Henleyensian Peter Kay - Top of the To zac naloen I never once asserted that football has always been violent. Merely that, since the second world war, there has often been the potential for violence at football. Your lack of experience and lack of understanding of the history of football means that you are unaware of this.
Im afriad it is relevant, because your arguments are based around naivety (which when we start out, we all have). All Im saying is that we musnt be compalcent about football violence. We will never (in my view) be at a stage where we can sit fans together in an English league match, no matter how sad that is.
Dont get me wrong Id love to see it, I was at the 2004 England v Portugal qtr final and that was a special atmosphere...very special.
But in the reality of domestic football, Im afraid its not going to happen.
Surely things have changed since the '80s when football violence kept crowds away! When I first watched Reading I stood behind the goal at the town end and nobody worried whether our neighbours were from our opponents or not. We used to come to watch the football (and it was good football in those days, when Ted Drake was manager) and just for that. Maybe it was because it was soon after a war that everybody was glad to see the back of that nobody wanted anything more to do with violence.
I have always found it interesting that people have to use physical violence when they disagree with somebody. We call ourselves civilised, for goodness sake!
Do you ever come to the reserve matches? Only one stand is opened and we all sit together, whichever club we support. Perhaps it would do a lot of good if more people came and learned to mix with opponents and stop at banter.
Henley, I dont challenge your assertion that the atmosphere can be very pleasant in that sort of environment, Im just saying that in the present Premiership, its not realistic to see this as an achievable situation - fans sitting together.
I dont condone violence, Im just concious that since the club has grown we now have people who have not experienced the unpleasant nature of it first hand, and are, therefore naive to the threat.
I watched 3 x WBA fans charge up the side of the South bank with a cosh in 1987, I didnt enjoy it at all, a really horrible feeling. But I would say that that experience taught me about the potential of crowds to erupt.
I am never complacent about football violence as a result, unlike some people on this thread who seem to think the lad was unlucky for getting attention. Unlucky, if I wear a Reading shirt in the home end at Upton Park next week, would that be unlucky.. or would it be totally stupid??
