When and why did football become so tribal?

[Rory Bluelow]

The best work I have read about football rivalry is " The Soccer Tribe" by the well known anthropologist Desmond Morris.
In fact I have just bought the latest edition for my pals 65th birthday (I have the earlier edition from about 40 years ago).
It describes how football became a truly global sport,loved by people of many nationalities,races and religions.
And it's all down to how humans loved hunting and killing as food for survival.
And when we turned to farming animals,we didn't need to hunt anymore,so we did it for pleasure.
And when we started to live in cities, there wasn't space to hunt anymore,so we brought the animals to the cities,and hunted them in vast arenas.
And when that became unacceptable in the late 19th century,we adopted football as a substitute for hunting,with scoring a goal being the equivalent of a kill, whereby everyone rejoices and celebrates the goal/kill.
An absolutely fascinating book, and one I highly recommend to everyone on BM.
(The latest edition is about £15 on eBay,and the original edition is as little as £5).

I’d forgotten about that book, read it as a teenager. Some great pictures.

 

[oldius]

Hate sells. We are a divided society and football is no different. The press has a lot to answer for.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

I think it was the first home match of 66-67 v Liverpool (which by all accounts, featured plenty of crowd violence) where the match programme politely referred to pitch invasions from the previous season.

As others have alluded, it seemed to have been creeping into the national game from the late 50s/early 60s particularly in the FA Cup where the away followings tended to be larger. However, the increasing media coverage clearly perpetuated the issue, and even some well known City characters grabbed their fifteen minutes of fame.

 

[Stephen230]

Don't think Hysel was fixed for that reason.More than likely that Uefa could not stand by and let a bunch of murdering thugs be seen to be winning..as an aside the game should not have taken place but for the same reasons that I have already stated....it did

I wasn’t suggesting the game was fixed in order to stop English teams run.

It probably wasn’t even properly fixed in the true sense of the word. They just wanted it over and done with and nobody looked particularly interested. The referee saw an opportunity to give a dodgy pen. and nobody really cared, as it meant they could get it over with in 90 minutes.

 

[glauberbertistossedshirt]

Technology-. There's no getting away from it now. It's no longer a case of giving/ taking sh*te from rivals at games or at the pub, work, school. Internet means 24 hour exposure to targeted information. Sensationalist/toxic clickbait weaponises tribalism and then social media is where the outpouring of this toxicity takes place.

 

[yankblue]

Interesting reading all the responses. I'm in my early thirties so can't really say when but surprised to see so many claim its a relatively recent development (not disagreeing just surprised). I would've thought Hooliganism was the start and that stretches until at least the 50's

 

[Stephen230]

Interesting reading all the responses. I'm in my early thirties so can't really say when but surprised to see so many claim its a relatively recent development (not disagreeing just surprised). I would've thought Hooliganism was the start and that stretches until at least the 50's

Obviously hooliganism and tribalism were inter linked but I think modern day tribalism can pretty clearly be traced back to the rise in popularity of Twitter, You Tube and social media in general.

I mean how many non City or United fans does your average Mancunian know?

And even the ones you do know, tend to act a bit differently in real life than when screaming at a stranger on Twitter.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Interesting reading all the responses. I'm in my early thirties so can't really say when but surprised to see so many claim its a relatively recent development (not disagreeing just surprised). I would've thought Hooliganism was the start and that stretches until at least the 50's

Football hooliganism started in the 1300s. It existed in the formative years of the Football League as well.

 

[Bluemoon2393]

I suppose when all the important jobs like mining/steel/dock works started to decline. So unemployment was high meaning there were lots off bored lads without nothing to do. Most wanted something to do so following a football team was perfect for them. Some sadly were following football for a fight.

I would say around late 60s and early 70s is when it started to become warzones. I would probably say Don Revies Leeds team started the aggressive behaviour on the pitch and the some fans wanted to started fighting every week which was Millwall and West Ham and then everyone jumped on the bandwagon from there. Also town pride plays a big part as well.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

Can only speak for myself as my dad would tell stories of like you say people going to watch both City and the rags. My old next door neighbour did.

One person Ferguson

He changed it for the worst. He belittled our club. Our club that in the past had helped the rags so many times. The twats didnt have floodlights so played at our place is just one example. Plus the noise neighbours, of course we are noisy we are Manchester a big City.

Now we have the press/media turning up the hatred because they are basically fanzines for the dippers and rags.
The bent use of VAR to help them.

The dippers getting away with the coach attack.

The older I get the more tribal I have become because of the way City seen in the press/media. I tell anyone who will listen the rags arent from Manchester. How the rags treated the survivors of Munich.

Manchester has one club and is ours. Our council should demand that the rags stop using our name ! Certainly shouldnt be using our coat of arms. What's wrong with Traffords ?

It was well before that. 1970’s it took off for me and 1980’s it exploded.

Ferguson hasn’t made it more tribal between our clubs. I think the hatred was there well before he showed up.