It's crazy that you sometimes have to plan your life around randoms and their risk, worse still that this kind of planning becomes your "normal"
Avoiding trains full of football fans
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tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
Any cunt who calls Twickenham "Twickers" should be stoned.
SpookyFrank
Don't swallow the cap
tonysingh
Con Te Partiró
I'm a white (gora) dude that wears a turban as part of my faith. I'm used to stares and the like, and occasional comments but anywhere there's gonna be groups of usually pissed up geezers is best avoided.
I'm a football fan myself, I support a team that'll not pop up on the radar with this sort of stuff but even then I've had to expect it.
A few minutes checking the fixture list really can save a whole ton of issues. If there's a match between rivals or said rivals will be vaguely close to one another then I'll leave it. Same for cup finals and 100% same for international games.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
TBF that's not that unusual for Luton...
tonysingh
Con Te Partiró
It's more the sniff these days anyway.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
Yes, that’s pretty much the case as far as the more problematic fans are concerned.
tonysingh
Con Te Partiró
Pissed idiots are pissed idiots. They'll be annoying and usually loud but won't normally elevate above that unless their opps turn up. To use myself as a example, it'd be the same as walking past a busy pub. I'll get "oi bin Laden" or pints thrown at me but no worse. Much like avoiding trains or flashpoints, I can take the long route around a pub.
Coked up knobs are a different and altogether more aggressive issue. There's even evidence that the ones banned from league clubs are turning up at local non league teams, looking for fights. These dicks will follow you, looking for aggro but like the OPs main concern, you are unlikely to encounter them away from usual flashpoints. Again, prior research helps.
Heaven forbid you ever meet any of United's away support or you may have your illusions shattered. although some of the original cockney reds used to sit in first class from time to time in the 90s/00s and the coppers at either end of the carriage would leave them to it and tell hectors like you where to go.
davesgcr
Reading books
Purely anecdotal comments from fellow rail staff (well back in the day) , cannot say I recall coming across these supporters.
Bahnhof Strasse
Let's av ya fuckin' dancin'!
Having moved to Godalming from Walton-on-Thames (same borough as Oxshott), the truth is that Godalming station will be filled with Pompey fans, Walton (and Oxshott) with Chelsea...
And yes, there are no standard class carriages on the Godalming line
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Orang Utan
Maybe I like the misery
I’m permanently scarred by bad behaviour on trains from football fans. Even when it’s not ‘bad’, just singing n stuff, my heart rate shoots up and I have to escape.
This has certainly contributed to my deep loathing of the sport and culture around it and the alienation I feel when people I like start talking about it as if it’s something everyone is into. Even that triggers my escape instinct!
This has certainly contributed to my deep loathing of the sport and culture around it and the alienation I feel when people I like start talking about it as if it’s something everyone is into. Even that triggers my escape instinct!
Even when it's not "bad", it feels like it could turn bad any moment. I do my best not to catch their eye, in case I'm chosen as the target of aggressive good humour and banter (at best) and outright shittiness (at worst).
Reading that back, it sounds dramatic, but not untrue.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
Why do a minority of football fans act like this? Despite Spooky Frank’s unique prejudices, you don’t get that at or after the rugby despite the alcohol consumed, nor do you get it at or after concerts. Even though. The price of football tickets is frankly laughable so why is it almost unique in this male twatishness?
Orang Utan
Maybe I like the misery
I dunno but from an outsider the tribalism is hard to stomach and what may feel like larks to the fans looks and feels like the thin end of the wedge to outsiders . The ‘banter’ is all about demeaning other people as less than human and it’s just a short journey from that to violence. At least that’s how it looks from here. I fell out with JTG over this as he kept going on on FB about Leeds fans being scum or some such sectarian shit.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
To be fair, it’s not a majority of football fans per se- not in my experience at least. But then I follow a small club with no hooligan element. Of course some individuals can still get overtly pissed and become an annoyance to fellow passengers, but for the most part it is not a widespread problem for many clubs.
And on those occasions when some fans have felt like singing throughout the journey back to London, which IME has always been good humoured and non-threatening (though still very annoying to some of the passengers in the vicinity, I suspect), it invariably tends to happen on one carriage where all the fans in that frame of mind end up congregating. Rather than happening on every carriage.
Furthermore, there will usually be fans of a number of other clubs on the same train, and I have never seen any bother, let alone fighting between sets of fans. I’m sure it does happen, but it’ll be the exception rather than the norm.
So in short, not all (or even the majority) of travelling football fans are problematic- but such incidents tend to be higher profile or stick in the mind more than others. I have seen far more instances on a per-journey basis of incidents, fights and a general feeling of hostility on Friday and Saturday nights from ordinary ‘revellers’ on London buses, the Tube and late evening trains than from football fans on weekend train journeys.
tonysingh
Con Te Partiró
I'm curious to know what team you follow?
But yes, largely agree with what you've written there wth the addendum that there are certain precautions to take and certain games have a higher percentage chance of trouble so best avoided.
(Maybe don't do what I did on holiday and take a partner to Union Berlin v BFC for example!)
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
AFC Wimbledon. FWIW I can think of at least one individual who is just a guaranteed troublemaker, but out of any group of a thousand plus people, a handful of bad apples is an statistical given on any walk of life.
Obviously some clubs have notorious reputations, but plenty more don’t. For any Millwall or West Ham out there there are a dozen Fulhams or Brentfords whose fanbases are on the whole nowhere near troublesome.
Orang Utan
Maybe I like the misery
They’re not harmless though - they’re obnoxious and intimidating
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
I've very little contact with football, and never had any prejudices about fans. Until a friend who'd migrated to Australia came back to visit. He was always a Chelsea fan, and although Chelsea was only playing away while he was here he wanted to go to... um, is it Something Bridge? I can't remember. Their stadium bar anyway, to watch the game.
Genuinely the first time in my life I've ever seen people standing on tables, chanting racist songs and acting like monkeys. Now it hasn't coloured my opinion of all football fans, but I certainly have an opinion of the Chelsea crowd.
Orang Utan
Maybe I like the misery
Yes, though admittedly this applies to any group of loud drunk men disrupting others’ peace, not just football fans
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
The problem is that football above all other sport attracts the kind of racist thugs who feed off herd mentality and acting like knobbers in public because - outside of EDL gatherings and such - it's the only place where that kind of behavior can be gotten away with because of the whole strength in numbers thing. Which really only proves what total cowards they all are. It's one thing inside the confides of a stadium, but it's absolute misery on trains for anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and be the wrong colour.
Elpenor
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih Shantih Shantih
I’ve got fond memories of a train journey back from Liverpool around the year 2000, had to stand in a corridor next to some Chelsea fans.
They passed the time kicking in the toilet door, and when we stopped at Nuneaton they shouted out “this is Bobby Sands’ station” and “this is Lena Zavaroni’s station”
They passed the time kicking in the toilet door, and when we stopped at Nuneaton they shouted out “this is Bobby Sands’ station” and “this is Lena Zavaroni’s station”
tonysingh
Con Te Partiró
story
Gone for a Burton
I have ptsd and I actively avoid going to Fulham Broadway when Chelsea are at home. I’ve found myself flattened against a wall, hyperventilating and gripping my hands on the brickwork when they charge about louding and rowding. I also get twitchy and jumpy when football people get on the Tube and start leaping about like apes posturing aggressively at each other or when they’re marauding through the walkways clapping and roaring their stupid songs. Even though I take some delight in their collective joy and celebration and excitement I still really hate it for myself.
This is generally how many women feel on an ordinary night out. Just in a bar or club, no footie fans just blokes.
This is generally how many women feel on an ordinary night out. Just in a bar or club, no footie fans just blokes.
Bus Honeygun
This week the score draws are plentiful
Many years ago, when Bristol Rovers were playing their home games at Bath City's ground, I found myself locked in a train toilet with a group of three skinheads trying to kick the door in chanting 'Adolf Hitler! White Power!' Absolutely terrifying. I was travelling around Bristol a lot at the time and started basing my movements to avoid any of the trains from Bath Spa after Rovers games.
That said, for the sake of balance, I regularly get the train to and from my own team's games. Granted, not so many fans do as the station is a fair distance from the ground, but I can honestly say there's very rarely any kind of bother or even noise.
That said, for the sake of balance, I regularly get the train to and from my own team's games. Granted, not so many fans do as the station is a fair distance from the ground, but I can honestly say there's very rarely any kind of bother or even noise.
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