Sweet FA

by NB Armstrong (December 2012)

Are Kevin, Shim and I optimistic? A match against Busan Ipark was typical of recent displays. One nil up against eight men, we passed it around the back four like gutless civil servants fearful of initiative. Or like a group of men fearful of injury and with their minds on only one match. But I have been optimistic in this competition since we won the quarter finals on penalties, and especially after the semi which we won away at Ulsan. So we are going to The Steelyard. So what?

_____________________

_____________________

Nega, no-wee, byeoli deh-ah (I will become your star),

On-jae-nah noh-wee gyeot-eh-sauw (Always at your side)

Ci-ity Ground,

Oh mist rolling in from the Trent,

My desire,

Is always to be here oh

Ci-ity Ground

or

mufcwarm92 has nothing but good memories of Blackburn away.

he signs off.

I got into town just after 11am and crowds had already formed around Piccadilly Gardens. Suddenly it went off somewhere and United were charging about like lunatics. I found myself outside Woolworths chasing some West Ham lads. We saw Jeff Lewis in a bus shelter being arrested because he had twatted someone, so we all went over. We crowded round and insisted Jeff had been attacked and the copper let him go because he was so scared.

They got back to Picaddilly and fucked off with their cameraman.

The first special was due in at 5:30pm. Logic indicated that the police would either escort them or, more likely, bus them to the ground. Without any concrete information, no major moves were made and yet again it turned into a drink, with small war parties and individual scouts constantly mooching off looking for the enemy.

Mass hooliganism at football matches in England has been on the wane for fifteen years for the following reasons:

  • Organized and experienced regional police forces and severe custodial sentences for those arrested for football related violence. CCTV everywhere in England.
  • A fissuring of the social bonds which tied young working class English men together in violent local self-identification, most notably due to deindustrialization and mass immigration, both of which have transformed the areas in which they grew up.
  • A steep rise in the cost of entry to football matches following the advent of the Premier League and all-seater stadiums following the Hillsborough stadium tragedy in which 96 supporters were crushed to death.
  • Almost every young man who attended football matches at this time, including your timorous but then football obsessed author, had some interest in what was happening in the crowd, be it what it wore, what it chanted, or how it moved. The above sorts of incidents, however, are largely gone from the English game, and almost no one misses them, though the phenomenon occasionally recrudesces in delimited outbreaks involving smaller groups.

    _________________

    Originally built in 1943, this is the last of eight 20 ton blast furnaces from the Samhwa works, which closed in 1973. The oldest remaining furnace in existence in South Korea, it was acquired by POSCO in 1993. Today it stands as a monument to Korean steelmaking development in the mid-20th century and a valuable resource for the study of smelting technology from that period.

    Epilogue

    To comment on this essay, please click here.

    here.

    If you have enjoyed this article want to read more by NB Armstrong, please click here.