What will be the abiding memory of England fans at this tournament? It’s a difficult one to answer. The size of the support has varied and the mood has fluctuated. There’s been delirium at times and despondency at others. There’s been a ubiquitous echo of “Dancing in the Dark” in the streets before games and, increasingly, a chorus of “Don’t take me home” afterwards. Perhaps it will be something more tangential that sticks, such as the stream of St George’s flags on the banks of the Rhine in Düsseldorf or the trams in Cologne stuffed to bursting and rattling like tambourines to the beat of “Ing-er-land” bashed out on the roofs.
Certainly, with fingers crossed before the biggest overseas match in the history of the men’s national side, there won’t be memories of violence. UK police have been lingering in the background throughout, dressed in giveaway low-key outdoors wear but not required to step into action. The feedback from Cheshire police, who operate the UK football policing unit (UKFPU), has been consistently positive, with the travelling support usually described as “extremely well behaved”.
This has been despite estimates of up to 40,000 fans heading out for some matches, with those held in the highly pleasant cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf the most popular. There were far fewer in Dortmund for the semi-final on Wednesday night and this appeared to be the most disruptive of the fixtures. Police reported 15 arrests the morning after the game, and “numerous pockets of disorder”, but suggested this was almost entirely down to “Dutch fans [targeting] England fans in the town centre” and there were no arrests at the ground.
On Friday, the head of the UKFPU, chief constable Mark Roberts, released a statement confirming that “the vast majority of the travelling England fans have been extremely well behaved” and saying: “It’s been fantastic to see so many fans enjoying the football and supporting England all the way to the final.” He said there had been 66 arrests of English supporters. When England last played at a tournament in Germany, the World Cup of 2006, the number of arrests stood at 810. The team were knocked out then in the quarter-finals.
Policing has changed since. Many of the arrests then were “preventative” and people were released without charge. It was also the beginning of what is now standard practice for policing, involving the “operational football officers” mentioned above, whose job is to understand the people and the dynamics within crowds. The consistent application of banning orders is also relevant. It is the case, too, that fandom has changed.
Looking at the crowds at their densest, and most rowdy, in Frankfurt and Cologne, the majority were under the age of 40. These are people a generation removed from the hooligan era. This reporter saw only one incident where someone was antagonising someone else in the manner that suggested violence could be in prospect. The idea of people “looking for a fight” felt antiquated.
At the same time, there remains a consistent feeling in and around the England support that is different from most other countries’ fanbases and is probably best described by the word “needle”. The Guardian has witnessed numerous isolated incidents that have been highly unpleasant; from fans asking women to take their tops off, to one supporter with a drum banging it repeatedly in the face of a Switzerland fan in a wheelchair. Ethnic minority England fans have spoken up about their experiences of being made to feel uncomfortable by those apparently supporting the same team. Provocation is a consistent theme, be it in songs about the Germans, the Scots or the Dutch, or just shouting “Ing-er-land” in the faces of passersby.
This is a type of behaviour that seems consistent across age groups, from children to retirees. It’s very much not how everyone behaves, and many England fans are dispirited by such behaviour and stay well clear of it. But it’s hard to say that this is the behaviour of a “small minority” either.
At the moment when a few people threw plastic cups at their own manager after the match against Slovenia in Cologne many more were hollering and gesticulating at Gareth Southgate. There are people in any crowd who go too far, but the common culture among those following England seems to be one of tolerance for such behaviour, or at least acquiescence. In many groups it felt as if there needed to be someone who would say to their friend who was acting up: “OK, calm down.” Something not unlike the message of the London mayor’s recent “Maaate” campaign, calling on men to call out misogynistic behaviour among their friends.
There is a final twist on all this, however, which is that not everyone outside the England crowd is intimidated or repelled by this kind of behaviour. Some people actively seek it out. There have been people from all over the world who have tried to insert themselves into the rowdiest parts of the England fanbase on the nights before matches. German fans chose to walk up to the English supporters who were shouting “Auf Wiedersehen” at them after their quarter-final defeat, just to soak it up. This does not serve as justification, nor should it, but it shows the complexity of behaviour within such big crowds of people and the seemingly unique status of the English fanbase abroad.
