The vast majority of scholars credit the Premier League with initiating a working class decline in football. However, in reality the shift from supporter to consumer began much earlier. Both Britain and football were looking to change during the 1980s. Institutionally, the F.A and Football League squabbled over the future of the game. Politically, under Margaret Thatcher’s administration, Britain would experience the most turbulent industrial and social decade of recent times. The instability resulted in a lasting effect on the nature of England’s football fandoms. Furthermore, the increasing prominence of football hooliganism brought the game and its supporters into disrepute. Football’s fate would be sealed by the disastrous events at Hillsborough in 1989. The Taylor report was issued in the aftermath of the disaster and would force top-flight clubs to implement all-seater stadia. The demand would lay the foundations for modern football.
Institutionally, football was already looking to cash in on the growing international interest in football prior to the Premier League period. Often ignored by most sporting scholarship are the influential commercial changes that occurred throughout the 1980s. The desire to transfer from clubs to companies was clear right at the start of the decade: ‘As early as 1981 a number of first division clubs realised that the inward philosophy of the football league was a barrier financially’[1] Clubs turned into Plc’s and Spurs would be the first club to float itself on the London Stock Exchange in 1983. Furthermore, The Heysel disaster of 1985 meant English clubs were banned from Europe, therefore the big clubs steered increasingly near to a top-flight break-away. The F.A relaxed its stance on directors being paid, as they were now legally allowed a salary. Furthermore, shareholders dividends increased from 5% to 15%.[2] The result meant by 1985 a de facto financial super league had emerged spear headed by the ‘Big Five’ of Liverpool, Everton, Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.[3] The clubs received more money and more voting power. Commercialism sparked a breakdown of relationships which would be cemented by the arrival of the Premier League.
The financial potential for bigger clubs meant they were no longer concerned with long standing collective rituals: ‘in the late 1980s the big clubs were getting more disillusioned and didn’t want to be a part of the annual First and Second Division Official Dinners’.[4]
The Football Association also made key institutional decisions which would widen the gap between the bigger and smaller clubs. The governing body’s decision was again financially motivated. The organisation at the beginning of the decade was making little money in comparison to the Football League. The league had signed a £2 million deal to turn the League Cup into the Milk Cup and the next year a Japanese company Canon bought sponsorship of the Championship.[5] The Football Association were limited to the sole revenues brought through from their competition, the FA Cup. Therefore during the 1980s, the governing body was increasingly open to commercialism. The governing body would eventually instigate the Premier League break-away in 1992. However, their intent was consistently apparent throughout the 1980s. A Daily Mirror column from 1985 described the F.A’s decision to sell TV highlights of the Community Shield Final as a ‘willingness to stab the league in the back’[6]. TV companies were increasingly powerful in bypassing so called FA regulations. However, the most significant development came in 1988 with the new ITV deal. The forty-four million pound agreement again benefited the bigger clubs and made a more middle-class entertainment style available to a large section of British society. In the short aftermath of the deal, David Lacey of The Guardian remarked that ITV’s head of programming Greg Dyke was now the ‘paymaster, ringmaster and most powerful man in football’[7]. The power and influence in football had shifted firmly away from the supporter and to key business figure heads. The TV connection with football would be furthered by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV, the details of which are detailed in the following chapter.
Whilst Margaret Thatcher is arguably best known for her suppression of the mining and manufacturing industries, her attack on football should not be underestimated. It has already been acknowledged that ‘Football’s collective experience built both a masculine and working-class identity’.[8] The practise contrasted firmly with a Thatcherite ideology which encouraged a more distinct individualism. Due to the nature of Thatcher’s industrial reforms, the working classes would be the hardest hit. Liverpool and Manchester were two key Northern cities to suffer from Mrs Thatcher’s industrial reforms. Liberal MP for Liverpool David Alton delivered a Commons speech in 1986 highlighting the social problems from the vast unemployment in the city. He argued that Mrs Thatcher does not seem to care about Liverpool or about the unemployed generally. He backs this up with the statistic that one in five people in Liverpool were on the dole whilst the working class youth of Merseyside was also suffering with 39% out of work.[9] Employment was central to working class life and to be out of work meant a loss of identity: ‘For men raised in a culture where masculine self-esteem is closely tied to employment, to be out of work is to suffer a crisis of identity which leads to a breakdown in familial relationships and class solidarity’.[10] Another key component of working class culture was football; therefore it is unsurprising that the industrial decline affected the sport. Despite two European Cup successes and four league titles from 1980 to 1984, Liverpool’s attendance figures fell from an average of 44,586 to 31,974 during the four years. The picture across Stanley Park painted a similar picture with Everton’s attendance plummeting by 9,368 in the same period.[11]
A comical TV sketch from the 1980s illustrates the hindrance of Thatcherism upon Liverpool’s working class culture. The anti-Thatcher TV drama series entitled ‘The Boys from the Blackstuff’ was shown on screens from 1980 to 82. The TV programme used Anfield and Goodison Park to comically portray the City’s working class grievances. The character of Yosser Hughes had catch phrases of ‘I can do that’ and ‘Gizza Job’. The sentiment was so strong that ‘the blackstuff broke through into the greater audience of soccer chants… Every time someone scored a goal, it was ‘We can do that’.[12] The shouts clearly reinforce that: ‘Football supporters are historically drawn from the working class which has led to the incorporation of masculine norms and values… Crucial to this ethos is the importance of bodily strength via industrial production’.[13] It is the focus on employment which is particularly significant. In terms of identity: working class, masculinity, football and employment are all tied together. A reduction in one negatively impacts upon the collective and this was the case in the 1980s with employment. Supporters no longer had the money to attend matches and therefore the chants signified a breakdown in this specific culture. Due to its macho comic nature, it may be expected that the TV show invigorated the working classes of Liverpool but in reality the opposite occurred. Andrew Fagan, grandson of Liverpool manager Joe Fagan states that the The Boys from the Blackstuff and Scully (another Liverpool TV Drama) were having an adverse effect on Liverpool attendance figures[14].
The show was stopped in 1982 as Liverpool and its’ football clubs were increasingly looking to dismiss their working class stigma. Liverpool players had been involved in ‘The Boys from the Blackstuff’. Sammy Lee and Graham Souness had cameos whilst Alan Kennedy and Steve Heighway were from local working class areas corresponding with the show’s characters. However, the identity and compatible relationship began to falter during this period as Liverpool sought free market commercialism. The new self-minded business approach was followed across England’s top flight as ‘football clubs became embedded within the economic rationalizing forces of modernity’[15]. There was an increasingly dismissive attitude from clubs towards their local working class supporters. Bob paisley made a speech to Liverpool players in 1984 telling the players to forget all the city’s problems and focus on their football.
1980s British football was also marred by trouble in the stands. Football
‘Hooligans’ and ‘genuine’ supporters were distinguished upon under class differences. Hooligans were the face of Britain’s working class youth whilst the more ‘genuine’ supporter represented the emerging middle class in Britain. The national mythology was wholly incorrect as in reality ‘football spectators from many different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds participated in football violence’. [16] Nevertheless the stereotype stuck amongst many in Britain. The media was instrumental in cultivating this image. In the aftermath of the Luton Milwall riots in 1985 which left over 50 people injured, The Daily Mirror demanded that the government ‘hammer the savages’.[17] The article entitled ‘A League of Violence’[18] states how ‘Of an average 6,000 home gate, 1500 are probably sympathisers of the British Movement and the National Front… they are a club brought up on a macho image of violence’.[19] The writer provides a vague prediction of the crowd in explaining the violence at Kenilworth Road. Furthermore, the National Front is a group synonymous with white working class skinheads. This therefore strengthens the connection between hooligans and those from the working class.
Whilst the media portrayal and coverage of football’s troubles can be questioned, the extent of the violence cannot be undermined. 1985 also marked the year of the Heysel disaster. So extent was the violence in the Thatcher era that she set up a ‘war cabinet’ to tackle the sport in the mid-80s following the disaster. This was the first time Mrs Thatcher got directly involved in the game. Thatcher’s intervention was inevitable, The Valley Parade fire was two weeks prior to Heysel and resulted in the deaths of fifty six fans when a fire broke out in the stand, likely caused by a lit cigarette. However, the Heysel disaster in Brussels proved the decisive event which shaped Mrs Thatcher’s opinion on the sport and its supporters. A charge from Liverpool resulted in the deaths of 39 Juventus fans when a wall collapsed at the European Cup Final. The incident was shown live on television and Thatcher had her mind made up. The immensely inadequate nature of the ground combined with inefficient planning from UEFA was ignored and the supporters became the target.
Following the disaster, Mrs Thatcher explained football’s violence in a Commons speech: ‘Violence is caused partly because there is now more money and far more mobility than there was in the past, and that enables people to move from one soccer club to another much quickly’.[20] As already noted in this chapter, there was very little social mobility, wealth and employment in Northern England. Therefore this highlights Thatcher’s neglect of a northern working class culture with football. Whilst her comments may have been more applicable in Southern parts of England, the reality for the Liverpool supporters was that ‘during the 1980s and 1990s Liverpool’s economic and social fabric had been ripped apart’.[21] It was highly infrequent to see a Northern Englishman transcend class barriers during this period. Alternatively, the real catalyst for supporters changing sides was down to the increasing commercial and consumer interest which was accelerated by Thatcherism. David Maddock wrote in the Mirror of September 2011 that ‘Thatcher hated football fans; in fact she hated the working classes full stop’.[22] The first I would agree with, however the second statement is more open to question. It is no secret that Mrs Thatcher did not like football in the slightest and had no sympathy with its troublesome supporters. However, Thatcher didn’t believe in a class system and saw Britain as a classless society. Therefore it was more a disregard for Britain’s working classes rather than a hatred.
The Prime Minister used football hooliganism as a scape goat in order to force her own political agenda. The government aimed to satisfy the moral panic and anxiety which gripped Britain in the early 1980s by blaming the working classes: ‘Rhetorical strategies used by responsible parties such as political leadership, police, and football authorities to demonize working class spectators’. [23] The government and media kept up their blame rhetoric and used it to introduce a membership scheme, closed circuit television and made it compulsory for all supporters to have an ID card at matches. Thatcher’s political agenda was to embrace the free market through privatization whilst attacking the trade unions and coal and gas industries. The trade unions gave workers a collective strength and harmony. The same can be said for football, especially in the North of England. Therefore, Thatcher grouped and targeted the organisations, the net effect was a declining working class culture with football.
Likewise a Thatcherite ideology also encouraged the implementation of a football ‘free market’. The market meant the football league would operate first and foremost as a business and football fans had to become customers. Anthony King argues the ‘free-market argument was socially exclusionary in intent which attempted to eradicate a masculine culture’.[24] A working class identity with football was becoming increasingly unacceptable. The increasing commercial connection with football was changing the dynamics of football arenas. David Goldblatt in his work on ‘The Making of English Football’[25] uses the best available data on football crowds. He concludes that ‘the basic shift away from football crowds as overwhelmingly working class occurred before the economic and cultural transformations of the 1990s’.[26] Specifically, in the 1980s, two-thirds of top-flight crowds were middle class.
It has already been noted that Thatcherism ideology changed a collective mentality to an individual mentality. The same can be said for a local identity being replaced to a national status. As a result: ‘Football become the focus for a new kind of identity for working class male youth… Fierce loyalties now existed outside immediate territory… hostilities were suspended due to a more English Chauvinism’.[27] The arrival of middle class consumerism to football now meant fans could support whoever from their living rooms. Statistically first division attendances declined from an average of 26,327 to 20,757 over the decade.[28] There is a common misconception that the working class following is still strong in lower divisions of the football league. However all football league divisions experienced a significant decline in attendances during the 1980s. Ticket prices were yet to change; therefore it was the emergence of a consumer model combined with widespread unemployment which moved working classes away from the game.
For obvious reasons, it is difficult to pinpoint the most important moment or event which changed the working class relationship with football. However, the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 would prove football’s watershed moment. In terms of working class involvement with football, the subsequent Taylor Report of 1990 would be instrumental in the decline. The disaster resulted in the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters who tragically lost their lives in a crush at an F.A Cup Semi Final. Despite an out of date stadium safety certificate combined with inadequate policing, the supporters were smeared as responsible. The Hillsborough Independent Panel in 2012 found that ‘the behaviour on the part of the football supporters which played no part in contributing to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles’.[29] Nevertheless, the blame was sealed due to the class hostility in British culture.
The Press, Police and Government systematically worked together to demonize Liverpool’s supporters. To hide their wrongdoings, the police altered 219 officer statements. The police had opened a gate which ultimately led to the crush on the Leppings Lane Terrace. Following the findings of the Hillsborough Independent Panel in 2016, it is clear Mrs Thatcher was also at the heart of this cover-up. The Prime Minister arrived at Hillsborough the day following the disaster and ‘there was no question she and her colleagues viewed the disaster through the lens of hooliganism’.[30] Thatcher’s Press Secretary Bernard Ingram accompanied her to the ground. Ingram would later remark in a letter to a Liverpool fan in 1996 that ‘there would have been no Hillsborough without no tanked up mob… to blame the police is a cop-out’.[31] It was decided that Hillsborough would be the scape goat for football’s reform. The game was in that need of a clean-up, the realities and harrowing truth of Hillsborough was left untold in the biggest cover up of recent times. Author and Hillsborough survivor Adrian Tempany helps reinforce the extent of Thatcher’s dislike of football supporters through an interview with Conservative MP Kenneth Clarke. Clarke recalls how ‘Thatcher had grouped football supporters alongside militant trade unions and the IRA as ‘the enemy within’.[32]
Richard Guillianotti categorises the press coverage in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster as operating within a ‘Deviance amplification spiral’.[33] The situation occurs when the media hyperbolically frame any supporter disorder as violent and dangerous. Undoubtedly, the most infamous press report from the disaster was the Sun Newspaper’s front page entitled ‘The Truth’.[34] The article blamed drunken fans for the disaster and accused them of pick pocketing and urinating on one another. Liverpool F.C would wait 23 years to be absolved of guilt and receive an apology from the Newspaper. Whilst, the Sun Newspaper’s article provides the most shocking reportage of the disaster, other newspapers provided a similar smear of the supporters. The Sheffield Star headline read ‘Fans in drunken attacks on police: Ticketless thugs’[35] stage crush whilst the Yorkshire post remarked ‘thousands of fans began the fatal charge… drunkenness and ticketlessness were now added to the equation’.[36]
The subsequent Taylor Report in the aftermath of the disaster concluded that ‘The Leppings Lane End was unsatisfactory and ill-suited to admit the number of fans invited’.[37] The stadium didn’t possess a valid safety certificate as it hadn’t been updated since 10 years earlier. However, it was the second report, in January of the following year which would have the greatest effect on English football. Lord Justice Taylor forced all-seater stadia in the top flight. The report facilitated the vast commercialism of the Premier League era which is detailed in the follow chapter. In keeping with the growing neglect of supporters, those on the terraces were not consulted about the shift. It is questionable whether such a radical report could have been implemented under any other political model: ‘Lord Taylor’s socially democratic recommendations could only ever be implemented by such an entrepreneurial and free market government’.[38] It was the last of Mrs Thatcher’s policies in a bid to rid all what was wrong with the game. The introduction of safe seating can be argued as a ‘sanitization of football grounds through a modernization hegemon’.[39]
Leading on from the Taylor Report, a private company named Henley Centre Forecast created a report for the FA which concluded that ‘the key economic growth market in the late 80s was the affluent middle-class consumer with large disposable income’.[40] The report ultimately argued that the game had become ‘too working class’ and needed to change to allow for greater commodification. The forecast finalised this conclusion by highlighting the widening gap between the rich and poor of England. The report details ‘increasing divisions between public sector and private sector facilities. Privatization was at the heart of Thatcherism, and the forecast rightfully predicted the shift as responsible for fundamental ‘class, affluence and attitude shifts’.[41]
For many key figures and authorities, football in the 1980s was outdated and needed to change to allow the Conservative’s government’s pursuit of social stratification. The argument that the Premier League suddenly sparked modern football is too simplified. In reality, The Premier League simply extended on a vast scale the cultural, economic and social changes which were already set in motion a decade earlier. Thatcherism targeted identity. From Trade Unions to other industries, less emphasis was placed on collectivism with a much greater focus on the individual. Within this transition football also suffered. Once a powerhouse of working class existence; football’s working class had been systematically tarnished by the Press, Police and Government in the 1980s.
Whilst many systems, authorities and concepts are to blame for the working class demise the most influential on changing the sport was Margaret Thatcher. Her politics sparked a war on football hooliganism and created a police mentality which facilitated the cover-up of Hillsborough. Under her policies, the working classes were attacked industrially, socially and politically. Her hatred of football combined with her disregard for Britain’s working classes meant that ‘By 1989, the unions had been tamed; the IRA had found Thatcher bombproof… Football supporters were in doubt that there could only be one winner’. [42]Under Thatcher’s government class distinctions were no longer intertwined with identity and were seen as a barrier to progress. As a result, every English top flight club suffered during this period with all top flight clubs experiencing declining attendances, status and most importantly for this study, identity.
[1] Gibbons, Tom. English National Identity And Football Fan Culture. 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2016, page 54.
[2] Conn, David. The Beautiful Game? 1st ed. London: Yellow Jersey Press, 2005.
[3] Conn, David. The Beautiful Game? 1st ed. London: Yellow Jersey Press, 2005.
[4] Ridley, Ian. There’s A Golden Sky. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012, pg 257.
[5] Taylor, Matthew. The Association Game. 1st ed. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008.
[6] Harris, Harry. “FA TV SELL OUT”. The Daily Mirror, 23rd July 1985: 27. Print.
[7] Taylor, Matthew. 2008, p 343.
[8] August, Andrew. 2007. The British Working Class, 1832-1940. 1st ed. Harlow, England: Pearson Longman, p 152.
[9] Alton, D. 1986, ‘Liverpool’, House of Commons Debate vol 94, transcript, Hansard, 27th March 1986, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1986/mar/27/liverpool
[10] Margaret Thatcher and the struggle for Working-Class Identity”. Journal of Popular Film and Television 29.1 (2001): 5.
[11] Attendance Data. European Football Statistics. http://european-football-statistics.co.uk/
[12] Tulloch, John. Television Drama. Agency, Audience And Myth. 1st ed. London [u.a.]: Routledge, 2005.
[13] Armstrong, Gary, and Richard Giulianotti. 2001. Football Cultures And Identities. 1st ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
[14] Fagan, Andrew, and Mark Platt. Joe Fagan. 1st ed. London: Aurum, 2012.
[15] Mainwaring, Ed, and Tom Clark. 2011. “‘We’re Shit and We Know We Are’: Identity, Place And Ontological Security In Lower League Football In England”. Soccer & Society 13 (1): 112.
[16] Bebber, Brett Matthew. The Culture of Football: Violence, Racism And British Society, 1968-98. 1st ed. Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona, 2008.
[17] Harris, Harry. “League of Violence”. Daily Mirror 1985: 30-31.
[18] Harris, Harry. “League of Violence”.
[19] Harris, Harry. “League of Violence”.
[20] Thatcher, M. 1985, Violence in Football, House of Commons Debate, transcript, Hansard, 3rd June 1985. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/June/03/
[21] Bennett, Simon. An Ethnography of Labour in a World City 1st ed. London: Middlesex University Press, 2009.
[22] Maddock, David. “The Liverpool Column”. Daily Mirror, 21st September 2012.
[23] Brebber, Brett Matthew, 2008.
[24] King, Anthony. 2002. The End Of The Terraces. 1st ed. London: Leicester University Press.
[25] Goldblatt, David. 2014. The Game Of Our Lives: The Meaning And Making Of English Football. 1st ed. London: Penguin.
[26] Goldblatt, David. 2014.
[27] Holt, Richard. 1993. Sport And The British. 1st ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, p 355.
[28] Attendance Data. European Football Statistics. http://european-football-statistics.co.uk/
[29] Hillsborough The Report Of The Hillsborough Independent Panel. 2012. ‘What Is Added To Public Understanding’. London: The Stationery Office: House of Commons.
[30] Scraton, Phil. 2009. Hillsborough. 1st ed. Edinburgh: Mainstream.
[31] Scraton, Phil. 2009, p 36.
[32] Tempany, Adrian. 2016. And The Sun Shines Now. 1st ed. London: Faber & Faber.
[33] Guilianotti, Richard. 2013. Football, Violence And Social Identity. 1st ed. London: Routledge.
[34] Mackenzie, Kelvin. 1989. “The Truth”. The Sun Newspaper.
[35] 1989. “Fans in drunken attacks on police”. The Sheffield Star
[36] Kay, James. 1989. The Yorkshire Post
[37] Taylor, Lord Justice. 1989. THE HILLSBOROUGH STADIUM DISASTER. INQUIRY BY THE RT HON LORD JUSTICE TAYLOR. LONDON HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE: HOME OFFICE.
[38] Turner, Mark. 2014. “Modern English Football Fandom And Hyperreal, ‘Safe’, ‘All-Seater’ Stadia: Examining The Contemporary Football Stage”. Soccer & Society 18 (1): 121-131.
[39] Turner, Mark. 2014.
[40] The Henley Centre for Forecasting. 1990. p 3.
[41] The Henley Centre for Forecasting. 1990. p 11.
[42] Tempany, Adrian. 2016.
Jack Langford 