Football Hooliganism in the Netherlands: Patterns of Continuity and Change

This article analyzes the emergence, development and dominant features of football hooliganism in the Netherlands. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, the author shows that contemporary football hooliganism in the Netherlands is more complex and less surveyable than in the past. Within this development, five dominant patterns are distinguished: the partial displacement of hooligan confrontations; increasing levels of planning and coordination; alternatives to physical violence; violence directed at the police and the heterogeneous social composition of hooligan groups. These patterns indicate that Dutch football hooliganism has changed rather than disappeared. The persistence of the phenomenon should be understood in terms of the attractions of the hooligan lifestyle to young men seeking adventure and excitement and the psycho‐social pleasures associated with hooligan violence