The Amsterdam soccer riots

Who? Whom?

So, what just happened in the Amsterdam soccer riots?

Back in the 1980s, soccer hooliganism (especially by Brits) was a pervasive plague across Europe. It’s hard for American football fans to grasp because our version of football, while being extremely violent on the field, has always been quite genteel in the stands and among parking lot tailgaters.

While attending American football games is a mixed-sex middle class social event (with only a handful of teams, like the Oakland Raiders, attracting a scary element), soccer games in Europe, especially in Britain, were often excuses for working class male fans to organize into aggressive war bands.

In 1980, I shared a train compartment through Switzerland with two English skinheads on their way to support the English national team against Italy in Turin. Their plan for supporting England was to first march through downtown Turin smashing up department store windows, which would show those Italians that the English can raid anywhere they want on the Continent. Then, after the match, them and a few of the boys would meet Italian hooligans, if any dared show up to defend their home turf, behind the stadium for some of the old ultra-violence.