An In-Depth Anthropological Account: Football Hooliganism in Great Britan

Some of the most poorly understood groups in the world are football hooligans. And after having witnessed a football match paralyze a country I decided to go study hooliganism. And there is no better place to study football hooliganism than the home of football itself: England. 
I had spent the first two months of my summer observing the booze-driven celebrations of the English soccer fanatics. And slowly began to integrate myself into their culture as the tournament reached its climax. While the reaction seemed crazy to me already the locals told me to be careful because it was after a major loss that the effects were really felt. While at first, I was skeptical because it seemed to me that a loss would take the energy out of a drunk. That night not only were there fights breaking out throughout the city but even worse there was a lot of racially motivated violence especially after some disappointing performances from some of the dark-skinned players. You see just as a sport might create community it also creates division. It makes it very easy to just divide people into groups, us versus them. And this is so intense in sports that we can observe the effects of nationalism on a very short timescale.

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