Fantastic read. Well written, thought-provoking and witty. Most importantly it's so truthful without being judgemental of footie fans. The writer is absolutely right that football fans act differently in the stands, which ultimately is wrong, but he's captured a real sense of human behaviour in that we often fall into a pack mentality, which a lot of journos seem to be scared to acknowledge whenever they report on contentious incidents, such as racism. He's hit the nail on the head in terms of what people stand up against in the stands. If someone shouted homophobic or racist comments to someone in a bar, 9 times out of 10 I would speak out. Honestly, at a football match, I'm not sure what I would do. It reminds me of a time at Arsenal away about three years ago when I was sat next to a sikh. A few rows in front of me some pissed up city fans were singing, 'your just a town full of pakis, town full of pakis.' Now before you point out Pakistan only has a small number of sikhs living there, the fact is the guy next to me was clearly in a racial minority, and while the pissed up idiots in front of me annoyed me, I turned and I could see a real look of disgust in his eyes. It made me so sad, because I wanted to shout out, 'shut the fuck up you pricks', but honestly I didn't have the bottle. I was on my own and I knew it would be more trouble than it's worth. But what the writer captures brilliantly is that fear we all get in crowds. What if no one backs me up. But then if no one stands up when does it ever stop?
