Identity of Football Fans - Essay Example

One of the worst sporting tragedies in the UK occurred on 15th April 1986, when nearly a hundred football fans were crushed to death, trapped by bodies on one side and a high steel fence on the other.1 The Heysel stadium located in Belgium was also the venue of a tragedy during the 1985 European Cup Final, because there was inadequate separation of supporters of rival teams and flimsy fencing that enabled hooligans to easily enter the stadium. As Evans (2005) describes it based upon his memory of the incident, the explanation that was offered for the tragedy, i.e., “a wall collapsed, that was all”, is a lie because the incident had a lot to do with the attitude and feelings of the Liverpool supporters who poured into Brussels. As Evans (2005) characterizes it, the general mood set was that they could do exactly what they liked and no one could stop them; the Liverpool supporters were determined that the Italians would not beat them again and they were almost violently in support of their favorite team. To a great extent therefore, it may be inferred that the Heysel tragedy which occurred and caused breakage of the fence that let football hooligans storm into the stadium, causing injuries to innocent spectators. As Evans (2005) notes, there was a palpable anger among the crowd, instigated by the defeat of the Liverpool team the previous year at the semi finals. The issue did not necessarily involve revenge; rather, according to Evans (2005), there was wariness and fear within that was building up to an enormous rage, liable to spill at the slightest provocation. The anger was not caused merely by the Italians defeating them, but also by the general attitude of the British media and their sparse attention they gave to a previous violent outbreak that occurred during a football game in which the Liverpool team was involved. Football fans often belong to football clubs, which shapes their identity and their conception of who they are. The group identity of the football club is fashioned by club members, but this becomes a part of the composite, deeper identity of the club which football fans must adhere to in order to be a part of the club (www.offmodern.com). According to Burke, individual identity may be defined as “a set of meanings allied to the self in a social role or situation defining what it means to be one who is.” (Burke, 1991:837). The identity theory is derived from the role identity theory of McCall and Simmons (1978), wherein the premise is that the actions of individuals will be motivated by how they perceive themselves and how they would like others to perceive them. As a result, there are two aspects associated with the identity theory; firstly, the development of the role itself and secondly, the identity that is to be associated with that role. Where social identity is concerned however, the premise is that individuals perceive and categorize themselves as members of a particular group. In the field of sport, the notion of identity is all linked up with the development of a group identity. Where the issue of identity crops up in relation to football, it may be noted that individual football fans may need to submerge their identity within the collective identity of the club, but the reward for this subjugation of identity is felt during a moment of collective anonymity as a spectator when all other values and affiliations are subordinated to the moment in sport (www.offmodern.com). As a result, for the space of time that football fans are at a match, they lose their own identity which fashions their beliefs, attitudes and values and enter the dimension of a different truth, where truth and reality are subordinated to that one moment of anonymity. Nietzsche has offered a version of truth which is the correspondence theory, wherein the world is conceived of as a matrix of forces and powers, which is a true account of how the world really is (Nola, 1987:525). As a result, there can be no enduring beliefs, things or objects, since ordinary beliefs would be false when viewed within the context of the matrix of forces and powers. However, Nietzsche is of the view that since human beings are creatures who have intellectual and sensory abilities, they are able to form such beliefs because it provides them with strength in life. Hence, such beliefs may exist but they have a pragmatic value rather than providing any true picture of reality, because the existence of certain beliefs is not necessarily an indication that reality is conditioned according to those beliefs. This may be applied especially in the context of football fans and their conception of reality. The very substance of Nietzsche’s beliefs revolves around the notion of impermanence, i.e., no beliefs can be enduring. Within the context of a football game, reality for football fans would be shaped by the game and the truth becomes limited to the extent of what it is during the course of the game. Gender plays a major role as well in football, because it is mostly males who play it; thereby the identity of the football fan may be a predominantly male identity; this in turn could explain to some extent, the tendency towards violence of football fans. Goar (2007) has expressed the view that if members of one social group are encouraged to think of members from other groups as individuals rather than merely as representatives of a larger group, then the effects of race as a factor influencing group behavior may be reduced. The incidence of violent acts against individuals of a particular group may be mitigated considerably through such measures. Football fans are essentially expressing an intrinsic need as laid out by Maslow, for acceptance within a social group (Maslow, 1970). According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory (1970), which is a five tier system, an individual has two kinds of needs – the lower order needs which are satisfied externally, such as physiological and safety needs, and the higher order needs which are satisfied internally such as social needs, esteem and self actualization needs. While a football fan is part of a larger group and his/her identity is shaped by the collective identity of the group itself, then the individual becomes so much a part of that group for the moment that his or her individual identity is completely submerged. This allows an individual to feel accepted by other football fans who are members of the same group, despite the fact that they may not necessarily share the same systems of beliefs or attitudes but are united in their appreciation of and support for football. There is no typical football fan; however as Parker (2000) has pointed out, male football fans greatly outnumber female fans. As a result, the profile of a football fan is generally young and male. Football events are also often associated with rowdy behaviour and violence because of the tendency to drink alcohol, motivated by the need to overcome the restrictions of daily life. As mentioned earlier, the primary motivation of the football fan might be to achieve a sense of social belonging and the need to feel accepted as a part of a group. While the original motivation may be to feel accepted and a part of the group, it often snowballs into something quite different when football fans become fanatical. The incident that occurred at the Heysel stadium is one example of how the intrinsic need to feel accepted and a part of a social group can get out of hand and escalate into a tragedy when violence takes hold. The Liverpool football fans who stormed into the stadium by breaking down the fence were motivated by feelings of antipathy against the Italians and an underlying resentment against the British media, all of which snowballed into feelings of rage that exploded as a collective unit. The problems that arise with the group mentality is that most members get together and individual feelings of restraint may be subordinated to the need to belong to the group and do what the group does. As a result, fans get together and function as one, driven by the intrinsic motivation to belong to the group; as a result, individual feelings of disappointment at the outcome of a particular match are combined with those of several fans, which produces a cumulative result of anger and violence breaking out. References Goar, Carla D, 2007. “Social Identity theory and the reduction of inequality: Can cross cutting categorization reduce inequality in mixed race groups?”, Social behavior and Personality, January 1, 2007. “Football as a process of identification”, Retrieved December 18, 2009 from: http://offmodern.com/news/index.php/tag/identity/ Maslow, A.H, 1970. “Motivation and Personality”, 2nd Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Nola, Robert, 1987. “Nietzsche’s theory of truth and belief”, Philosophy and Phenomenological research, XLVII(4): 525 Parker, Andrew, 2000. “Masculinities and English professional football: Youth traineeship, sub-cultural expectation and gender identity”, Studies in educational ethnography, 3:41-65 Read More