"Certain kinds of high-profile events have become traditional “starting signals” for civil disorders. In fact, incidents can become signals simply because they have been signals before.
What ignited the first English soccer riot has been lost in the mists of history; but they had become a troublesome problem sometime during the nineteenth century, as Bill Buford (1991) makes clear in quoting old newspaper accounts in his Among the Thugs.
Today, there is a century’s weight of tradition behind soccer violence.. People near a football ground on game day know that a certain amount of mischief, possibly of a quite violent kind, is apt to occur. Those who dislike that sort of thing had best take themselves elsewhere.
Certain people, though, thrive on the action —relish getting drunk, fighting, smoking dope; enjoy the whiff of anarchy, harassing and beating respectable people and vandalizing their property.
Such people—hooligans—make a point of being where the trouble is likely to start. The sort of “soccer fans” about whom Buford wrote were mostly interested in barbarian camaraderie, not soccer. Some of them do not even go inside the stadium, and some spectators do not watch the game but pass their time in petty thievery. Hooligans’ game is being a part of the crowd that congregates near a soccer stadium, belonging to and sharing its power, especially its power to flout the law."
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1994/5/cj14n1-13.pdf
What ignited the first English soccer riot has been lost in the mists of history; but they had become a troublesome problem sometime during the nineteenth century, as Bill Buford (1991) makes clear in quoting old newspaper accounts in his Among the Thugs.
Today, there is a century’s weight of tradition behind soccer violence.. People near a football ground on game day know that a certain amount of mischief, possibly of a quite violent kind, is apt to occur. Those who dislike that sort of thing had best take themselves elsewhere.
Certain people, though, thrive on the action —relish getting drunk, fighting, smoking dope; enjoy the whiff of anarchy, harassing and beating respectable people and vandalizing their property.
Such people—hooligans—make a point of being where the trouble is likely to start. The sort of “soccer fans” about whom Buford wrote were mostly interested in barbarian camaraderie, not soccer. Some of them do not even go inside the stadium, and some spectators do not watch the game but pass their time in petty thievery. Hooligans’ game is being a part of the crowd that congregates near a soccer stadium, belonging to and sharing its power, especially its power to flout the law."
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1994/5/cj14n1-13.pdf