‘I predict a riot’: forecasts, facts and fiction in ‘football hooligan’ documentaries

Abstract

This essay addresses how British documentary films have engaged with and represented the socio-political issue of football-related disorder. The essay's primary concern is to examine the ways in which documentary film-makers offer audiences a mix of forecasts, facts but also factual inaccuracies and fiction in their representation of football-related disorder. While the British documentary tradition has been generally considered as a source of information and is associated with providing an investigative and educational news service, hooligan documentaries can be seen increasingly as sources of entertainment within popular culture. As such, two broad classifications of hooligan documentaries are identified: those produced supposedly with the intention to inform and educate – usually underpinned by the conventions and practices of investigative journalism – and those made essentially to entertain, underscored with distinctive aesthetic and affective properties to gain and hold an audience. Using Blackshaw and Crabbe's concept of ‘consumptive deviance’, it is argued that recent trends have led to a blurring of these categories, with documentaries designed for entertainment still informative and traditionally ‘informative’ documentaries employing production techniques to help entertain audiences. In this sense, documentary films can be recognized as forms of ‘fantasy football hooliganism’.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my co-editor, Martin Roderick, for his helpful suggestions and critical insights on earlier drafts of this essay, and for his patience!

Notes

¹ According to Virgin Media Television, of their ten channels, Bravo is the ‘favourite entertainment destination for men, with shows such as Blade, The Unit, Man's Work, The Real Football Factories and Adult Swim’. http://www.virginmediatv.co.uk/our_channels/ (accessed 22 March 2007).

² http://www.bravo.co.uk/IPAR/home/htm > l (accessed 8 November 2006).

³ ‘Football hooliganism’ is a ‘cover-all’ term that Dunning et al. claim ‘is not so much a scientific sociological or psychological concept as a construct of politicians and the media’. Dunning et al., Fighting Fans, 2.

⁴ Poulton, ‘“Fantasy Football Hooliganism” in Popular Media’.

⁵ Hall, ‘The Treatment of Football Hooliganism in the Press’; Whannel, ‘Football Crowd Behaviour and the Press’; Murphy, Dunning and Williams, ‘Soccer Crowd Disorder and the Press’; Weed, ‘Ing-ger-land at Euro 2000’; Poulton, ‘English Media Representation of Football-Related Disorder’; Crabbe, ‘The Public Gets What the Public Wants’.

⁶ Poulton, ‘Lights, Camera, Aggro!’; Redhead, ‘This Sporting Life’.

⁷ Poulton, ‘Tears, Tantrums and Tattoos’, 136; Crabbe, ‘The Public Gets What the Public Wants’, 418.

⁸ Crabbe, ‘The Public Gets What the Public Wants’, 417.

⁹ Nichols, Representing Reality, x.

¹⁰ Ibid., 105.

¹¹ Ibid., 107.

¹² Corner, The Art of Record, 187.

¹³ Ibid., 32.

¹⁴ Rosenthal and Corner, New Challenges for Documentary, 1.

¹⁵ See Poulton, ‘“Fantasy Football Hooliganism” in Popular Media’.

¹⁶ Hall, ‘The Treatment of Football Hooliganism in the Press’; Poulton, ‘English Media Representation of Football-Related Disorder’; Poulton, ‘Celluloid Hooliganism’.

¹⁷ Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics.

¹⁸ Hall, ‘The Treatment of Football Hooliganism in the Press’.

¹⁹ Ibid., 34.

²⁰ See Frosdick and Newton, ‘The Nature and Extent of Football Hooliganism’.

²¹ Poulton, ‘English Media Representation of Football-Related Disorder’; Poulton, ‘Celluloid Hooliganism’.

²² Nichols, Representing Reality, 107.

²³ A rare positive representation of England fans is a documentary film by Jamie McDine from the independent production company, Ivisualise Films, entitled 3 Lions, 23 Players and 100,000 Friendly Fans (2006). This film looks at English football fans during the 2006 World Cup, concentrating on the ‘Fanfreundscaft: Towards a Fan-Friendly World Cup’ initiative organized by the English Football Association's supporters' club, englandfans. A director's cut of the film has been used by the German Tourist Office in the UK to profile the country, the British Council and the Goethe Institute in London.

²⁴ Poulton, ‘“Fantasy Football Hooliganism” in Popular Media’.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Giulianotti, Football: A Sociology of the Global Game, 177.

²⁷ Ibid., 53.

²⁸ Crawford, Consuming Sport, 151, 135.

²⁹ Crabbe, ‘The Public Gets What the Public Wants’, 418.

³⁰ Ibid., 423.

³¹ Ibid., 418.

³² Ibid.

³³ Allirajah, ‘Offside’.

³⁴ Blackshaw and Crabbe, New Perspectives on Sport and ‘Deviance’.

³⁵ Ibid., 76.

³⁶ Corner, The Art of Record, 28.

³⁷ Whannel, Fields in Vision, 92.

³⁸ Rosenthal and Corner, New Challenges for Documentary, 4.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 5.

⁴¹ Franklin, Newszak and the News Media; Sparks, ‘Introduction: The Panic Over Tabloid News’.

⁴² Rosenthal and Corner, New Challenges for Documentary, 5.

⁴³ The Guardian, 26 June 2000, 32.

⁴⁴ Ibid., 32

⁴⁵ Nichols, ‘The Voice of Documentary’, 21.

⁴⁶ http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/archive/798080.stm (accessed 10 April 2007).

⁴⁷ The Football Supporters Association, Euro 2000 Review.

⁴⁸ Nichols, Representing Reality, x.

⁴⁹ Nichols, ‘The Voice of Documentary’, 28.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ The Independent, 5 August 2006, 59.

⁵² http://bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/hi/programmes/panorama/5219906.stm (accessed: 1 August 2006).

⁵³ A systematic content analysis of individual fan's perceptions of the documentary from this message board was not feasible in this study, but would be an interesting future line of enquiry. However, such sources raise all manner of issues over their reliability and the authenticity, as well as complex ethical issues. For example, interactive message boards allow individuals the opportunity to adopt any persona or opinion for ‘effect’. Likewise, they afford an individual to feign a particular stance, adopt the moral high-ground, or simply to play devil's advocate. These postings therefore need to be considered with a degree of circumspection.

⁵⁴ Source: Personal correspondence from englandfans North East Forum Committee email loop (12 October 2006).

⁵⁵ http:// www.hooligandvds.net/product_info.php?products_id = 343 (accessed 2 August 2006).

⁵⁶ Kilborn, ‘How real can you get?’; Corner, The Art of Record.

⁵⁷ Corner, The Art of Record, 187.

⁵⁸ Greenfield and Osborn, Regulating Football, 5.

⁵⁹ Corner, The Art of Record, 186.

⁶⁰ Potter, Hooligans Reunited. http: //www.urban75.org/football/hooligan.html (Accessed 5 August 2006].

⁶¹ Marriner, It's Only a Game.

⁶² http://www.jasonmarriner.com/home.shml> (accessed 10 April 2007).

⁶³ Marriner, It's Only a Game, 3.

⁶⁴ Corner, The Art of Record, 32.

⁶⁵ Personal email (21 March 2007).

⁶⁶ http://www.bravo.co.uk/IPAR/home/html (accessed 8 November 2006).

⁶⁷ Cass Pennant is a reformed hooligan who has written nearly ten books about football-related violence, as well as several television and film scripts.

⁶⁸ http://www.bravo.co.uk/trff/home/html (accessed 11 October 2006).

⁶⁹ Brimson, Barmy Army, 181.

⁷⁰ Giulianotti, Football: A Sociology of the Global Game; Poulton, ‘Celluloid Hooliganism’.

⁷¹ For example: www.hooli-news.co.uk, www.terracelinks.cjb.net, www.gangstervideos.co.uk, and www.hooligandvds.net.

⁷² Monaco, How to Read a Film, 277.

⁷³ http://www.hooligandvds.net/product_info.php?products_id = 108 (accessed 2 August 2006).

⁷⁴ http://www.hooligandvds.net/product_info.php?products_id = 343 (accessed: 2 August 2006).

⁷⁵ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hooligan-Chav-Exclusive-Amazon-co-uk/dp/B000CNEEIO/ref = sr_1_1/202-2475549-1877404?ie = UTF8&s = dvd&qid = 1193242550&sr = 1-1 (accessed 2 August 2006).

⁷⁶ Blackshaw and Crabbe, New Perspectives on Sport and ‘Deviance’, 76.

⁷⁷ Corner, The Art of Record, 11.

⁷⁸ Blackshaw and Crabbe, New Perspectives on Sport and ‘Deviance’, 76.

⁷⁹ Ibid.

⁸⁰ Corner, The Art of Record.