Andy Burnham has spoken out about football fans facing “discrimination” because they cannot drink alcohol in the stands, signalling that he may change the law. Any such move would reopen one of the most enduring legacies of the 1985 crackdown on football violence.
The ban was hastily introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1985 to tackle football violence that had blighted the domestic and international game for several decades. Excessive alcohol consumption was seen by the authorities as a significant factor in disorder.
What triggered the push was the violence at the infamous FA Cup tie between Luton Town and Millwall at Kenilworth Road in March 1985, compounded later that year by the Heysel Stadium disaster. Together they hastened the political and legal drive for tougher measures, culminating in the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985, which banned alcohol from football grounds in England and Wales. Scotland had already barred alcohol from its grounds since 1981.
Contemporary reporting from 15 March 1985 captured the immediate aftermath. The prime minister invited officials of the Football Association to a meeting to discuss countermeasures against hooliganism, with tougher court penalties, a ban on alcohol at grounds and discipline for offending clubs all likely to be high on her agenda after the riots that followed the Luton-Millwall tie.
The home secretary, Leon Brittan, facing Opposition criticism for failing to police the match at Luton adequately, called for a report from the Bedfordshire chief constable, Andrew Sloan, to be on his desk by the following morning. The sports minister, Neil Macfarlane, told MPs in the Commons that he had asked the FA for a report within a week, wanting to know what action it intended to take against clubs whose supporters had a history of violence. Once that report was available, he said, the prime minister intended to meet the officers of the FA.
Macfarlane’s remarks followed a fact-finding meeting at the Department of the Environment with Luton manager David Pleat and Millwall chief executive Tony Shaw, after which he said he had been given a detailed account of the events leading up to the riot at Luton’s Kenilworth Road stand, following the home side’s 1-0 win in the sixth round tie. He expressed concern about possible violence at the next day’s games between Brentford and Millwall at Griffin Park and Watford and Chelsea at Vicarage Road, saying police would need extra vigilance, and he was anxious about what might happen when Sunderland came to town for the Milk Cup final on 24 March. He declined to comment on the performance of the 200 police officers who had to deal with the mob of Millwall fans who wrecked a stand at Luton and caused extensive damage in the town, sticking by his Commons statement that it would be wrong to pre-judge the findings of the chief constable and the FA inquiry.
The human and material cost of that night was set out plainly. Forty-one people, including 31 police officers, were injured, and the cost of damage to the ground was put at £15,000. Shops, homes and cars were damaged, and a British Rail football special was wrecked on the way back to London.
The political response exposed a sharp divide. Thatcher’s involvement was intended to show the seriousness with which the government viewed soccer violence, but she was criticised in the Commons by the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, for tackling the symptoms rather than the cause. He did not specifically link unemployment and deprivation to the violence, but said they were factors, arguing there was no simple answer and that the roots of an epidemic problem had to be attacked. Thatcher firmly rejected that analysis, concentrating instead on soccer violence itself and arguing it could be a problem of parental and teacher discipline that could be met with more police and more equipment. She laid heavy stress on the importance of deterrent sentencing, while Whitehall sources indicated that although a Criminal Justice Bill might be included in the Queen’s speech, magistrates’ sentencing powers were already adequate, ranging from detention centres to long terms of imprisonment.
Macfarlane faced demands from MPs to follow the Scottish example of banning alcohol from grounds, and he invited clubs to impose their own voluntary ban pending possible government legislation. MPs lined up to condemn the violence: John Carlisle, Tory MP for Luton North, who was at the match, said his constituents were angry at the destruction of their homes, shops, town and football club, and added that the only answer was to inflict on those responsible the physical pain they had so readily inflicted on others. The shadow sports minister, Denis Howell, said the entire police force had been mobilised to deal with the miners’ strike and demanded to know why the same was not done against rampaging mobs he called a national scandal. Macfarlane stressed his belief that football clubs had to deal with a “new order of individual who goes to football because he has a lust for violence.”
Luton Town’s directors responded by taking a policy decision not to play Millwall again “for the time being”, nor any other clubs likely to be accompanied by violent supporters, even if that meant forfeiting points. The club’s chief executive, John Smith, said they should not subject the people of Luton or their own supporters to such incidents in future. He admitted more could have been done to prevent trouble, noting it was a sad thing that groups of supporters had arrived on coaches drunk, and said the names of the coach companies had been passed to the police. Luton officials revealed the club had received abusive telephone calls before the game, many threatening personal injury, and that ticket office staff were so frightened they went home early without watching one of the club’s most important matches. The office manager, John Gornell, described a mob pressed up against the glass, some of them frothing at the mouth. The club also produced statistics showing that only 5,185 fans paid to enter the visitors’ end, despite it being packed to its capacity of 8,700.
After pressure from clubs, the 1985 Act was amended the following year by the Public Order Act 1986 to ease the rules on alcohol being served in executive boxes and boardrooms. Today, fans in England and Wales can consume alcohol at men’s football matches in areas of stadiums that do not have a direct view of the pitch — the arrangement that could now be revisited.