Many previous football tournaments have had a signature motif: the Mexican wave in 1986, the irritating vuvuzelas in South Africa 2010, the firework up the backside in London in 2021. At Euro 2024, that motif has been the hurling of plastic beer glasses. They have been thrown, in celebration or anger, by the Croatians, the Serbs, the Albanians, the Dutch, the Spanish, by our German hosts and by the excitable Scots. The latter would doubtless have thrown more had they had cause, or stuck around longer. But it was their use as projectiles by England fans which attracted most media attention – and which is likely to result in a fine from Uefa’s Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body.
The families of some England players were soaked in beer
The most prominent incident happened after England’s final group game, the disappointingly flat 0-0 draw against the minnows of Slovenia. Plastic cups were aimed from the stands at manager Gareth Southgate – despite his having moments earlier secured top spot in his qualifying group and, with it, what would turn out to be a route to the final. And the families of some England players, who were seated on the lower tier beneath rank and file fans, were soaked in beer. It was reduced alcohol beer – just 2.8 per cent proof – but that didn’t leave the WAGs any drier.
The reason all this beer glass throwing in Germany proved particularly newsworthy is that it doesn’t happen at matches here. This is not because football crowds in England and Scotland are better behaved here – don’t be daft – but because they’re not allowed beer in the stands. The Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985 – legislation introduced in the same year as Heysel, the nadir of English hooliganism – prohibits this.
I have, over the years, enjoyed drinks at Lords, The Oval, Wimbledon, Twickenham, The Cheltenham Festival and The Boat Race. I haven’t yet but intend one of these days to get drunk at the darts at Ally Pally, as seems to be the tradition. But I’ve never got even mildly drunk at West Ham, despite having been a season ticket holder there for most of the last 30 years.
Or, rather, I’ve never got drunk in the cheap seats at West Ham from which I’ve mostly watched. I have though been quite sloshed on the few ad hoc occasions when I’ve been invited to watch games from the executive boxes. Because that 1985 Act contains a get-out clause: drinking is only banned ‘in view of the pitch’.
For the average fan this means they can, if determined, rush out to queue at concourse bars at half time. But they must drink there too as they can’t legally take their drink back to their seats: a rule that is strictly enforced. However, for those being corporately entertained, the journey from their match seat to their drink is just a few steps, with a curtain to ensure compliance with that pitch-view rule.
Roy Keane famously denounced these people for their prawn sandwiches. In fact, they’re more distinguishable from ordinary fans because of their freebie Sauvignon Blanc. And the existence of this two-tier system really isn’t fair.
Similarly, if I attended the same stadium but for a concert or American football game – both are held at West Ham’s London Stadium – I would be legally free to drink while sitting in the same seat in which I can’t drink in at the football.
I’ve previously railed against the very existence of plastic glasses at other venues but, in a football context, allowing ordinary fans to have them in the stands would be hugely progressive. And we seemed to be moving in that direction, as we got further and further from the dark days of the eighties.
For example, during the last international tournament, the distinctly odd and considerably drier winter World Cup in Qatar, 2022, Tom Goodenough, writing here, called for the the 1985 Act to be repealed, arguing that fans are grown up enough and that it would help the game on many levels. It was hard to disagree and, apparently, few did. But the plastic glass chucking seen over the last four weeks will have almost certainly blown any prospect of this happening. Which is sad because most fans really aren’t that bad. A few are idiots, often dangerous idiots. But most are basically OK. And even when they throw beer, most are just having what they think is a harmless laugh – either attempting to emulate the scenes of delirious joy we’ve all seen at BoxPark screenings when goals go in, or evoking the rotten fruit throwing of yore.
This certainly isn’t the actual scary stuff of the 1980s. Then hooligans threw coins and even darts, or glasses filled with urine rather than weak lager. In fact, what’s really fuelling what disorder there remains around football these days is not alcohol at all, but the prevalence of cocaine. When I covered the ‘hooligan watch’ beat at England games as a reporter in the late 1990s and early 2000s, cocaine use was virtually unknown among football crowds. Now, it’s everywhere.
The throwing of plastic cups is not remotely in the same league of menace as actual hooliganism; weak lager is not the same toxic hooliganism enabler as cocaine. But the spectacle of dozens of glasses being thrown looks bad on TV so I don’t think anyone is pushing for the legal right to get the beers at UK football matches any time soon. Football may yet come home tonight, but it won’t be bringing in-stadium drinking back with it.