A New Agenda For Football Crowd Management: Reforming Legal and Policing Responses to Risk

377 Pages·2022·6.507 MB·English

by  Geoff Pearson, Clifford Stott

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN RISK, CRIME AND SOCIETY
A New Agenda
for Football Crowd
Management
Reforming Legal and
Policing Responses to Risk
Geoff Pearson · Clifford Stott
Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society
Series Editors
Kieran McCartan
Department of Criminology
University of the West of England
Bristol, UK
Beth Weaver
School of Social Work and Social Policy
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow, Lanarkshire, UK
Risk is a major contemporary issue which has widespread implications
for theory, policy, governance, public protection, professional practice
and societal understandings of crime and criminal justice. The potential
harm associated with risk can lead to uncertainty, fear and conflict as well
as disproportionate, ineffective and ill-judged state responses to perceived
risk and risky groups. Risk, Crime and Society is a series featuring mono-
graphs and edited collections which examine the notion of risk, the risky
behaviour of individuals and groups, as well as state responses to risk and
its consequences in contemporary society. The series will include critical
examinations of the notion of risk and the problematic nature of state
responses to perceived risk. While Risk, Crime and Society will consider
the problems associated with ‘mainstream’ risky groups including sex
offenders, terrorists and white collar criminals, it welcomes scholarly
analysis which broadens our understanding of how risk is defined, inter-
preted and managed. Risk, Crime and Society examines risk in contem-
porary society through the multi-disciplinary perspectives of law,
criminology and socio-legal studies and will feature work that is theoreti-
cal as well as empirical in nature.
Geoff Pearson • Clifford Stott
A New Agenda For
Football Crowd
Management
Reforming Legal and Policing
Responses to Risk
Geoff Pearson Clifford Stott
School of Law School of Psychology
University of Manchester University of Keele
Manchester, UK Keele, Staffordshire, UK
Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society
ISBN 978-3-031-16297-8 ISBN 978-3-031-16298-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16298-5
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Acknowledgements
The work we cover in this book draws from decades of collaborative
research involving many people and organisations to whom we owe a
debt of gratitude. There are too many for us to list individually, so we
have decided to focus on those who have made particularly important
contributions. Given the numbers involved and the passage of time, there
will be several whose names we have inadvertently neglected and for that
oversight when it occurs, we apologise.
While this book is about policing football crowds, throughout their
evolution the theoretical ideas on crowd psychology that we draw upon
have been formed in partnership with John Drury and Steve Reicher and
their theoretical contributions in that regard need to be acknowledged
from the outset. For the early years of the research work on football
crowds that we set out in this book, we would also like to thank David
Bohannon, who at that time was working within the Home Office Public
Order Unit. Without his confidence, political manoeuvring, and finan-
cial investment, it is arguable that much of the latter stages of our work
on football crowd policing would not have had the impact that was
achieved. Key contributors during this period also include Bryan Drew
and Tony Conniford, then of the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU),
David Swift and the late Michael Harrison from Staffordshire Police, as
well as Otto Adang and Martina Schreiber from the Police Academy of
the Netherlands. For the work connected to Euro2004, we would also
v
vi Acknowledgements
like to thank the various students, officers, and commanders of Public
Security Police in Portugal, including Jose Carlos Neto, whose roles in
informing and adoption of the research were the first major milestone in
‘stress testing’ the otherwise theoretical ideas and translating them into
research-led police practice. The study on the policing of Euro2004 was
enabled by a grant from the ESRC-RES-000-23-617 Crowd dynamics,
policing, and ‘hooliganism’ at Euro2004. As the work subsequently devel-
oped in the European context, we would also like to acknowledge the key
support received from, among others, Kenny Scott, Marc Otten, Marc
Timmer, and Steve Frosdick from UEFA.
During the development of the ENABLE project in Scandinavia we
would like to extend our thanks to the various police officers of the
Swedish and Danish Police, the Allsvenskan and the various clubs, organ-
isations and individuals that hosted, supported, populated, and funded
our observations. In the early stages, funding was provided by Djurgårdens
IF and the UK’s ESRC ‘Celebrating Impact Prize’. In March 2015, addi-
tional funding was obtained from Länsstyrelsen Stockholm and the chari-
table foundation Gålöstiftelsen that allowed for further fieldwork between
2015 and 2017. Among others, we also extend our gratitude to our
Danish colleagues including Jonas Havelund, Kristian Rasmussen, Tom
Carstensen, and Lasse Bauer. In Sweden we would like to thank and
acknowledge the important contributions of, among others, Jens
Lindgren, Carsten Alven, Philip Lundberg, Sammyh Khan, Neil
Williams, Sara Vestegren, Mark Goodyear, Mikael Berkesand, Lena Borg,
Lars Ekstrand, Martin Fredman, Kent Tillberg, Jerker Mohlund, Lena
Matthijs, and Thomas Delerud.
During the subsequent ENABLE phase in the UK and Switzerland, we
would like to thank the N8 Policing Research Partnership, the ESRC
Celebrating Impact prize, and the English Football League (in particular
John Nagle and Bob Eastwood) for funding our work. We would like to
thank the KPAC Centre Manager, Debbie Tallent, as well as the multiple
police forces and football clubs that hosted us, in addition to the many
police officers, club security officials, fan organisations, and academics
that joined our observation teams and informed our analyses. These
Acknowledgements vii
include, among others, Ravi Sharma, Rob Killingworth, Wayne Nash,
Chris Patzelt, Sue Watson, and Phil Mayer, as well as several other club
safety officers who allowed or participated in our observations and other-
wise supported our work. We would also like to thank our many observ-
ers and contributors to analysis including Owen West, Marcus Beale,
Leanne Savigar-Shaw, Matt Radburn, Ian Leach, and James Hoggett.
There are then the hundreds of police officers and several police forces
who supported, populated, and contributed to our observations. While
the forces need to remain nameless, we would like to thank, among oth-
ers, Richard Cawkwell, Dan Greenwood, John Arrowsuch, Bryn Stokes,
Mick Cheetham, Julian Platt, Paul Elliot, Kev Evans, Tony Cornwell,
Phil Hutchinson, Mike Hope, Vicky Howell, Wayne Palmer, Joe Jones,
Nick Lyall, Steve Furnham, Howard Lewis Jones, Mark Goodyear, Nick
Rowe, Stewart Bladen, Stuart Bill, Andy Bridgewater, Jenny Richards,
Nigel Sarling, Chris Wilkins, David Mapp, Beth Bridges, Lizzie
Lewandowski, Mark Reilly, Wayne Jones, Martin Brereton, Jonathan
Staite, Matt Derek, Craig Wagstaff, Stephen Smith, Sharon Cooney,
Lesley Wheatley, and Steve Neil. We would like to acknowledge the
importance of the support we have received from the UKFPU including
Paul Foley, Tim Gant, Chad Heuston, Adrian Roberts, and Mick
Johnson. We also extend thanks to Mark Holland and Martyn Henderson
of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA) and, for our work in
Switzerland, our close collaborators of Alain Brechbühl and his colleagues
at the University of Bern, as well as the police forces of the Cantons of
Bern and Zurich.
On the law, human rights, and football banning order aspects of this
book, we would like to extend our gratitude to those academics and prac-
titioners that have helped to clarify understandings on some of the com-
plex and constantly evolving areas, including Martin Browne, Melanie
Cooke, Mark James, David Mead, and Charmian Werren. Any errors
and oversights, however, remain ours and ours alone!
Finally, as we argue in this book, engagement with football supporters
is essential for achieving positive outcomes in this field. We have there-
fore tried to practice what we preach and would like to thank, in
viii Acknowledgements
particular, Amanda Jacks, Kevin Miles, Gwyn Davies, Paul Corkrey, ‘Big
Sam’, Macca, Adam Gilliatt, Vince Alm, Dave Rose, Andrew Hird, Kevin
Rye, Daniela Wurbs, and Endi Endemann for their contributions and
support. We also extend our thanks to the other (anonymous) fan group
supporter representatives who contributed to our work in Chap. 5 and
elsewhere.
Contents
1 I ntroduction 1
‘Euro Sunday’ 1
Knee-Jerk Reactions and Panic Law 7
Remit, Aims, and Original Contribution of This Book 9
Methodology 12
Football Crowd Regulation in England and Wales in 2022 15
References 20
2 The Historical Development of Policing and the Law at
Football Matches in the UK 23
Introduction 23
The Historical Development of Football Crowd Disorder
and the Emergence of ‘Football Hooliganism’ 24
‘Hooliganism’ and State Response: The 1970s and 1980s 29
Changing Trends: 1990–2000 31
Football Violence, Disorder, and Anti-social Behaviour
in the Twenty-First Century 34
The Development of Academic Understandings of Football
Crowd Disorder 38
Conclusion 45
References 46
ix