Players and coaches in football clubs are non-permanent entities; fans on the other hand swear life-long loyalty to the club they support, their allegiance often spanning generations. As a result, sections of supporters often decide to take matters in their own hands when activities on the pitch are not to their liking. No match can be decided in this way, but this is a futile plea to make to irate football mobs. Clubs have football firms in England, Ultra groups in East Europe, and barra bravas in South America to fight their club’s cause in stands and outside stadiums. Clashes between rival groups have claimed many lives throughout history, and brought an ugly reputation to the beautiful game. It is only a game after all, but the scale of the blood lost over it is proof to the contrary. Every once in a while, shocking images from stadiums in some part of the world leave the whole football fraternity shaken and questioning the rationality of their chosen profession. These are some of the clubs with the most notorious reputations in football hooliganism and for building an air of hostility in their home stadiums.
10. Barcelona
10. Barcelona
Figo didn’t receive a hero’s welcome back at Camp Nou
The ultra fan club at Barcelona is known as the ‘Boixos Nois’, and have evolved over the year to being a hardline right-wing separatist group.
In the early 1990s, Spain was rocked by a series of seemingly irrational crimes committed by this group of fans, for whom football was never quite the focal point of going to stadiums. Investigations were initiated into the double murders of a fan of a rival team and a tranvestite, but the growing political importance of the Boixos Nois meant that they were immune to punishment.
The darkest hour in their history arrived in 2002, during ‘The Game of Shame’ on the occasion of the return of former Barcelona player Luis Figo to the Camp Nou, in Real Madrid colours. They reacted to Figo’s ‘treachery’ by whistling and jeering at every touch of the ball he made, and finally crossed all boundaries by throwing a severed pig’s head at him when he was taking a corner kick. Reacting to the ‘message’, the referee took the two teams off the field for 13 minutes for safety precautions. The match was restarted, but everyody’s appetite for goals had possibly dried up after the incident, and the match ended as a goalless draw.
Barcelona fans have been at the centre of the call for Catalonian independence that is currently threatening to tear Spain apart, and the Nou Camp has always been a setting for large-scale calls for separatism.
9 River Plate
Football and violence in Argentina is like bread and butter
Football in Argentina is run by organized football fan clubs with criminal tendencies. The barra bravas, as these groups are called, often overshadow the sacrosanct on-field activities with their frequent antics.
The way barra bravas run things came to light in the international media following the 1958 killing of a Velez Sarsfield fan by policemen, after a match between River Plate and the victim’s team. Amilcar Romero, the journalist at the heart of this expose, has said of the woe of being an away fan in Argentina,” local fans would pressure you, and the police, when not looking the other way, would pressure you as well.”
A 2002 match between River Plate and their fiercest rivals Boca Juniors had to be abandoned because a Boca fan had been shot. Two years later, Los Borrachos del Tablón, as River’s barra brava is known, ambushed a bus full of supporters of Newell’s Old Boys and left two dead and the others injured.
The year 2011 is remembered for being the lowest point in the history of River Plate though, one of the two superpowers in the Argentine league. They were relegated for the first time in their 110 year history and their fans reacted by throwing missiles into the stadium and losing all sense of proportion in general. Clashes with police left 65 injured, with several policemen in hospitals with skull fractures. The madness spread outside of the stadium as well, as seen from footage of shops being looted and cars being set on fire.
8 Milwall
A fight breaks out within Milwall ranks during 2013 FA Cup semi final
To football fans and sociologists, Millwall FC is synonymous with the social plague that is known in England as football hooliganism, and throughout the rest of Europe as the English Disease.
Fans of Milwall FC are renowned for their chant "No one likes us, we don't care". Their most heated rivalry has been with the fan firm of West Ham United, a subject of a number of films and books; but most English teams dread the prospect of a visit to The Den, as they have appropriately named their stadium. Free fights between the dockers of West Ham and Milwall during matchdays were prevalent even a hundred years ago, but all hell broke loose in 1965 when a hand frenade was thrown from the away section during a match at Brentford.
Ipswich Town supporters were at the end of The Den’s wrath in 1978 after their team beat Milwall at home by 6-1. A bloody riot was started by the infamous fans, who even turned on innocent supporters of their own side in their bloodthirst. Ipswich manager Sir Bobby Robson, usually the calmest person around, said of the Milwall fans,”They [the police] should have turned the flamethrowers on them".
Numerous sporadic incidents saw blood being splattered at The Den in the ensuing years, but a new low was reached when 47 police officers and 24 police horses were left injured in the aftermath of a riot by Milwall fans outside the stadium after having lost to Birmingham in a play-off match to reach the Premier League. Only last year in 2013, Milwall was embarrassed again by scenes of fighting within sections of its own fans in the FA Cup semi final at Wembley.
7 Vasco da Gama
Vasco fans corner and beat up an Atletico fan
Violence is an indispensible part of Brazilian football – such that a riot in the stadium might require a helicopter to land on the field to airlift the injured, but the game must be carried on, with the time wasted accounted for in injury time.
Only an year before the World Cup in Brazil, violence erupted in a match between Vasco da Gama and Atletico Paranaense. With Vasco facing relegation in case they lost the match frustrations broke through in the stands with a melee of kicks and punches thrown between the two sets of supporters. Individuals separated from their groups were severely beaten up with dismantled stadium parts. The players were seen asking the assailants to stop and standing with hands held on heads. Atletico defender Luis Alberto, who was shown crying at this juncture, said, ”We looked at the stands and there were no cops. There was nobody there to stop the fighting...I'm playing for 20 years and I've never seen anything like this.”
An emergency helicopter was called upon to take the severely injured to hospitals, but after a delay of one hour and ten minutes, astonishingly, the match kicked off again. To think that the match was being held in a neutral venue because the last fixture between the two had been marred by crowd trouble!
Vasco lost the match 5-1 and were relegated and consigned to finding new victims to terrorize.
6 Mohun Bagan and East Bengal
East Bengal players carry the unconscious Nabi to protection
It is not just the big clubs that command huge amounts of collective affection from their fans. In Kolkata, in India, some weekends during football season turn into days when the city divides itself in support of either of the two clubs: East Bengal FC or Mohun Bagan FC. The two clubs are the city’s oldest and command individual support bases which remain loyal through generations. While East Bengal is built to garner the support of the city’s population which migrated from what is now Bangladesh; Mohun Bagan fans are those whose ancestors hail from the city itself. The animoity that can rise from such ethnic difference – invisible at all other instances of city living – rears its head during the fiercely anticipated derbies.
One of them was on 16th August, 1980, when a match between the rivals at the historical Eden Gardens proved to end tragically as an ugly instance of violence resulting from the beautiful game. Fans on the day were unusually heated due to a previous tie in a Federation Cup match and things escalated when rival players Mihir Palit and Bidesh Bose held a public show of quarreling in the field. By the 57th minute, both players were sent off with red cards, and the agitated fans had grown violent. The match, in an example of negligent administrative action, was not allowed to stop, causing the clashes to escalate steadily until 16 people died and countless others were injured.
On December 2012 this rivalry reared its ugly head when a brick thrown from the Mohun Bagan section of the stadium split open the head of their own player and India international Syed Rahim Nabi. The resulting clash saw 40 injured and a beleagered Bagan players walking out of the game at half time.
5 Newell's Old Boys
These supporters follow strange methods to cheer up their team
Football in Argentina is played with a passion matched in only a few other places, and as such their domestic league has always been inextricably linked with violence. The ‘rulers of the terraces’ from big fan firms such as this, are granted certain privileges by the government in Argentina to keep them as allies, and as such they are often given a free run to create havoc.
In 1946, Newell supporters showed their displeasure with the officiating referee by entering the field of play by hitting him and attempting to strangle him with his own belt. A far cry from the whistles and jeers an unpopular refereeing decision is met with in football as most people know it.
Barra bravas in Argentina are run on the lines of criminal organizations, with dealings in various business such as drugs and prostitution apart from all businesses surrounding football; the Newell firm is one of the oldest and biggest and thus has a long trail of blood as a part of its history. Much like the famed Sicilian mafia groups, the internal workings of the barra bravas are tales of turbulent intrigue – a former boss of the Newell barra brava was killed in 2010 and it is suspected that the people currently at the head of the organization were responsible.
4 Galatasaray
Scenes after a match between Galatasaray and Besiktas
Galatasaray fans greeted any opponents walking into the Ali Sami Yen stadium with the slogan of ‘Welcome to Hell’, before they moved into the Turk Telecom Arena in 2011. European teams consider Galatasaray to be the most intimidating venue to visit, and not without reason. The Guiness Book of World Records ranks their fans as the loudest in all the world.
On the eve of the 2000 Uefa Cup semi final, Istanbul’s Taksim Square was the backdrop to violence inflicted upon travelling supporters of Leeds United. The attacks were reportedly precipitated by a Turkish gang called ‘The Night Watchmen’. Chairs and tables were thrown around, and the night ended with two English fans having been stabbed to death. This was only the beginning to this gory affair though, Galatasary went on to play in the final but English hooligans were up in arms to avenge the deaths of their countrymen.
On occasion of the final match that followed, in which Galatasary were to face Arsenal, the city of Copenhagen was turned into a war zone. English hooligan firms of different clubs congregated to combat the Turkish menace; not to be left behind in the show of belligerence, the Turkish contingent erected their national flag in Copenhagen’s City Hall square. Riots broke out intermittently for the next two days in the Danish city, and ended with four stabbings and 15 other injuries.
Violence is but an instinct, and the victims of these fans are not limited to foreigners. In September last year, a derby match between Galatasaray and Besiktas had to be abandoned midway after a red card issued to Galatasaray’s Felipe Melo brought hundreds of fans rushing on to the pitch and disrupting activities by hurling chairs and clashing with security personnel. Later in the season, a Chelsea fan was reportedly stabbed in a Turkish bar on the night before the two teams were to meet in the Champions League.
3 AS Roma
Manchester United fans clash with police in Rome
Rome has been a hotspot of violence and conflict through all of history, and it would appear political violence has only been replaced by football-related violence in the present age.
Travelling English supporters have borne the brunt of Roma’s aggressiveness, with as many as four English clubs having had major friction with them during European encounters. Liverpool fans were set upon and stabbed in a closed tunnel by Roma fans as idle police looked on in 2001; three Middlesbrough fans were stabbed and ten others hurt during fights with Roma fans at an Uefa Cup quarter-final in 2006; an Arsenal assistant coach was attacked in Rome in 2009.
The most famous altercation English fans had with AS Roma was however during the 2007 Champions League quarter final match between Roma and Manchester United. Both sets of fans were seen throwing missiles at each other, and there were allegations of police brutality on the travelling fans. Eleven Manchester United supporters and two Roma supporters were taken to hospital following the violence. The two teams were fined by Uefa for their fans’ misbehaviour.
Roma and Lazio fans clashed against each other on the eve of a derby match in 2013, the casualty list included six fans who were stabbed and an ambulance which was attacked with fireworks, rocks and sticks by the frenzied crowd. Earlier this year, some Napoli fans were shot at and it is alleged that the leader of AS Roma’s Ultra fan group was responsible for them.
2 Wisla Krakow
Having cleared the front rows for fireworks and flares, the intimidating Wisla flags mass together at the back
The Polish city of Krakow is known as ‘The City of Knives’ for its tradition of hooliganism by football fans.
Wisla Krakow’s long standing rivalry with Cracovia, dramatically christened the ‘Holy War’, has claimed a number of lives over the years. In a city defined by such a strong rivalry, simply saying or wearing the wrong thing in the wrong part of town can lead to deadly consequences. A derby match between the two teams in 1943 was interrupted by fans who decided to take the action into their own hands and decide the outcome of the match by physically assaulting each other on the football field. The fracas spilt onto the streets of Krakow and lasted for several hours.
In 1990, Polish police faced the wrath of the irate football fan when they were unduly harsh while breaking up a fight between fans of Wisla Krakow and Cracovia. Both sets of fans formed an unlikely union to wage an all-out war against the police. A group of fans then marched into the centre of Krakow, ransacking the Soviet embassy where a number of police officers had taken refuge.
Dino Baggio of Parma FC was allegedly stabbed in the head from a knife thrown by Wisla supporters in 1999.
The intensity of the violence in Krakow has not abated in recent times – eight fans lost their lives due to football related violence between 2004 and 2006. Some Wisla fans were apprehended in 2007 for having killed a fan of a small club affiliated with Cracovia.
1 Al Masry
Al Ahly players run for cover as troublemakers invade the pitch
The Ultras fan club organized by supporters of this Egyptian top division club is the most notorious in present day football. Their slogan is ‘Descendants of 56’, meant to highlight the historic role of Port Said residents in resisting the tripartite aggression on the city during the Suez Crisis in 1956.
Following a 3-1 victory that the club enjoyed over rivals Al Ahly in February 2012, a massive riot occurred in the Port Said stadium, leaving 79 dead and more than a 1000 people injured. Spectators from the home section stormed the ground after the match and attacked the away fans with knives, swords, clubs, stones, bottles, and fireworks. Al Ahly players ran away on being pursued, but their coach Manuel Jose was not as fast as his players and got punched and kicked around by the attackers.
The incident smelt of a political act gone wrong – Al Masry had a large section of supporters of the soon-to-be-deposed ruling party, and police inactivity was pointed to as proof that the violence was government-backed to make a last ditch counter-revolutionary attempt to spread fear among dissenters and minorities, sections which the visiting team represented.
The assaulted manager Manuel Jose later said that the attack was an orchestrated one, and pointed to a banner as proof which said ‘We are going to kill you all’. The remaining matches of the 2011-12 Egyptian football season were cancelled in the aftermath of what is the most destructive football riot in recent history.
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