Soccer Fans

Roadburg, Alan. “Factors precipitating fan violence: a comparison of professional soccer in Britain and North America”. British Journal of Sociology. 265-76. Jstor. Web. 2 June. 1980.

This article is about the factors precipitating fan violence; due to recent introduction and popularity of professional soccer in United States and Canada, this article looks at wether the crowd which tends to accompany the game in Britain will be a problem in North America. Analysis includes the comparison of these countries historical development throughout time to present day conditions and rules of the game in Britain and North America. The article further elucidates Britain crowd violence mainly in in socio-cultural context as well as a educational level context, and explores the manner in which viewed in the stadiums. Roadburg, concludes that due to the differences in historical development and present day physical and social conditions the way soccer is played in Britain causes it’s self to have crowd violence whereas soccer in North America does not.

This article purpose is to compare professional soccer in Britain to its counterpart in North America. Roadburg starts his article of first, by giving us a very short insight of just how monstrous the crowd violence can be and how almost instantly it could abrupt into chaos. Roadburg then explains throughout the rest of the article the sociological problems that cause the major horrific crowd violence. The very beginning of the ladder to fan violence started way back at soccers infant stage. With two rival villages and few formal rules, property damage and injury to players came along with the game. In 1886 when soccer introduced new rules to dilute violence between players, an increase of v...

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... children of all ages make up a substantial portion of the audience. This is not the case in Britain, in Roadburg’s he noted only after a few games he notice almost the complete absence of women and small children, one only need to stand amongst the crowd in the terraces to see the spectators referred mostly to loosely working class.

In my opinion, I feel that Roadburg did a remarkable job conducting and communicating his study. He clearly and effectively acknowledged all sociological factors and any possible intervening variables that may have played a role in his results. I also strongly believe that he did outstandingly well going back historically to soccer’s infant stage with Britain all the way to present day. Roadburg also did fairly well staying with his purpose of this article by comparing professional soccer in Britain to its counterpart in North America.