It is argued that the anthropological approach, as used by Armstrong and Harris, has not generated any breakthrough in the study of soccer hooliganism. In particular, it is suggested that their use of a commonsense rather than a sociological concept of violence vitiates their analysis in several ways, contributing above all to substantial inconsistencies between some of their own empirical data and their general conclusions concerning levels of soccer-related violence. It is also contended that their critique of the ‘figurational’ or ‘process-sociological’ approach followed by the Leicester researchers is based on a confused misrepresentation of that approach. Specifically it is argued (i) that Armstrong and Harris fail to recognize the wide range of methods, including extensive participant observation, used by the Leicester group, (ii) that their attempt to cast doubt on the Leicester group's contention that the core football hooligans come predominantly from the ‘rougher’ sections of the working class is based on nothing more than a priori speculation. In this connection, Armstrong and Harris themselves provide no reliable data on the social class of soccer hooligans in Sheffield, and they seem unaware of the fact that several different sources of data appear to confirm the finding of the Leicester group, (iii) they have misunderstood both the terminology and the reasoning of the Leicester group concerning the ‘rougher’ sections of the working class and their relationship to football hooliganism.

The subject of this paper is 'football hooliganism'. We shall focus centrally in this connection on the pattern of fighting between rival groups that has come to be regularly associated with soccer, not only in this country but in a number of others besides. In fact, although this rarely surfaces in the press, there is scarcely a country where Association football is played where eruptions of crowd violence have not occurred, though English fans are currently the most feared in Europe and the only ones who regularly cause trouble when they are travelling abroad in support of their clubs or the national side.l The research on which the paper is based was funded by the Social Science Research Council (now the ESRC) and the Football Trust. Before we set forth some of our results, we shall sketch in some of the main parameters of football hooliganism as a social phenomenon.