Football Banning Orders: The Highly Effective Cornerstone of a Preventative Strategy?

Abstract

On 13 April 2013, Millwall played Wigan Athletic in the semi-final of the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium, where disorder involving Millwall support- ers at one of the Football Association’s showpiece events firmly placed the subject of football hooliganism back in the public sphere. The events at Wembley were followed by disorder at the Newcastle v. Sunderland game, where 29 arrests were made on the day of the game (in total 106 were made) and a horse was captured being punched by a Newcastle sup- porter on camera. As the media predictably referred to ‘shameful events’ that were ‘reminiscent of the dark days of football riots in the 1970’s and 80’s’ (Watson and Brooke, 2013), political attention turned to what measures were in place to prevent football-related disorder. This subject was raised in Parliament when, on 13 May, Dan Jarvis (Labour MP for Barnsley Central) asked the secretary of state for the Home Office what steps had been taken to enforce banning orders and to reduce levels of violence around matches. On behalf of the home secretary, the Home Office minister Damian Green responded.