Letter: Not a cuddly game

R. S. Barry
Friday 19 June 1998 23:02 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Letter: Not a cuddly game

Sir: Suzanne Moore blames male culture for, well, everything that isn't nice, but obviously for football hooliganism. Your correspondents seem to blame Paul Gascoigne and tabloid xenophobia for the same thing. In the usual panic-stricken rush to provide answers, the wrong questions are endlessly trotted out. Ban alcohol? Remove passports? Re-educate offenders? Oh, dear.

Middle-class handwringing is misplaced. Oh yes, we all know that when we are abroad the host culture is allowed its own integrity - those are their ways of doing things, their sensibilities. However, for an urban working-class culture that admires toughness and celebrates rivalry no such shifting of context applies. They are proud of their form of Englishness and don't care how provocative that pride may be. Football becomes an expression of loyalty (which, in its extreme form, can be loutishness, intolerance and arrogance).

The rest of us feel ashamed of such pride because hooliganism makes us all look barbaric. In fact, it is the upshot of one part of English social history. Now that the middle classes want to cuddle up to football they seem surprised at having to cuddle up to its previous owners at the same time. Football still has some of its roots in an aggressive sense of honour, in meat pies and fizzy beer. Chardonnay, baguettes and internationalism are late starters in the English context. The rest of the world is entitled to be confused. We are not.

R S BARRY

Wellington, Somerset

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in