The Weekend Read: Martin McKenzie-Murray on the ugly side of football fandom ahead of Euro 2024

Euros are just weeks away. Some of the best footballers in the world will be competing in an event that draws in hundreds of millions of viewers, but the legacy of the last Euros is still an uncomfortable topic for many, particularly in England, not only because they lost, but because of the scenes of violence and hooliganism that led to a national debate and a new Netflix documentary. Marty will read his story, The Final Attack on Wemberley shows soccer

fandom at its most pathetic. After a short conversation with me, Marty, first off, we're only a couple of weeks away from one of the most watched football tournaments in the world, The Euros. Are you excited for it? Are you going to be staying up late to watch any games?

by the virus that you might remember. There was also the fact that it was the sixtieth anniversary of the tournament, and so u WAFER, as the administrative body of the tournament, decided to what they said romantically spread hosting rights. Typically there's one, maybe two hosts. Yue for made a decision to spread it across the European continent. COVID reduced the numbers, but I think in the end there were eleven cities in eleven countries hosting England at Wembley, their national stadium

had the rights to both SEMIS and the final. And finally, the other kind of curiosity, which I think was really significant in the considerable disorder of the final that day was COVID and so England made the final. They played Italy. They had never made the final of the European Championship before. They had made the final of one major tournament that was the nineteen sixty six World Cup only once before,

so fifty five years before that. So they were hosting the final and they were also appearing in the final. It was the biggest game for England in fifty five years, but it was also coming off the back of a year of severe lockdowns. To say that there was kind

of this national anti dissipation is a great understatement. You know, there was for some this kind of frenzied anticipation and this sense of abandon not just because England were playing in the final at home, but there were people were just emerging from a year of pretty severe lockdowns, so all of this kind of combined into what was a pretty disastrous day.

But on the other hand, there's you know, really genuine, you know, hooliganism and violence that is pretty apparrent to look at. You know, how do you sort of look at the kind of nostalgia for some of that culture alongside the kind of like genuine chaos and violence and things that we see. How do you sort of view that changing fan culture in football?

They've all been all seater for some time now. There was the tragedy of Hillsborough in which some ninety odd people were crushed to death. That was one catalyst for removing terrorists and ensuring that all stadium were all ster it kind of the hologanism used to be known as the English disease. But England never ever had a monopoly on domestic hooliganism. But I think one distinctive quality about England and a notoriety that is probably still justified, is

the reputation of their traveling fans. They're kind of, I think, conspicuously worse than most when traveling to see their team overseas at major tournaments or in this case the final of July twenty twenty one, they were simply traveling from around the country and converging upon Wembley to see their country in the final.

beguiled and charmed with their tongues. The damned are perpetually washed in human excrement, foul certainly, but no worse than the vision of Hell that was belched into existence in London on July eleventh, twenty twenty one before and during the final of the AUEIFA European Championship between England and Italy, a source of national shame that's revisited in a new Netflix documentary, The Final Attack on Wembley. S Euros were

distinguished by at least three historical curiosities. First, while retaining the twenty twenty title, the tournament had been delayed a year by COVID nineteen. Second, YUWAFA had chosen to romantically spread the hosting across eleven cities in eleven European countries. England's national stadium, Wembley, would host both semis and the final and third, England made its first ever euro final and its first appearance in a major tournament's final since

the nineteen sixty six World Cup. English expectations were high. The Queen released a supportive statement recalling the moment she presented the Jewels Romae trophy to English captain Bobby Moore fifty five years earlier. Then Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote the team a letter thanking them for having lifted the spirits of the whole country. Prince William, president of the Football Association Public shared his own gratitude and excitement, while

his people pondered the logistics of his involvement. When certain COVID restrictions remained in place. Days before the final, English pilgrims took cars, buses and trains to London, with or without tickets. Wembley can hold ninety thousand, but prevailing COVID restrictions limited the crowd to sixty seven thousand. Some went with the intention of jibbing or entering the match without a ticket. Others went with the hope they could buy a ticket from scalpers. Most wanted to watch the game

on a screen somewhere near the stadium. The official inquiry into that day's disorder caught upon the advice of Professor Jeff Pearson, an expert on football fan behavior, who wrote it is well established that for many football fans, watching the match in the stadium is only one important aspect of a match event. The collective expression of identity is a fundamental feature of the experience for a large subculture of fans, who tend to dominate the traveling support of

English clubs and the national team. This collective expression of identity is not limited to the stadium itself, and fans will seek to gather in large groups. Fans adhering to these norms have been labeled carnival fans, as the experience sought by the fans is primarily one of transgression from everyday norms. By nine o'clock on the morning of the final, which would not kick off until eight pm, already drunk

fans were massing on the boulevard leading to Wembley. I've been doing this for over a decade and have worked on various other celebratory events, including New Year's Eve. A London Underground official would later testify, I have never seen drunkenness like this so early on in the day. Most evident to the case inquiry suggested this should have been anticipated. Not only was it England's biggest football match in more than half a century, but the English were only just

emerging from a year of hard lockdowns. Freedom Day, the day when almost all restrictions would be lifted, was just a week away, and people were already changing their behaviors. The boys were free and football was finally coming home. There followed from this an atmosphere of frenzied and Coke Field abandoned. It was an atmosphere unmistigated by fan zones and large screens upon which to watch the match. Those wanting to see the game in a parb near the

stadium were thwarted too. Venues were either closed or their capacity limited by COVID laws, and the space was relatively untouched by police. Their resources were initially placed in central London, and the major deployment of offices to Wembley wasn't scheduled until three pm. In that time, Olympic Way had been taken over. Ten thousand densely packed and chemically altered men had collectively crossed a threshold and could no longer be

meaningfully controlled. Their occupancy had taken root, and police were now conspicuously ineffectual. Disorder reigned, and here was a scene of hell fans in wheelchairs trying to make their way to the stadium through an endless scrum, of shirtless men shitting in water fountains and toppling portable toilets. Hundreds of glass bottles were thrown indiscriminately. Men climbed traffic lights to snort cocaine before cheering crowds. Trees were ripped from the ground,

the boulevard became a river of piss. Parents shielded their children with umbrellas and outstretched arms. Through me, the way to the city of woe through me, the way to everlasting pain through me, the way to the lost. Abandon all hope, you who enter here. In the final we meet Max, a young man of staggering idiocy, who appears here like a sentient piece of dough, his pride and identity malleable according to the desires of whichever violent mob

he surrendered himself to. Max boastfully describes what we might assume to be his life's crowning achievements so far, climbing on the roof of a bus made stationary by the crowd's mass and occupied by a terrified and helpless driver. I seen the bus and I thought this was my time to shine, Max says. There were so many people filming me, and I just felt like the man. Soon, twenty odd folk are denting the roof of the bus, as the panicked driver wonders when the cavalry might arrive.

A notable feature of this documentary, which is very thin, by the way, and covers nothing that's not contained in the vastly more detailed Casey Report, is the testimony of various thugs and gibbers and antisocial opportunists who testified to the transcendent thrill of adrenaline. Pure chaos, a chaos that harms and spooks and intimidates, remains a wonderful antidote to boredom, just as Bill Buford found in his nineteen ninety memoir

of hooliganism. Among the Thugs, it was like a medieval football match, one local council staff member told the inquiry. Stuff was getting chucked in the air. It was dangerous. People were climbing the trees and climbing traffic lights. Things had buckled. But the central interest of Casey's inquiry, as it is here with the documentary, is the breaching of Wembley Stadium in a country still haunted by the Hillsborough

disaster of nineteen eighty nine. A critical mass of very drunk men whose stamina had been held helped by the ingestion of class as, were scoping a porous perimeter that was understaffed by overburdened attendants who also had to check fans COVID status. I am clear that we were close to fatalities and all life changing injuries for some, potentially many in attendance. The Casey report reads, at five twenty five pm, the first violent breach of the stadium occurred.

Stewards and police were swarmed, punched, and crushed beneath toppling barricades. There were simply too many fans. Once inside the sterile area, but before the turnstiles, they looked for access to the stadium itself. Pass gates designed for disabled fans were a popular route. These were swarmed. My son, who needs twenty four to seven care, was stuck in the middle of this in his wheelchair, was the testimony one parent gave

the Casey inquiry. The inquiry also heard of one man who breached the stadium while wearing a fake high viz vest to suggest his authority, then seized the occupied wheelchair of another man's son. Father and child were separated in the chaos as the goon wheeled the boy away. About two thousand people successfully made their way into the stadium without tickets, breaking emergency doors and taking the seats of disabled fans in the process. Thousands more were still attempting

violent entry outside. If twelve hours of hard drinking blunted their strength and desire, the kocain revitalized them. Stewards also had to make potentially life or death decisions when emergency doors were destroyed and they had to move into those crowds to prevent crushes. The Casey report says the game finished one all after extra time, the European champions would

now be decided by penalty shootout. Football Association staff were badly conflicted a potentially fatal crush might be avoided if England lost, thus denying the thousands of unhinged fans outside motivation to revive attempts to storm the stadium. And so it was. England lost the shootout, and then it began to rain. The mood was sour but not explosive. Fans left,

none outside tried to enter what was now awake. If England had won, I think it would have been horrific, an emergency services official told the inquiry, and we'd have had to have declared a major incident both Central London and Wembley. I can guarantee that we would have been on our knees. Many sighed with relief, but another ugliness was expressed. Three England players missed penalties in the shootout,

all were black. The racist taunts began in the stadium continued outside it and was sustained by social media and public graffiti. The day was spoiled by a horde of six thousand or more ticketless fans, many of whom were no more than mindless thugs. Baroness Casey wrote the outpouring of vile racist abuse that followed in the days after only made this worse. What can be happily noted here, though, is a year after this near fatal bedlam, the women's

England team won the Euros at a packed Wembley. It was a joyous and non violent evening. And then a year after that, Australia co hosted the Women's World Cup, peacefully sold out our stadiums and generated a thrilling sense of national bonomie as the Matildas made their way to the semi final, and all this without rivers of piss and kidnapped children.