Not selling alcohol at football is not "discrimination"

A few weeks of fighting after yobboes chuck beer in the air - which they will as it happens a lot at venues outside the ground - and they’ll change their minds

I think it is a good rule and should stay.

However, Mr Burnham has only suggested changing it, I doubt it will happen.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I think we come from different times (though probably similar kinds of places). I had no idea cocaine could make people violent.
I'd slipped through what the Pet Shop Boys were later to call the "closing door" of upward social mobility when I first encountered cocaine users in the City, where it made the posh boys spout even more self-delusional bullshit than their usual base level megalomania. I was given some to try a couple of times but found it very boring, and I had the impression it was expensive, as in “Cocaine is God's way of telling you you have too much money.” Perhaps it became cheaper in the 90s if students were on it. Or the City boys were being ripped off, which would be a sweet justice for those guys who thought they knew the price of everything.
This has been a very interesting conversation that has brought back so many memories that I've not thought about in decades.

Yes- in fact, rarely near the grounds as the police had that covered

I didn’t say he was on coke, just that it’s likely to make people violent. Although there was plenty of Coke about at the time (late 90s if it makes difference- there was certainly no problem getting it delivered at uni in 2001)

it was all about the stone island late 90s

Talk about fiddling whilst Rome burns :(
You would think the government had more pressing priorities to deal with at the moment.

It is a form of discrimination. It may be justified. For me the observation of people leaving their seat frequently is a reason why I would be ok with the ban continuing.

Oh stop it with the sweeping statement that we're all thugs.

I've been attending matches home and away for years and mixed with both sets of fans. Never any trouble, everyone chatting and getting on, have walked to grounds with opposition fans before and after games and found some genuinely lovely people.

Yes football was used as a stage, for organised fights. Many of which were no where near the actual grounds.

Oh that’s taken me right back!!

How could they afford coke in the 90s? Must have been mostly asprin. Was he one of those "casuals" wearing Tacchini? The hoolies at my school in the 80s who claimed to be in the Head Hunters, or the ICF where skinheads with Harrington jackets and drainpipes. They did drink alcohol, but the craze was for sniffing glue. Such innocent times. I think the appearance of CCTV in grounds made offenders identifiable.. I think they went to lower league games for a bit of aggro, before they started getting cameras too.

It’s a UK issue. I was in Germany and they were serving pints of Erdinger in the swimming pool. There were Mums and dads drinking pints with banging house music and a bubble machine in the daylight dancing in the pool and no one was drunk or agresive the entire time we were there.

UK Xmas markets you are corralled into a fenced off space in europe you can walk freely with a drink.

I love the UK, but other counties are far more civil maybe it’s an island nation thing

I would counter that it’s not particularly the alcohol at all- before or during the game at least (the coke- probably- but already illegal)

I had a school friend who was a proper 90s football hooligan- At one point he was banned from all football stadiums and going abroad- but it was all about fighting rival gangs, not booze. Who can win a punch up smashed? They arranged the fights weeks before the match. It wasn’t random “he stepped on my foot” stuff.

Or the Welsh <SHUDDER>

My experience (and it is only my experience of one club) is that many of the men who attend WSL also tend to be season ticket holders for the equivalent men's club. But the WSL crowd is female dominated which does create a different atmosphere.

Violent men are violent men. Football doesn't create violent men, but it can act as a trigger. I guess the same can be said for alcohol.

I get your point the men in WSL crowds might be a different demographic to those in mostly male crowds. If such men are violent regardless of football being involved then the issue becomes one of the extent to which alcohol if making them violent, or perhaps more unable to control their underlying violent tendencies. If that violence happens regardless of football then should such men be allowed to drink alcohol at all?

Certainly doesn’t happen at Rugby League.

it’s not as tribal.

I’m not talking about social background. I’m saying a predominantly female crowd at a WSL match seem to be able to drink alcohol without being violent or disruptive.
The issue isn’t all football fans. It’s a particular type of male football fan who would be violent regardless of whether football is involved.

I think he is old enough (as he's older than me and I remember) but has forgotten.

I think they mean middle class rugby union, the type of "rugger" they play at private schools. Not the sort that glass-makers and pie-eaters might watch.

Thats not a decision for me to make. I’m just highlighting that football fans are not one homogeneous group as some people on the thread seem to suggest.

To all the PPs extolling the behaviour of rugby fans, I take it you've never been to a St Helen's v Wigan game (for example)?

Football fans.
It is discrimination if theatres and cinemas are generally allowed to sell alcohol but there is a bad on alcohol at opera.

Agree with this. Burnham, clearly isn't old enough to remember the hooliganism in the grounds and bad behaviour especially in local derby days. If he thinks people have changed since then he's sadly mistaken. Especially in today's climate when people are kicking off at the drop of a hat.

Would the people who can be trusted more than others happen to share your social background? Or that of one of those middle class politicians who know what is best for us?

"‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘I trust that every animal here appreciates the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself. Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?’"