Danish support cultures

Henning Eichberg, Centre of research in sport, health and civil society at Syddansk University

The fan group Copenhagen Lads send in 2004 a recommendation to the church ministry asking permission to become recognized as a community. This was also meant as a joke but as Coubertin said that the Olympic sport was ”the athletes religion” without irony. Religion and violence doesn’t go hand in hand or maybe does.

The first sign of hooliganism was in the 1960’s where the hooligan was compared to the youth cultural trends, as teds, mods and rockers. British sociologists said that hooligans were a part of the rougher part of the working class. You always feared that hooliganism would spread to Denmark, but it never happened. In stead the roligan was invented in the start of the 1980’s as a peaceful supporter. The roligan could be drinking just as much as the hooligan but shows no aggression. Here followed the nationalistic feeling as football was like going to a carnival. It was in the beginning of the 1990’s that hooliganism came to Denmark as unofficial supporter groups were made to take distance from the official fan groups. Inspired by the Italians, the ultras were making tifo’s, which were big banners in various colours and motifs of the heroes or making a fool of the opposition. The name ultra was taken from the 1960’s left radical movements in Italy and from their right extremist sidepiece, the new fascists. The casuals support groups were inspired from the 1970’s Liverpool groups where it was becoming a fashion to use football events to rob clothes stores for expensive fashionable clothing – Lacoste, Armani, Burberry. These brands were known as causal brands. Casuals were strictly hierarchical built and leader managed groups who could arrange fights against other casual groups according to known rules. This regulated violence in male groups can be explained through the supporter’s background in the working class, but you staged yourself as a well-dressed middleclass and develop self-understanding as an elite fan. Politically viewed most of the casuals are right winged, but the group is not political.

New tribalism and a kick in the everyday

In common the fan cultures have the passion for the game. They do not just stand and watch passively but are actors in the sports atmosphere. Through their atmospheric embossing supporter practise at stadium they build an intense identification with the club. The unofficial supporters see themselves as the better and more authentic representation of the club than the randomly selected players. The supporter’s self-understanding are easily viewed through a statistical survey with almost 2000 respondents. But the fan cultures dynamic build up to more than just a research on the supporter’s opinions, it demands a philosophical reflection and here in death going interviews can help (Joern 2007). The supporter’s atmosphere creates a special kick or rush in peoples boring everyday. The fan culture can successfully by compared to the once modern carnival, which Mikhail Bahktin have written as an expression for a interpersonal alternate world against church authorities and the everyday and as a sort of popular opposition. But in force of its temporary character stabilised the carnival and confirmed the established order, as Umberto Eco critically has objected. The supporter’s symbolic aggressions and regulated violence can even in big parts be understood as a part in a ritual tribe war as also have anthropological aspects. This confirms what the sociologist Michel Maffesoli has described as the modern days new tribalization. There are in the mean time more participants at the football field than supporters. The media plays an important role, nevertheless through their labelling of the supporters as dangerous hooligans. And the police practice signal politics through preventive arrests of people, who usually is viewed as being# out of medical assistance.” These image depictions and actions are understood as provocations towards the fans. And the provocation is not even under the new tribal relation an unwelcomed gesture. - This can help the kick.- And it can be the cause of dangerous escalations. The research makes us smarter on fans and their cultures – fan cultures in plural. The hooligan term overshadows the supporter’s structured diversity. Fans are not “other people,” which the media and police often portray them as – they must be understood from the perspective of our social relations normality. This also means that you should be warned against using overdriven political correctness on the ritual threat gestures. A deeper understanding off the “incorrect” in the support culture could have practical consequences for lowering both fan and police violence. And what is then religion? Concerning the football sport quasi-religious dimension, the answers aren’t that simple. Sport is not a religion, concludes Lise Joerns book after closer consideration and interpretation of various theories. Sport is sooner a religion replacement. The support culture has with people’s obsession and devotion to do, with the seeking after intensity, with atmosphere, songs and other practices and experiences that crosses the limits.

Fan culture does not just suggest what sport is but also what religion is. In the religion sociology is often written to theories oppositely -The substantial and the functional. Traditionally viewed, you see religion as a certain substance, organised around an essential core, which have to do with believe, Godness or the holly. The sport has nothing to do with this. In contrast, has the sociological functionalism interest in our religions function: the people integrated though common values in a certain community. The explanation goes top-down and has therefore difficulty with reaching the religious dimensions as deviation, rebellion, alternative culture and decoupling. The supporter research suggests a third dimension: religion is a certain form of social-bodily practices and experience in movement – a common doing, songs and ritual repetitions exceed the daily utilitarian-world. Maybe there was more religion in the middle age carnivals and self organised rituals than in the established church? In that case, the way for the fan culture to strong common motions towards religion is still long. Likewise, the sports study can add the human science new insights, as it can’t get from elsewhere – about people in movement, peoples emotional need and living religion.