History of Polish Fandom: Communism, Post-Transformation Violence and the Division of Functions

Abstract

This chapter briefly describes the history of Polish football fandom, which has reflected the social and political transformation of Poland. The beginnings of organized activity of supporters date back to the 1970s. At that time, football fans were cut off from foreign influences, and communist authorities tried to control all their activities, for example by running official ‘fan clubs’. However, fans quickly began to spontaneously organize outside the official system. They were inspired by local animosities and prison culture, which contributed to the formation of the first hooligan groups, characterized by inter-club violence. The scale of aggressive behaviours became unprecedented after the political breakthrough of 1989, when stadium safety was far from the top of the agenda. Hooligan groups flourished at the time; they also engaged in extreme right-wing ideologies. The nature of stadium violence began to change in the late 1990s, when groups of ultras and hooligans began to separate. In this period, the government started to introduce regulations aiming to counteract fan violence. These trends continued in the new century, pushing violence out of the stadiums and influencing the ‘functional differentiation’ in fandom culture.