The Roots of Football Hooliganism (RLE Sports Studies)

Download or read book The Roots of Football Hooliganism (RLE Sports Studies) written by Eric Dunning and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This systematic historical and sociological study of the phenomenon of football hooliganism examines the history of crowd disorderliness at association football matches in Britain and assesses both popular and academic explanations of the problem. The authors’ study starts in the 1880s, when professional football first emerged in its modern form, charting the pre and inter-war periods and revealing that England’s World Cup triumph formed a watershed. The changing social composition of football crowds and the changing class structure of British society is discussed and the genesis of modern football hooliganism is explained by tracing it to the cultural conditions and circumstances which reproduce in young working-class males an interest in a publicly expressed aggressive masculine style.