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‘We’ve Got the Equivalent of Passchendaele’: Sectarianism, Football and Urban Disorder in Scotland

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Football Hooliganism, Fan Behaviour and Crime

Abstract

Domestic club football in Scotland has long been associated with sectarianism, public disorder and urban violence, and particularly the conduct of supporters of the Old Firm: Glasgow Celtic Football Club, with a heritage rooted in Irish immigration to west central Scotland and associations to Catholicism and Irish nationalism; and Glasgow Rangers Football Club, intertwined with Protestantism, Unionism and Loyalism (see Murray, 1984; Devine, 2000; Bruce et al., 2004; Flint and Kelly, 2013, for further histories and debates). The contemporary governmen- tal focus on the conduct of football supporters may be classified as a modern form of a ‘civilising offensive’ in which popular and traditional mentalities, identities and behaviours are normatively problematised by authorities and actors in the upper orders of society (Kruithof, 1980; Mitzman, 1987; Flint and Powell, 2013; Waiton, 2013).

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Authors
  1. John Flint
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  2. Ryan Powell
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leicester, UK

    Matt Hopkins (Lecturer in Criminology) (Lecturer in Criminology)

  2. University of Birmingham, UK

    James Treadwell (Lecturer in Criminology) (Lecturer in Criminology)

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© 2014 John Flint and Ryan Powell

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Flint, J., Powell, R. (2014). ‘We’ve Got the Equivalent of Passchendaele’: Sectarianism, Football and Urban Disorder in Scotland. In: Hopkins, M., Treadwell, J. (eds) Football Hooliganism, Fan Behaviour and Crime. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137347978_4

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