I'm a soccer fan languishing here in the USA, and I thank heaven for Barclay's and the Fox Soccer Channel on a daily basis. So far I haven't made it over to see a game, but I have a couple of questions.

Virtually every game has a shot of the security guys lined up on both sides of an aisle, apparently separating, say, Gunner fans from the posh Chelsea supporters.

Is this really necessary? Would fans really get into a fight in the stands?

And the empty sections that I'd love to be sitting in: are these reserved for visiting fans only and just unfilled, or are they buffer sections? Do the seats go unfilled and unpaid for? How do the ticket sellers know who's local?

And those announcements near the end of the game about visitors exiting the pitch: are visitors routed away from the home fans?

One last query: here in the States, there would be no professional sports without alcohol sales in the stands. Hell, they resist even one alcohol free family section. A buddy, a Ranger fan who moved home years ago, claimed that there are no alcohol sales in the stadiums. Rarely do I glimpse a fan with any cup in hand, and there's hardly ever anybody in the aisles. Is alcohol sold during the games? How about food?

Thanks for helping out a colonial.

And Go Devils!

Since noone else has replied to you... I know very little about football but a few points...

Chelsea fan's aren't "posh". Chelsea may we a wealthy area of London, but in the past their fans have been some of the most violent. Search the "chelsea smile".

If fans aren't seperated there is a good chance of trouble.

No idea about the reserved seating.

Fans are often routed in different directions or even released from stadiums are different times.

I've not seen alcohol for sale at the few games I've been to.

Thing is, football violence is not as closely related to football as you may think. Hooliganism is a whole subculture in itself - quite an interesting read. I'm not sure how accurate it really is, but check out the movie "Green Street".

I say let 'em at each other. More Americans would watch Soccer, which is hockey on grass, which is basketball on ice, if the fans could fight.

Thanks for the information. Hard to follow that you can remove the alcohol but still have problems. Guess it's passion.

Bought my wife a Chelsea jersey and jacket for her birthday; at least she's posh.

This is the result of the situation in the mid to late 1980s, when there were, in short succession, a number of stadium 'disasters' with serious loss of life. These were: the Bradford City fire (56 dead), when the decaying stadium caught alight during a match; the events at the Heysel stadium in Brussels at the European Cup final, when Liverpool fans attacked Juventus supporters, again in a decaying stadium, with more mortalities (39 dead) the result; and the Hillsborough stadium FA Cup semi-final where many fans were crushed to death against supposed 'security' barricades (96 dead).

Football grounds at that time were generally in a poor state of repair, and there was a pronounced hooligan problem in and around the grounds (hence the reason for the fencing around pitches to prevent crowd invasions). Either one of those, and, at worst, a combination of both, was enough to pose a serious risk of death, and so it proved.

The result was the government's 'Taylor Report', which compelled the clubs to provide modern space standards and renovate or rebuild their grounds to proper standards of construction, along with updated facilites. Alcohol was seen as being a prime factor in the trouble, and was and is banned from top-flight grounds, although food and non-alcoholic drinks (generally at hugely inflated prices) are available. Top-class grounds were made all-seater, with standing banned, and segregation between fans was enforced by means including, as you meantion, greater use of stewarding, and exclusion zones between groups of fans.

Despite being forced to comply with these rules, the irony is that the present day money machine that is the English Premier League was born out of the situation, as smart, telegenic, modern stadia began to appear, with the designs including corporate boxes. The clubs pushed their marketing away from the regular fan with limited finances, and more in the direction of business sponsors and families. This has been hugely successful, and the plusses are that many more families feel welcome, as do people of non-white backgrounds, and racism is generally very much looked down on. The EPL also tied up with Sky TV, raking in vast sums of money and allowing access to the cameras that has helped to market the league around the world. Partly, from the football clubs' point of view, this deal was originally to offset the cost of renewing the stadia.

However...the memories of the hooligans are still very raw - there are still various clubs who have 'previous', and some particular groups of fans who have a particular antipathy towards others. At games between teams with a history of tribal troubles, the policing and stewarding will be particularly tightly organised. In extreme cases, where there is a recent history of trouble, visiting fans may even be forced to congregate at a meeting point outside the city where the game is being played, and be bussed in to the game by a route that doesn't involve meeting the opposing team's supporters. They will then be surrounded during the game, held back until long after the match has finished, and then bussed back again. But, it should be said, those are rare events. Generally though, the clubs do not want to give organised hooligans the chance to kill the golden goose, and so will maintain a few rows of space between visiting and home fans, and train their stewards to try to defuse trouble before it can get a hold.

And, although Chelsea are from a posh part of London, and doubtless have posh fans, the so-called 'Chelsea Headhunters' are more reason for the precautions. (Arsenal fans are traditionally more genteel.) And organised battles still take place, but they tend to do so either away from the grounds, where the policing will be heaviest, or related to smaller teams.

Most of the main teams' support in the grounds is based on season ticket sales, and the prices can be very high for people wanting to buy a one-off ticket for a match.

Hope that answers the question.

I don't know much about football, but this stikes me as being flat out wrong. Football hooliganism was prevailant long before those disasters. The 70s and early 80s were the worst times for hooliganism - at least inside stadiums.

The hooligna situation today is less about football than it once was.

Hooliganism (specifically football-related hooliganism) was indeed prevalent for a long time, certainly matches I attended in the 1970s as a boy had an undertone of violence around the grounds, and, as I mentioned, it still goes on in less well policed areas than the main grounds. As you say, hooliganism inside stadia was worst in the '70s and '80s, and I was giving a potted version of why that improved in the '90s and the last decade. I was also addressing the specific points that were raised in the original post about why there are currently zones of empty seats in grounds, stewarding, lack of alcohol etc, and offering my thoughts as to how they tie in to the culture shift that followed the Taylor Report.

However, David, we do seem to be able to agree on the point that not all Chelsea fans are angels.

I was at Hillboro in the Forest end,which was the spion kop.
A very sad day indeed!
You can get alcohol in the ground,though you can't take it to your seat,you can drink by the booths/concessions that sell it.
I watch my local team nowadays in the Blue square North division,(we were knocked outmof the FA cup on Saturday)which I find a bit easier on the pocket,though still go and see Forest a few times a year.
Beowulf,it's not as bad as it sounds,you'd have a great time!The atmosphere is great.
Cheers,Ray.

I attended the 1990 Cup games in Cagliari, Sardinia. The rumor at the time was that the Brit preliminaries were scheduled for Sardinia so that fans could be more easily controlled and trouble-causing hooligans could be more easily rounded up - Sardinia being an island with controlled air and ferry transport. The theory was that his added level of control would reduce interaction with the police. Didn't help a lot. I stayed with a friend outside of the stadium and the Carabinieri and Urbani were kept very, very busy.

And Ray Tupper is right, despite the fact that the subject of the thread is about security and alcohol in the grounds, if you get to go to a game, you should, the atmosphere can be fantastic to be part of. You'd be much more at risk driving to the shops, or crossing a road, than at a match.

Unless, that is, you do something stupid like sit in the middle of 40,000 Glasgow Rangers fans to watch them play your team, and when your team equalises in the last minute, jump up and punch the air and shout "Yeeeeessssssss!" That's not recommended, I can tell you.

Are you one of the Bhoys Muse?
Cheers,Ray.

No, if I had been that that would have taken my actions from ill-advised exuberance into gross stupidity!

And talking of which, I did once stand in the middle of the Kop at Anfield and sang along with the crowd, except substituting 'Everton' for 'Liverpool' in all the chants. The crowd was so loud on that occasion that no-one except my friends standing around me heard what I was doing.

Brilliant! Thanks so much for all the information. My dream is to win the lottery and then see a game in each of the EPL venues. Then on to Barca and the Camp Nou.

Saw a wrap-up of the opening FA games last night. One pitch even had a hand-lettered sign on the wall telling the ballboys to go round to the front to reclaim balls. Understand the safety concern, but loved seeing the supporters right at the edge of the field. Nothing like this here.

Another question: really love watching the players come out holding hands with the children; how are the children picked for this? Another fantastic tradition.

In the meantime, recording the City/United derby this afternoon.

Well, from this story it is not all lovey dovey at these matches:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-......ice.html

:)

The points above, certainly the ones I was trying to make, were saying that the problem has been vastly reduced from when it was at its worst, not that it has been eradicated. In particular, where there are matches with a long history of rivalry, such as the one between the two Birmingham teams, it remains an occasional risk. 'Lovey dovey' is probably a bit much to ever hope for, but the point remains that by going to a match you are very unlikely to get involved in anything more untoward than being ripped off by the prices, and you will certainly be at much more risk driving, or crossing a road.

You sure you are an American Beowulf? You are using terms common to the Brits...bothers me when Americans use terminology from other countries. Do you say 'cheers'?

I wonder why, when I see movies made in england, there is so much reference to our movies and TV. Do they get EVERYTHING we get? I know about most of the movies, but TV? I have seen some really old school stuff in those british movies.

Talking from a UK point of view (Scotland, rather than England, but we get the same TV give or take local news), we do get loads of US stuff, and that has always been the way. It used to be that we got it ages after you, but with the internet allowing everyone to see everything much more easily, we often get the ones that are most popular, like the Simpsons or Modern Family, very soon after you do. Kids' TV is wall to wall Spongebob and Phineas & Ferb, but then in my youth it was all Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes, later on Phil Silvers and Rowan & Martin. I've no idea if there are lots of other things you get that we don't but House, Big Bang Theory, American's Next Top Model, etc etc...we get a lot because, as I understand it, we get them cheap, certainly cheaper than making local programmes.

Makes sense, I was wondering how they got to y'all so quick.

And just to clarify, when I said about the Internet making a difference, I didn't mean people watching the US programmes online, more that the TV companies know that people could do that, so they bring the programmes to screen as fast as they can so they can maximise their advertising revenues.