English hooligan film stirs controversy pre-Euro 2004

LONDON – A hard-hitting new film about English soccer hooligans is due out this week amid accusations it glorifies violence at the worst possible time ahead of next month’s European championship in Portugal.

Opening with a close-up of a bloody head being kicked, and ending with a youth being shot at point-blank range in a toilet, ‘The Football Factory’ portrays a gang of fans from Premiership team Chelsea in their build-up to a big game – and a fight. It is the first of several movies being made about the phenomenon of violence that has dogged British soccer for the last three decades and left England with the threat of expulsion from Euro 2004 if their fans riot again.Director Nick Love insists his low-budget film, which used real soccer fans including a couple of hooligans for gang scenes, is a legitimate study of working-class, male culture which provokes debate about violence rather than encouraging it.”The lead character gets the shit kicked out of him, his best mate gets seven years in prison, his other best mate gets killed.It depends where you’re standing from on how glamorous you think that is,” he told Reuters.”If people are going to go and fight at Euro 2004, I think they were going to do it regardless of watching an hour and a half of celluloid.I think we’ve got pretty big egos if we think the film’s so powerful it’s going to incite violence.”In the film, protagonist Tommy Johnson, a bored twenty-something Londoner, suffers recurring nightmares and doubts about his lifestyle after finding himself in one scrap too many alongside his mates from the Chelsea gang.But as he limps away from hospital towards the end of the film, nursing wounds from a brawl with rival Millwall hooligans after an FA Cup game, Johnson enters a pub to a hero’s welcome and concludes:”Was it worth it? …Course it ******* was!”‘ENJOY THE NIGHTMARE’Although there is no more than five minutes’ actual violence in the 90-minute movie, many have already expressed outrage ahead of Friday’s release.Based on a novel, the film has been widely seen at screenings and on an abridged, pirate DVD.”Whatever the intention of the director, this film does glamorise violence and project it as the dominant experience of football supporters,” Mark Perryman, a soccer academic and member of London England Fans, told Reuters.”The timing of the release is deeply cynical given all the speculation about possible trouble in Portugal.It depicts the majority of people in football looking for trouble, but the vast number of fans have no interest in getting involved.”The film’s racy publicity has only stoked the controversy.”The Football Factory is a drug-fuelled adrenaline rush of a story about friendship, revenge and violence.This is England’s nightmare.Enjoy it,” reads the official synopsis.One newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, praised the film’s realism.”A bone-crunchingly accurate and unflinching depiction of soccer violence,” it rhapsodised.But another, the Daily Express, condemned the movie as “a deliberate attempt to recast the old shadow of hooliganism across the fresh new era of big European nights”.Some 50 000 England fans are due in Portugal, with authorities desperate to avoid a repeat of the riots in Belgium that marred the 2000 European championship.Another upcoming hooligan movie, this time from Hollywood and titled ‘The Yank’, is to star Elijah Wood – Frodo in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ – as a Harvard drop-out sucked into the underworld of English violence.Theories abound as to the causes of hooliganism in England.Some blame social marginalisation, while others say it is a part of Britain’s warrior heritage.”We’re an island nation.It’s what we do best,” protagonist Johnson muses in the film.For director Love, though, it is all about superficial thrill-seeking and following the herd:”In every man, there is a sense of looking for an army, a club to join, whether violent or not,” he said.While the critics line up to admonish him, Love is cheered by the reaction of hooligans who have seen the film at special screenings around England, Wales and Scotland.”Their reaction has been amazing, much more so than I could have imagined.They’ve said it’s great, it’s real,” he said.- Nampa-ReutersIt is the first of several movies being made about the phenomenon of violence that has dogged British soccer for the last three decades and left England with the threat of expulsion from Euro 2004 if their fans riot again.Director Nick Love insists his low-budget film, which used real soccer fans including a couple of hooligans for gang scenes, is a legitimate study of working-class, male culture which provokes debate about violence rather than encouraging it.”The lead character gets the shit kicked out of him, his best mate gets seven years in prison, his other best mate gets killed.It depends where you’re standing from on how glamorous you think that is,” he told Reuters.”If people are going to go and fight at Euro 2004, I think they were going to do it regardless of watching an hour and a half of celluloid.I think we’ve got pretty big egos if we think the film’s so powerful it’s going to incite violence.”In the film, protagonist Tommy Johnson, a bored twenty-something Londoner, suffers recurring nightmares and doubts about his lifestyle after finding himself in one scrap too many alongside his mates from the Chelsea gang.But as he limps away from hospital towards the end of the film, nursing wounds from a brawl with rival Millwall hooligans after an FA Cup game, Johnson enters a pub to a hero’s welcome and concludes:”Was it worth it? …Course it ******* was!”‘ENJOY THE NIGHTMARE’Although there is no more than five minutes’ actual violence in the 90-minute movie, many have already expressed outrage ahead of Friday’s release.Based on a novel, the film has been widely seen at screenings and on an abridged, pirate DVD.”Whatever the intention of the director, this film does glamorise violence and project it as the dominant experience of football supporters,” Mark Perryman, a soccer academic and member of London England Fans, told Reuters.”The timing of the release is deeply cynical given all the speculation about possible trouble in Portugal.It depicts the majority of people in football looking for trouble, but the vast number of fans have no interest in getting involved.”The film’s racy publicity has only stoked the controversy.”The Football Factory is a drug-fuelled adrenaline rush of a story about friendship, revenge and violence.This is England’s nightmare.Enjoy it,” reads the official synopsis.One newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, praised the film’s realism.”A bone-crunchingly accurate and unflinching depiction of soccer violence,” it rhapsodised.But another, the Daily Express, condemned the movie as “a deliberate attempt to recast the old shadow of hooliganism across the fresh new era of big European nights”.Some 50 000 England fans are due in Portugal, with authorities desperate to avoid a repeat of the riots in Belgium that marred the 2000 European championship.Another upcoming hooligan movie, this time from Hollywood and titled ‘The Yank’, is to star Elijah Wood – Frodo in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ – as a Harvard drop-out sucked into the underworld of English violence.Theories abound as to the causes of hooliganism in England.Some blame social marginalisation, while others say it is a part of Britain’s warrior heritage.”We’re an island nation.It’s what we do best,” protagonist Johnson muses in the film.For director Love, though, it is all about superficial thrill-seeking and following the herd:”In every man, there is a sense of looking for an army, a club to join, whether violent or not,” he said.While the critics line up to admonish him, Love is cheered by the reaction of hooligans who have seen the film at special screenings around England, Wales and Scotland.”Their reaction has been amazing, much more so than I could have imagined.They’ve said it’s great, it’s real,” he said.- Nampa-Reuters