Cod Almighty | Diary

Communication is a letdown

9 November 2016

I suppose it's one of those curious turn-ups that Town face Sheffield United in that reserves competition tonight on the same day 29 fans are charged with violent disorder around the friendly between the same two sides back in July.

One of the phenomena that are peculiar to the discussion of football violence is the use of moralistic punctuation. This is the process whereby fans become 'fans' – the implication being that those responsible for the fighting are somehow of an entirely different species to the rest of us. And sure enough, the Grimsby Telegraph is giving it the inverted commas treatment today.

There's some justification for this, of course. We all know that a large majority of football fans will never go anywhere near a fight in their entire lives, let alone kick one off. We are the 95%. And we don't want the rest of society associating us with the meathead minority. That way lies the treatment of innocent supporters as criminals: the herding, the kettling, the plod telling you which pubs you can and can't drink in before the game.

But how helpful is it to imply that peaceful and violent fans are two entirely separate and self-contained groups – or that violent fans are not actually fans at all? I dunno. And I'm not especially qualified to comment. Your original/regular Diary is the sort of person who responds to the sound of my fellow fans singing on a train to an away game by wanting to hide under the seat.

But the first steps to change are often the ones we need to take psychologically. And my instinct is that we might get closer to some kind of progress if football were to own this problem rather than washing its hands of it. After that Sheffield United friendly in July, GTFC seemed to wash their hands of the problem when they issued a statement which took great care to blame everyone else. And I don't especially see the logic in the suggestion that being a Grimsby Town fan and being aggressive are mutually exclusive. I wish they were, but they're not. If you're one of those things, exactly why can't you be the other? With no logical basis for the notion, it just seems like another exercise in hand-washing.

Where you go after that, I've no idea. But you can't solve a problem from a starting point of denial. Want something else to read? Try the Reckless Guide to Grimsby Town, which among other things certainly has me looking forward to the opening first-team fixture of Marcus Bignot's GTFC career this Saturday. I didn't realise the Rutland had had such an extensive revamp, but apparently there are "real ales in abundance". See you there!