The origins of casual culture: hooliganism and fashion in Great Britain

Abstract

This dissertation attends to the study of football hooligans’ subcultures. In particular, it addresses a general synthesis of the beginnings of casual culture in Great Britain, within the context of the cultural transition process of the 1980s, and within a political, social and cultural context greatly influenced by the new Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. It makes a chronological review of the stylistic evolution and the attitudes of the casuals, based on the concept one-upmanship, facing the different realities that happened in approximately a decade. From the birth of the punk movement in the late seventies to the emergence of rave and club cultures at the end of the following decade. It also includes the element of violence in football, both inside and outside the stadiums, through several events that exemplify the level of violence achieved in those years. Throughout the text it tries to record the relevance of the study of youth expressions and activities for a better understanding of wider historical and cultural processes.