The Mythology of Football Hooliganism: A Closer Look at the British Experience*

It is argued in this essay that the nature and severity of the football hooliganism problem in Great Britain has been largely overstated by the popular press and unjustly elevated to the status of a major social problem by the State. Eight myths of football hooliganism are identified, described and challenged on the basis of the available theoretical and empirical data. This critical examination of the official definitions and taken-for-granted assumptions which attend the football hooliganism phenomenon is seen as an important first step in the larger examination of the manifest and latent functions of the football hooligan in British society