Encounters with Hooligans

Not strictly part of the World cup, and thankfully this WC seems to be free of them, but I thought I would put this tale up for a bit of comment. I wasn't in Landsdowne road in 1995 when English thugs/neo nazis disgracefully rioted and caused the abandonment of the game. Various governments and police authorities had done a lot to reduce this problem, beginning in the aftermath of the Heysel disaster in 1985, yet it remained a problem for one country, England, when they travelled abroad to major tournaments, as evidenced by the deployment of water cannon by the French against some of their 'followers' in 1998, for one example.
In late 2003, with Ireland still in with a chance of qualifying for Portugal Euro 2004, and me badly in need of a holiday after finally paying for Japan 02, a few of us took a chance and booked a fortights holiday in Portugal at the time of the opening rounds of the championship. We were staying in Albufiera, a holiday resort that was quite close to the venue for Englands first game. Ireland, of course, didn't qualify, but we managed to get tickets for Spain Russia (nil all, and rubbish as it happened) and went to enjoy the holiday. As with a lot of these sun resorts, Albufiera is basically one long strip/street, where all the pubs/clubs restaurants are. The resort was fairly full of England fans, on our first night there, we met 2 genuine lads from London who advised us not to go further down the strip (we were approx half way), they had been down there earlier on and said it was getting very 'messy' down there, they were sure of trouble and wanted no part in that. Like all genuine fans, they couldn't understand the mentality of this. The lads were right, some troble did start, we weren't close enough to see it, but the police were not really ready for it. This turned out to be small scale enough, with furniture and glasses being broken and a few fights. There was a larger influx of fans expected the next day, and speaking to the bar owner, he was sure the police would be ready this time. How right he was...

Night 2.
I should first mention the Portugese police, the GNR. The GNR are a military police force, not a civilian one, and their attitude toward people in general, never mind hooligans, would not be of a friendly nature at the best of times. They assembled early (7 O'Clock) at the top of the strip, probably 2 van loads of them, fully dressed in riot gear, extendable batons, the lot. They also had 6 horses in riot gear, which was impressive. Horses with shields over their heads and legs is not something you normally see outside of Russell Crowe doing a film about the Romans. They made their way down to the end of the strip, we went to our holiday drinking spot about half way. Nothing happened for about 3 hours, the bar owner told us what would happen if it did. The GNR would baton charge the whole lot up the strip by any means necessary, basically beating anybody who didn't move quickly, regardless of whether they were involved in anything or not. Then, they would close down all the pubs/clubs behind them as they went, making sure nobody could re-convene and restart anything. This pub was on the 2nd floor, we had a good view down the strip, and eventually, it started.
The 'ENG ER LAND' chants started getting louder, somebody threw a chair through a window, cue bedlam. Full scale riot broke out, the GNR moved in to do their thing. They didn't mess about, the baton charge, the horses and a load of drunken yobs trying to out run the police all started coming toward us fairly quickly. The bar owner announced he was closing, in case some of the scum out running the police would come up to his pub on the balcony and start hurling stuff down, or wreck his place. We were moving. By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs, they were a lot closer. Staying on the street meant a chance of the police catching up and getting a clatter for not moving quick enough, we saw a pub open across the road and thought we would stay in out of the way until it was over.

The pub was long and narrow, and when we got here, seemed full. As we slowly made our way down to the very back, a realisation dawned on us that every person in the pub was English. Didn't know what was going to happen re the people in the pub getting involved in the riot, or the thought of the GNR coming in and beating everybody if or when that happened. We sat down, and before we had even got a drink, a large shaven headed fella, bodybuilder type, tattoos, eyebrow rings, shirtless, stereotypical hooligan looking fella comes over to us and says ' Alright lads, where ya from?' It is fair to say we were all looking at him thinking ' Thats it, we're killed' The brave lad in the group says 'Ireland' , yer man turns around and shouts to his mate at the top of the pub ' Hey Johnny, the lads here are from Ireland'. Johnny makes his way down the pub. He is like his mate in every way, except bigger, with more tattoos, more studs in his eybrows and ears and genuinley scary looking. Johnny says to us ' What part of Ireland ye from lads? ' We reply ' Waterford , down south, and our mate here is from Estonia'. Johnny then says ' Do ye know Bray Wanderers lads (in a thick scouse accent), I played for them in the late 80s on trial, got a 2 all draw with Cobh Ramblers' Turned out to be as nice a fella as you could meet, we talked football for a few minutes until the riot drew closer.
Some English fella at the front door had popped his head out for a look, turns around to the pub and says ' The f*cking police, they just beat a fella and his girlfriend across the road, they were doing nothing, I'm not having that' and goes toward the counter to grab a glass to throw at them.

Our new best friend Johnny says ' hold on a minute there lads' to us sprints up to the top of the pub, grabs yer man, sits him down, stands up on a table and announced what was going to happen next. This was a lesson.

Johnny goes to the whole pub 'Right lads, I've been in this situation before. If anybody throws anything out of this pub at the police, they wont come in and do anything. They will roll in a cannister of teargas, you will crawl out of here on your hands and knees, then the police will wait outside for you and beat you as you leave. Now, anybody who wants to be involved in this, leave now, the rest of us will stay here and not cause trouble. Anybody who wants to throw anything out of here will have to go through me first. That OK with everybody? ' Not surprisingly, nobody disagreed. He came back down with his mate to continue the chat, we were asking him how exactly he knew so much about this kind of stuff, he went on to tell us that he was involved in 'some of that kind of stuff' when he was younger, didn't go into a whole lot of detail, but turned out he had a wife and kid and had given it up due to copping on and the responsibility of a family. Outside, the riot was petering out, the GNR came in and closed the pub, ending the conversation, wished each other all the best, and we were on the way back to the hotel after an eventful night.

Night 3.
We were now getting the hang of this, we thought for this night, we would leave our spot as soon as the trouble started and make our way back up toward the top of the strip, these pubs would be the last to be closed, thus, more drinking time. This is what we did, but because we were better planned, we were even able to stop in a few pubs on our way back up, the police had yet to get as far as where we were. In another pub, we met a bunch of lads from Portsmouth, the usual bodybuilder/tattooed type, turned out they were more ' reformed' hooligans. These lads had a more interesting take on it, they reckoned the 'quality' of the hooliganism wasn't up to scratch, the hooligans were too young, out of their heads on drink and not able to fight the police properly!!. Coming from a background of supporting the Boys in Green, where the good behaviour of the hardcore is take as a given (although there have been some unsavoury incidents, maybe thats a discussion for another day) , this conversation seemed downright odd. Again, these lads were now in their 30's , with families, their wives had made them cop on. I can't actually offer any analysis on this school of thought, asking the lads ' and what is the attraction of being a hooligan' may have caused offence, and otherwise they seemed grand lads, talking about that days game like any football fan, so we just decided to take it all in, and nod at the appropriate moments.

Night 4.
The last night of the riots, as ENG ER LAND were moving on to Lisbon for the next game. We were nearly bored of the riots at this stage, riot fatigue had set in. The same stuff happened, this time we went to the very last pub at the top of the strip, reasoning it would be the last to be closed, Place was empty, a small group of young English lads at the next table, all about 20, talking amongst themselves. At one stage, one of them turned around and politely asked us for a light. Minutes later, the first of the rioters running away from the GNR started to come in, and the mob mentality that they are famous for set in. The lads who had been at the table beside us, politely asking for a light, were now up on the table, singing ' No surrender to the IRA' in our direction. They were only young fellas, and there were 6 of us, we didn't move, reasoning that they were harmless enough and most of this display was drink induced bravado. As more came in , the songs all nations love kicked in, '10 German bombers' and '2 world wars, one world cup' More than we could stomach, and we left. We were a few minutes up the road, one of the lads turns to us and says ' Feck it, we should go back there with a small bag, and in your best Northern Ireland accent, ask them to 'mind' it, and leave again, just to see the reaction. Now , that was in bad taste, but after experiencing 3 nights of them, I probably would have done it. For the record, we thought the better of it, but I still have some regrets......

Well I hope that entertained ye somewhat, I raelly can't draw any conclusions, I just don't understand the mindset, and I'm thankful this disease never travels with our country, and long may that continue....



Minty