Search: ' Bradford fire'

League meetings between the two Hampshire clubs have been relatively rare but their derby matches are as keenly contested as any local rivalry in English football. James de Mellow reports

On April 29, 1939, as Portsmouth pulled off a surprise 4-1 FA Cup final win over Wolves at Wembley, only 4,000 Southampton fans showed up for a home league game on the same day, preferring to cheer on their neighbours while listening to the radio. When the trophy was brought back to the south coast, it was displayed for a short time at Southampton Guildhall and even paraded around The Dell for Saints fans to salute Pompey’s achievements. One wonders, then, what Hampshire’s pre-war football supporters would make of Operation Delphin, which the police deemed necessary to prevent trouble before and after the south-coast derby on December 18. As a condition of purchasing a ticket, all travelling Saints fans agreed to be bussed in a “bubble” under police escort between the two cities, while eight-foot-high barriers were erected north-east of Fratton Park in order to keep a minority of idiots from both sides coming into contact with each other.

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The Hillsborough Justice Campaign has taken another step towards closure, but certain attitudes remain, writes Rob Hughes

Monday October 17 was an historic day for the families of the Hillsborough victims. An emotional debate in the House of Commons resulted in Home Secretary Theresa May declaring that all government papers will finally be handed over to an independent panel led by the Bishop of Liverpool. It was a victory of sorts, albeit a bittersweet one, for the relatives of the 96 people who died.

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Adam Brown looks at how the political interaction of fan culture has developed since the disenfranchisement of the mid-1980s

The year 1985 was a nadir for English football in a decade of great change for football supporters in Britain. And May was the pit of the trough. Supporters were caged in decrepit stadiums and 56 of them died in a fire at Bradford City’s ground on May 11. Violence was rife at home and abroad, policing was brutal and on the same day a 14-year-old was killed during fighting between Leeds and Birmingham fans and police at St Andrew’s. Just over two weeks later, these two factors came together killing 39 and injuring 600 at Heysel.

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Dear WSC
Congratulations on the article about match-fixing (Crimes and misdemeanours, WSC 283). Paul Joyce did a superb job reviewing the many different cases of corruption in European football. As the German police investigation began, partly because of the controversy around my book, The Fix, I did want to take him up on one issue. He mentioned that “Germany lies second in the match-fixing table” – this is true but it is not because corruption is more prevalent in German football. Rather it is because the German authorities are now, after years of denial, actually taking the issue seriously and are vigorously investigating match-fixing – and the more they investigate, the more they find. This proactive attitude is in stark contrast with British football authorities who seem to have adopted the attitude of “don’t know, don’t want to find out”. The circumstances in British football are similar to other European countries: thousands of relatively badly paid players; lots of poor clubs and lots of interest in the gambling markets. However, the British authorities have not yet fully woken to the dangers. I can only hope that they do before they discover a similar problem to the one in Europe.
Declan Hill, Oxford

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Dear WSC,
I’m sending out a plea to WSC readers to see if they can tell me of a top goalscorer who was less popular with his own club’s fans than Bournemouth’s Brett Pitman? As Steve Menary’s entry for the Cherries stated in your Season Guide (WSC 283), he was always the first to be moaned at by the Dean Court crowd despite banging in 26 League goals last season (not to mention the 30 before that since making his debut as a teenager in 2005). Granted, Brett was hard to love. His body language was a combination of seemingly uninterested slouch with an unathletic, head-lolling waddle. His reluctance to jump for or chase down over-hit passes was an obvious crime in the eyes of the average football fan. I guess his arm-waving, sour-faced tantrums when not receiving the exact ball he wanted from team-mates cemented his distant relationship with the fans. I can’t recall a single chant about Brett – an astonishing feat when less talented strikers like Alan Connell (13 goals in over 100 games) were lauded on the terraces. Pitman had been at the club since he was 16 years old, scored spectacular goals ever since and never demanded a move – hardly the sort of pantomime mercenary or hapless donkey that usually attracts the ire he received. After signing for Bristol City, his valedictory interview with the local paper was not a fond farewell: “Pitman Fires Broadside At Cherries Boo-Boys” read the headline. So can any other readers suggest a less-loved goalscorer at their club? Not just one that left for a rival or did a silly celebration in front of his former fans when scoring for his new team – but one with a consistent record of excellence met with lukewarm indifference at best?
Simon Melville, London

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