There's all kinds of talk saying that there is only hooliganism in EU. What about all the riots, terrible fans, fist fights with players. There's not much soul-searching about sports hooliganism within the US - and what little there is tends to focus on the behaviour of African-American basketball players rather than predominantly white football fans. For no matter how many college games end in drunken mob violence (as many do), no matter how many American city centres see running battles between sports fans and riot police, the US sports media continues to present hooliganism as something utterly un-American.
When it comes to hooliganism, the US media really is the pot calling the kettle black. Riots at US sports events occur far more frequently than they do in the UK. And yet, in American popular culture, the "hooligan" is almost without exception portrayed as a soccer fan (and nearly always as English).
In 1997, Veterans stadium - the Eagles' old stomping ground - had a fully functional court inserted into its basement after a game against San Francisco saw an estimated 60 fights. The judge, who actually heard cases during the game, was seldom less than fully employed.
Whenever American football fans riot or ice hockey fans beat the hell out of one another, whenever the supporters of basketball or baseball teams go on a cop-taunting, car-torching, window-smashing victory spree, the violence is invariably treated as a local disturbance or an historical anomaly. And whenever college football fans engage in riotous behaviour that would be considered a national scandal if it happened in Britain (as they frequently do), no one seems terribly inclined to call it hooliganism.
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