Harry Maguire #6 of England celebrates a goal during the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Quarter Final… [+] match between Sweden and England at Samara Arena on July 7, 2018 in Samara, Russia. (Photo by Fu Tian/China News Service/VCG)
Do you want England to keep winning in the World Cup? Depending on who you are, the answer to that question may be complicated.
Yesterday, England beat Sweden 2-0 and advanced to the semi-finals of the World Cup for the first time since 1990. Then this happened:
Blimey. That's a lot of pent up frustration being released. Many of these celebration scenes were relatively innocent and harmless enough, except for the poor chaps who bought all the beer that went flying in the air and anyone who decided to wear chiffon or silk to a pub. They probably should have realized the general rules: never buy the next round shortly before the end of a match and never wear chiffon or silk to a pub.
But then there were the violent celebrations such as people leaping on and damaging cars including ambulances. Why on Earth would you jump on an ambulance? That's like saying, “I want to end up in the hospital but not have the means to get there.”
The BBC reported on scenes that made an MMA fight look like a Broadway musical: smoke bombs going off in pubs, Nottingham dealing with over 6 tons of broken glass, the Lancashire and West Midlands Police receiving the highest-ever number of 999 calls over a 24-hour period, and someone shouting at a police dog for being German. There was no report on whether the dog responded in English or German, woof or voof. And how about English fans storming and trashing an IKEA Store after the win, because, you know, IKEA, is headquartered in Sweden:
It was rather sad to see the IKEA employees watch helplessly as their store gets vandalized by idiots. Stay classy English fans.
A number of English football fans behaving badly is not a new phenomenon. While this certainly does not represent most English fans, there has been an extensive history of violence, nationalism, and racism among enough English football fans to the point that the term “English hooliganism” was coined many years ago. As described in scholarly papers, this has included shouting racial epithets, singing racist songs, bullying and attacking fans of other countries, and damaging property such as overturning cars of German make after England lost to West Germany in the 1990 World Cup. Contrast this with the picture of Japanese fans helping clean up the stadium after Japan barely lost in a well-played heartbreaker to Belgium 3-2 in this year's World Cup knock-out round:
A fan of Japan cleans up rubbish at the end of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Quarter Final match… [+] between Brazil and Belgium at Kazan Arena on July 6,
