Cricket Witness No 1 - Class Peace

130 Change of Culture; Change of Cricket to avoid the judgement that this ethical focus on social behaviour has been largely abandoned. Jeffrey Richards’ simple formula of the ‘rough’ and the ‘respectable’ in constant duelling is a useful tool in this regard. As he himself has argued, the ‘rough’ element is once again enjoying the ascendant, as it did in Hanoverian times. 4 Crime and occasional rioting was not the only source of misconduct. What criminologists call ‘incivilities’ became rife, with vandalism, graffiti, noise and raucous behaviour commonplace. Of particular note from a sporting standpoint was the consistent week-in-week-out violence of football crowds which peaked in the 1980s but is still a matter of concern. The introduction of all-seater stadia and attempts to rein in the consumption of alcohol have helped but the fact that careful segregation of fans, unheard of in earlier years, with heavy policing and stewarding, demonstrates that the problem is being coped with, even taken for granted, rather than solved. Commentators criticise clubs and the police when supporters are enabled to clash almost as if such violent behaviour was normal conduct unless tamed. An exhaustive broadsheet critique of the current situation ended with the pertinent reminder that ‘all the preceding points would be rendered null and void if grown men could attend a football match and not do such things as tear a seat out from its bracket and hurl it at another person. It is remarkable how so little of the discussion is given over to the basic requirement for adults to behave in a socially acceptable manner’ 5 It is fair to say that if the public order legislation relating to likely disorder at political parades or meetings was applicable to football, hundreds of fixtures would be cancelled, such is the nuisance caused not so much inside but around the grounds. In a phrase, the crowd came to be feared again – as it had been in Hanoverian times. It is instructive to recall how well-conducted society was when the Football League was formed all those years ago in 1888 when the authorities had rightly grown comfortable about large gatherings. It was perhaps fortunate that football crowds had diminished and the major disorder was around the big city clubs; had the gates remained as large as in the 1930s and 1940s the weekly unrest would have been difficult to police. Cricket was possibly lucky in that, apart from some days of some Test matches and high-level one day games, there were no crowds large enough to cause trouble. It is also true that the tighter time intensity of football makes for a higher octane atmosphere than cricket and the football tribal rivalries are more ferocious. Action has sometimes been taken to restrain alcohol abuse but there have been no reports of coachloads of young Gloucestershire supporters alighting at Taunton tooled up for combat with their Somerset counterparts. One might speculate that where alcohol is suspected to fuel football hooliganism, it acts as a further sleep inducement for cricket fans. Gradually another factor came into play, one that is of much significance for the story of class relationship to sport. A further response, at least