Help with FourFourTwo article

[PeterWithesShin]

I remember reading somewhere that the Hardcore were pretty racist in the 70's/80's and were known to engage in 'Paki-bashing' and the like.

They weren't around then.

[neo_Villan]

Ah right. It was quite a while back when I read it, so I can't remember exactly what it said. But it was something along those lines. Maybe it was talking about another Villa firm?

[ciggiesnbeer]

I am not the thought police, but I would urge everyone to reconsider posting anything that might help the sports press. Whatever you post and say will be twisted into something negative about the club, fans or football.

[Matt Collins]

I remember reading somewhere that the Hardcore were pretty racist in the 70's/80's and were known to engage in 'Paki-bashing' and the like.

I went to Leicester away in about 1996 or so, and a pretty sizeable chunk of the villa fans were singing "you're the pride of Pakistan". Clearly, not as sinister as some other chants, but I found it completely cringeworthy, not to say ironic given Aston's makeup.

Having said that, I'm pretty embarassed to this day that I used to wholeheartedly join in with the "your brother is a queer" chant to John Fashanu, which was just plain wrong.

[Matt Collins]

I am not the thought police, but I would urge everyone to reconsider posting anything that might help the sports press. Whatever you post and say will be twisted into something negative about the club, fans or football.

Some things are more important and it's a good thing that football has done so much to rid itself of this sort of shit. There's no value in keeping things under the carpet. As others have said, villa has a good story to tell on the whole.

[Ads]

Ah right. It was quite a while back when I read it, so I can't remember exactly what it said. But it was something along those lines. Maybe it was talking about another Villa firm?

The main bloke in the Villa's firm in the 80's was black.

[Percy McCarthy]

Let's not forget the heroic refuseniks of 1938. Not hooligans like, but still...

[neo_Villan]

Ah right. It was quite a while back when I read it, so I can't remember exactly what it said. But it was something along those lines. Maybe it was talking about another Villa firm?

The main bloke in the Villa's firm in the 80's was black.

What I read was most likely BS then. If I can ever find that article again, I'll post it here anyway.

[Dave Cooper please]

It's incredibly silly to want to fight somebody because they support a different football team.

Well yes, but these are the sort of people who are going to fight someone, somewhere whatever. Football is an excuse, if they weren't fighting opposition fans they'd be brawling outside pubs.

[olaftab]

There was racism at VP. Fortunately never as bad as at other clubs. I've said before how an Asian friend of mine started going in the early 70's and got the shit kicked out of him in the back of the Holte by a bunch of other Villa 'fans' and told never to come back as the Holte was no place for Pakis.

For those with back issues of H&V it's mentioned in an article he wrote in H&V called Too Many Cowboys.

Yes sadly I can confirm  that from personal experience.

[Pat McMahon]

Ah right. It was quite a while back when I read it, so I can't remember exactly what it said. But it was something along those lines. Maybe it was talking about another Villa firm?

The main bloke in the Villa's firm in the 80's was black.

Not true. Percy is white ( winky thing)

[Witton Warrior]

I remember reading somewhere that the Hardcore were pretty racist in the 70's/80's and were known to engage in 'Paki-bashing' and the like.

Hardcore on the 70/80's - bit early? There was a rumour - fuelled by the Zulus - that Hardcore had Combat 18 affiliations but that was a load of tosh

The only time I saw problems on the Holte was when some pissed-up idiot would try and get some racist chant going - almost always at an opposition player. I was appalled at the homophobic treatment a couple of players have received from the Lower Holte a few years ago and argued with those singing but that seems to have died out as well.

[Percy McCarthy]

Ah right. It was quite a while back when I read it, so I can't remember exactly what it said. But it was something along those lines. Maybe it was talking about another Villa firm?

The main bloke in the Villa's firm in the 80's was black.

Not true. Percy is white ( winky thing)

As Danny Brown would tell you, I held the coats.

[pauliewalnuts]

See, this is why run-of-the-mill football violence has never bothered me. People who like violence fighting over something essentially trivial like football - so what? When people do it over religion, race etc, that's when it gets sinister.

The problem with that is that, whilst I understand the argument that it is largely "people who want to fight, fighting with other people who want to fight, so let them get on with it", it doesn't really work that way.

The people kicking shit out of each other don't do so in a hermetically sealed, closed off environment where nobody who isn't looking for it finds themselves in trouble.

See the mention of the Atletico Madrid away game on another thread at the moment for an example. Or, indeed, look at the way all football fans got treated like shit for years and years not that long ago, that was all the result of people doing precisely that "if they weren't doing it here, they'd be doing it outside a pub" thing.

The difference is, if a load of blokes meet to kick the shit out of each other outside a pub, that doesn't end up with pub users elsewhere in the country finding they suffer as a result of someone else's shit hobby.

I entirely understand the connection of hooliganism and violence with British football culture, you'd have to be blind not to have attended matches during the 70s and 80s and not picked up on that connection, but really, some of the excuse making that still goes on for it is absolutely nuts.

[andyaston]

The original poster has not posted anything since