I was a coward do never got involved. I preferred reading the pink in the pub sfter with Mick and Ray and often some others.
Away matches we would leg it to the coach, train or car.
I never eanted to worden my looks they were bad enough already.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
The lasting legacy of Green Street.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
I got talking to a ski rep many years ago on resort, he was an ex-Chelsea headhunter and basically left London because he found he couldn't leave that life behind him. They were his friends, his hobby, his neighbours - he just had to leave it and move abroad.
Interestingly, what made him get out was people bringing knives to the meets. Talking to him, he clearly thought there was absolutely nothing wrong with kicking the sh*t out of someone. I'd go so far as to say he looked like he really missed the fights. Just didn't agree with knives.
One of the lads I was with had run around with some hooligans as a teenager before realising it wasn't for him; but he was sat hanging off every word this guy was saying. That lifestyle was clearly really attractive to him. The rest of us thought it sounded mad, he thought it was rock and roll.
Another lad I know used to get into a lot of fights when he was a teenager. A hell of a lot. He's deeply ashamed of the person he used to be now and the harm he did others.
I guess my point is that it's just within some people. That thrill of the fight, some people never want it, some grow out of it but for some it never goes away. You just learn to control it, if you're lucky anyway.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
Green Street lol, the English actor in that who somehow sounds American when he’s playing a cockney is hilarious. The Firm with Oldman is a fantastic hooligan movie.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 4 minutes ago
Green Street lol, the English actor in that who somehow sounds American when he’s playing a cockney is hilarious. The Firm with Oldman is a fantastic hooligan movie.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apart from Jim McDonald’s atrocious cockney accent
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
At least he has an excuse not being English.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
comment by Tony Le Mesmer (U1449)
posted 40 minutes ago
Surely if half these so called hooligans were serious they could do what the Russia s & poles do, organise to meet up in a field away from prying eyes and have it out
But I guess they’d rather shout “come on” from behind a police cordon while bouncing up and down, or wave their arms at a train full of rival fans as it’s leaving the station
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That does happen to an extent but not in the fields.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
Great thread, Elvis.
The worst violence I've encountered at football was at Zenit St Petersburg matches in the late 90s. This was combined with heavy handed riot police who enjoyed fighting as much as the hooligans, and the kind of complacent attitude to crowd safety that we had in the UK pre-Hillsborough.
I once got chatting to a Zenit ultra at a party, and he got all misty eyed as he talked about his reverence for the original English hooligans of the 70s and 80s. He thought it would be a point of connection, but we were all middle class modern languages students and that wasn't really our world.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 23 minutes ago
Great thread, Elvis.
The worst violence I've encountered at football was at Zenit St Petersburg matches in the late 90s. This was combined with heavy handed riot police who enjoyed fighting as much as the hooligans, and the kind of complacent attitude to crowd safety that we had in the UK pre-Hillsborough.
I once got chatting to a Zenit ultra at a party, and he got all misty eyed as he talked about his reverence for the original English hooligans of the 70s and 80s. He thought it would be a point of connection, but we were all middle class modern languages students and that wasn't really our world.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
The Zenit fan should just have questioned Osimhen's professionalism and then we'd see Red Russian's dormant violent side being awakened.
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
Seen a fair deal of football aggro back in the day, (70s and 80s) Not much at Old Trafford as it hardly ever happened, You can name the games on one hand that it kicked off at OT over that period which have become folklore. Attending away games was different.... it happened nearly everywhere United went in them days. Uniteds hooligan fearsome reputation proceeded the Red Army so United away days were always a red rag to the firms. But you felt safe in numbers as Uniteds away support was so vast (before all ticket games) it was like a scene from Ben Hurr descending from over the horizon. Of course if you were looking for real trouble you would know how and where to find it anway, It was often the Dibble that looked forward to United coming to their town and would enjoy the aggro they gave and got as much as the nutcases. Had a few run ins with the Police. Got attacked a couple times by them baztards.
Page 1 of 2