Abstract
This study is concerned with understanding the nature of police stereotypes and expectations and their potential role in shaping the intergroup dynamics of “hooliganism” involving England fans during the football European Championships in Belgium and Holland (Euro 2000). The paper uses a questionnaire survey of Belgian Gendarmerie officers to explore the extent to which England fans were seen as a dangerous social category who's normative behaviours were likely to be interpreted as a manifestation of hooliganism and therefore as posing a relatively uniform threat to “public order”. In so doing the study provides evidence to support a contention that the Gendarmerie at Euro 2000 held a view of England fans that was consistent with the use of relatively indiscriminate coercive force. The implications of the analysis for understanding the nature of public order policing, its role in shaping “public disorder” in football contexts and the need for interactive and historical studies of crowd events are discussed.
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