Their Hooligans Have Nothing On Our Hooligans
Here’s an article in Missouri that really irked me in the last week, for its opening line:
English soccer has nothing on American high school basketball when it comes to hooliganism.
Really? Nothing?
Dan O’Neill’s article is referring to a high school basketball game in New York with what O’Neill describes as a “virtual riot”, that ultimately spills out into the streets and subway stations necessitating officers on horseback, scooters and in riot gear.
What exactly does O’Neill think English soccer hooliganism is? Have I imagined real riots, with running battles against police and opposing supporters in the stands, terraces, streets and railway stations?
Perhaps I regularly imagined mounted policemen, riot shields, and police dogs.
Did I imagine running from hundreds of fans, unprotected by police escorts, looking for somewhere to hide? Did I imagine cowering in a crowds with women and children screaming around me as hundreds of English boots and fists flashed at our faces?
Was it virtual victims in pools of blood I rushed past to avoid marauding groups with stanley knives (box-cutters)?
I don’t want this to sound like a “My daddy is a better fighter than your daddy” thing, not least because my daddy is not an English soccer hooligan, but people have died at the hands of English soccer hooligans, and maybe it was meant to be ironic, but I find it crass to suggest English soccer has nothing on American high school basketball when it comes to hooliganism.
If you’re still interested, here’s a fact sheet on the subject by the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research at the University of Leicester
Or See Happier Stuff on Sport by Me:
• Meeting Diego Maradona in Ireland
• Ireland & USA: Little Differences #2 - Watching Soccer
• Irish Lose: O Dear, O-dear O-dear O-dear
• Wearing Green and Ignoring Ireland
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
I have a friend moving to the KC area and we were wondering if you know of any pubs that open early for football matches (particularly the English Premier League)? Please feel free to email me and let me know if you have any information that could be helpful.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Stephanie,
I’m not aware that any of the pubs are open early enough for the 3pm kick-off’s in England (9am KC time).
The Gaf has a strong package that allows it to show football matches - and it more than any other pub in the region makes an effort to show them. Other pubs may have the same package but you’d have to direct the staff and hope there is no clash with domestic sports.
Also note that The Gaf is closed (mostly) on Sundays so you wouldn’t see those games until reruns on Monday.
Eddie Delahunt’s Cafe & at 45th & State Line is pen on Saturdays at 9am and is more enthusiastic than anywhere in KC about showing soccer, particularly from England. The Cafe is closed on Sundays though.
You used to have two McBride’s Pubs that offerred the same as the The Gaf -but they’re both closed down now.