Speaker 1: Hey there, I'm Scott Mitchell, the editor of Schwartz Media's
Speaker 1: daily news show seven Am. This is the Weekend Read
Speaker 1: Every fortnight on the show, we feature the best writing
Speaker 1: in Australia, read to you by the people who wrote it.
Speaker 1: Today on the show, journalist Martin mackenzie Murray with his
Speaker 1: piece from this weekend's edition of the Saturday Paper. The
Speaker 1: Euros are just weeks away. Some of the best footballers
Speaker 1: in the world will be competing in an event that
Speaker 1: draws in hundreds of millions of viewers, but the legacy
Speaker 1: of the last Euros is still an uncomfortable topic for many,
Speaker 1: particularly in England, not only because they lost, but because
Speaker 1: of the scenes of violence and hooliganism that led to
Speaker 1: a national debate and a new Netflix documentary. Marty will
Speaker 1: read his story, The Final Attack on Wemberley shows soccer
Speaker 1: fandom at its most pathetic. After a short conversation with me, Marty,
Speaker 1: first off, we're only a couple of weeks away from
Speaker 1: one of the most watched football tournaments in the world,
Speaker 1: The Euros. Are you excited for it? Are you going
Speaker 1: to be staying up late to watch any games?
Speaker 2: I am? I'm glad you brought this up because I
Speaker 2: think people's attentions are lit upon the Olympics in Paris,
Speaker 2: which begins in July. But you're right, next month is
Speaker 2: one of my favorite sporting tournaments full stop, the Euros.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously that the prestige is greater with the
Speaker 2: World Cup, but I think the quality of football in
Speaker 2: the Euros is better. So yes, I'm very excited about it,
Speaker 2: not terribly excited by the hostile time difference which Australian
Speaker 2: fans have to submit to.
Speaker 1: And you've written this piece about actually the last time
Speaker 1: this tournament was played, and it was actually under some
Speaker 1: pretty extraordinary circumstances and extraordinary things happened.
Speaker 2: Can you sort of.
Speaker 1: For those of us who might have forgotten, sort of
Speaker 1: explain what was so weird about the last time that
Speaker 1: this tournament was held and why it sort of still
Speaker 1: interests you how odd those circumstances were.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, all of this has been revived, I guess
Speaker 2: in this day of national shame for England revisited in
Speaker 2: a new Netflix documentary about the Eurofinal, which was played
Speaker 2: at Wembley in London. The tournament itself, there were a
Speaker 2: few kind of historical curiosities. One was that whilst it
Speaker 2: still held the name Euro twenty twenty, it was played
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one. It was delayed a full year
Speaker 2: by the virus that you might remember. There was also
Speaker 2: the fact that it was the sixtieth anniversary of the tournament,
Speaker 2: and so u WAFER, as the administrative body of the tournament,
Speaker 2: decided to what they said romantically spread hosting rights. Typically
Speaker 2: there's one, maybe two hosts. Yue for made a decision
Speaker 2: to spread it across the European continent. COVID reduced the numbers,
Speaker 2: but I think in the end there were eleven cities
Speaker 2: in eleven countries hosting England at Wembley, their national stadium
Speaker 2: had the rights to both SEMIS and the final. And finally,
Speaker 2: the other kind of curiosity, which I think was really
Speaker 2: significant in the considerable disorder of the final that day
Speaker 2: was COVID and so England made the final. They played Italy.
Speaker 2: They had never made the final of the European Championship before.
Speaker 2: They had made the final of one major tournament that
Speaker 2: was the nineteen sixty six World Cup only once before,
Speaker 2: so fifty five years before that. So they were hosting
Speaker 2: the final and they were also appearing in the final.
Speaker 2: It was the biggest game for England in fifty five years,
Speaker 2: but it was also coming off the back of a
Speaker 2: year of severe lockdowns. To say that there was kind
Speaker 2: of this national anti dissipation is a great understatement. You know,
Speaker 2: there was for some this kind of frenzied anticipation and
Speaker 2: this sense of abandon not just because England were playing
Speaker 2: in the final at home, but there were people were
Speaker 2: just emerging from a year of pretty severe lockdowns, so
Speaker 2: all of this kind of combined into what was a
Speaker 2: pretty disastrous day.
Speaker 1: And writing about disorder and fan chaos and violence, like
Speaker 1: as a football fan, it always seems the politics almost
Speaker 1: of fandom and disorder is kind of vexed because on
Speaker 1: the one hand, you have this working class sport that's
Speaker 1: become more and more expensive and more and more middle class,
Speaker 1: and among some there's kind of a nostalgia for the
Speaker 1: old terroces and the old firms of supporters that used
Speaker 1: to go around to away days and get into trouble.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, there's you know, really genuine,
Speaker 1: you know, hooliganism and violence that is pretty apparrent to
Speaker 1: look at. You know, how do you sort of look
Speaker 1: at the kind of nostalgia for some of that culture
Speaker 1: alongside the kind of like genuine chaos and violence and
Speaker 1: things that we see. How do you sort of view
Speaker 1: that changing fan culture in football?
Speaker 2: Probably the apex of English hoologanism, the hoologanism that attended
Speaker 2: domestic matches rather than international ones. Its apex was probably
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties. And you mentioned kind of a working
Speaker 2: class pastime. It hasn't been for a very very long time,
Speaker 2: at least since the emergence of the Premier League in
Speaker 2: the early nineteen nineties. The English Premier League is saturated
Speaker 2: in money. It's incredibly costly, and you mentioned the terroces.
Speaker 2: They've all been all seater for some time now. There
Speaker 2: was the tragedy of Hillsborough in which some ninety odd
Speaker 2: people were crushed to death. That was one catalyst for
Speaker 2: removing terrorists and ensuring that all stadium were all ster
Speaker 2: it kind of the hologanism used to be known as
Speaker 2: the English disease. But England never ever had a monopoly
Speaker 2: on domestic hooliganism. But I think one distinctive quality about
Speaker 2: England and a notoriety that is probably still justified, is
Speaker 2: the reputation of their traveling fans. They're kind of, I think,
Speaker 2: conspicuously worse than most when traveling to see their team
Speaker 2: overseas at major tournaments or in this case the final
Speaker 2: of July twenty twenty one, they were simply traveling from
Speaker 2: around the country and converging upon Wembley to see their
Speaker 2: country in the final.
Speaker 1: Mary, I can't wait to hear you read your piece.
Speaker 2: Thanks Scotty.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, Marty mackenzie Murray will read
Speaker 1: the final. Attack on Wembley shows soccer fandom at its
Speaker 1: most pathetic.
Speaker 2: In Dante's epic Palm The Divine Comedy, he describes his
Speaker 2: soul progressing downwards through nine levels of Hell, each composed
Speaker 2: of ever narrowing, concentric circles that house different categories of sinners,
Speaker 2: each of which is subject to diabolically tailored torments. In
Speaker 2: the eighth circle, home to the flatterers, those who corruptly
Speaker 2: beguiled and charmed with their tongues. The damned are perpetually
Speaker 2: washed in human excrement, foul certainly, but no worse than
Speaker 2: the vision of Hell that was belched into existence in
Speaker 2: London on July eleventh, twenty twenty one before and during
Speaker 2: the final of the AUEIFA European Championship between England and Italy,
Speaker 2: a source of national shame that's revisited in a new
Speaker 2: Netflix documentary, The Final Attack on Wembley. S Euros were
Speaker 2: distinguished by at least three historical curiosities. First, while retaining
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty title, the tournament had been delayed a
Speaker 2: year by COVID nineteen. Second, YUWAFA had chosen to romantically
Speaker 2: spread the hosting across eleven cities in eleven European countries.
Speaker 2: England's national stadium, Wembley, would host both semis and the
Speaker 2: final and third, England made its first ever euro final
Speaker 2: and its first appearance in a major tournament's final since
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixty six World Cup. English expectations were high.
Speaker 2: The Queen released a supportive statement recalling the moment she
Speaker 2: presented the Jewels Romae trophy to English captain Bobby Moore
Speaker 2: fifty five years earlier. Then Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote
Speaker 2: the team a letter thanking them for having lifted the
Speaker 2: spirits of the whole country. Prince William, president of the
Speaker 2: Football Association Public shared his own gratitude and excitement, while
Speaker 2: his people pondered the logistics of his involvement. When certain
Speaker 2: COVID restrictions remained in place. Days before the final, English
Speaker 2: pilgrims took cars, buses and trains to London, with or
Speaker 2: without tickets. Wembley can hold ninety thousand, but prevailing COVID
Speaker 2: restrictions limited the crowd to sixty seven thousand. Some went
Speaker 2: with the intention of jibbing or entering the match without
Speaker 2: a ticket. Others went with the hope they could buy
Speaker 2: a ticket from scalpers. Most wanted to watch the game
Speaker 2: on a screen somewhere near the stadium. The official inquiry
Speaker 2: into that day's disorder caught upon the advice of Professor
Speaker 2: Jeff Pearson, an expert on football fan behavior, who wrote
Speaker 2: it is well established that for many football fans, watching
Speaker 2: the match in the stadium is only one important aspect
Speaker 2: of a match event. The collective expression of identity is
Speaker 2: a fundamental feature of the experience for a large subculture
Speaker 2: of fans, who tend to dominate the traveling support of
Speaker 2: English clubs and the national team. This collective expression of
Speaker 2: identity is not limited to the stadium itself, and fans
Speaker 2: will seek to gather in large groups. Fans adhering to
Speaker 2: these norms have been labeled carnival fans, as the experience
Speaker 2: sought by the fans is primarily one of transgression from
Speaker 2: everyday norms. By nine o'clock on the morning of the final,
Speaker 2: which would not kick off until eight pm, already drunk
Speaker 2: fans were massing on the boulevard leading to Wembley. I've
Speaker 2: been doing this for over a decade and have worked
Speaker 2: on various other celebratory events, including New Year's Eve. A
Speaker 2: London Underground official would later testify, I have never seen
Speaker 2: drunkenness like this so early on in the day. Most
Speaker 2: evident to the case inquiry suggested this should have been anticipated.
Speaker 2: Not only was it England's biggest football match in more
Speaker 2: than half a century, but the English were only just
Speaker 2: emerging from a year of hard lockdowns. Freedom Day, the
Speaker 2: day when almost all restrictions would be lifted, was just
Speaker 2: a week away, and people were already changing their behaviors.
Speaker 2: The boys were free and football was finally coming home.
Speaker 2: There followed from this an atmosphere of frenzied and Coke
Speaker 2: Field abandoned. It was an atmosphere unmistigated by fan zones
Speaker 2: and large screens upon which to watch the match. Those
Speaker 2: wanting to see the game in a parb near the
Speaker 2: stadium were thwarted too. Venues were either closed or their
Speaker 2: capacity limited by COVID laws, and the space was relatively
Speaker 2: untouched by police. Their resources were initially placed in central London,
Speaker 2: and the major deployment of offices to Wembley wasn't scheduled
Speaker 2: until three pm. In that time, Olympic Way had been
Speaker 2: taken over. Ten thousand densely packed and chemically altered men
Speaker 2: had collectively crossed a threshold and could no longer be
Speaker 2: meaningfully controlled. Their occupancy had taken root, and police were
Speaker 2: now conspicuously ineffectual. Disorder reigned, and here was a scene
Speaker 2: of hell fans in wheelchairs trying to make their way
Speaker 2: to the stadium through an endless scrum, of shirtless men
Speaker 2: shitting in water fountains and toppling portable toilets. Hundreds of
Speaker 2: glass bottles were thrown indiscriminately. Men climbed traffic lights to
Speaker 2: snort cocaine before cheering crowds. Trees were ripped from the ground,
Speaker 2: the boulevard became a river of piss. Parents shielded their
Speaker 2: children with umbrellas and outstretched arms. Through me, the way
Speaker 2: to the city of woe through me, the way to
Speaker 2: everlasting pain through me, the way to the lost. Abandon
Speaker 2: all hope, you who enter here. In the final we
Speaker 2: meet Max, a young man of staggering idiocy, who appears
Speaker 2: here like a sentient piece of dough, his pride and
Speaker 2: identity malleable according to the desires of whichever violent mob
Speaker 2: he surrendered himself to. Max boastfully describes what we might
Speaker 2: assume to be his life's crowning achievements so far, climbing
Speaker 2: on the roof of a bus made stationary by the
Speaker 2: crowd's mass and occupied by a terrified and helpless driver.
Speaker 2: I seen the bus and I thought this was my
Speaker 2: time to shine, Max says. There were so many people
Speaker 2: filming me, and I just felt like the man. Soon,
Speaker 2: twenty odd folk are denting the roof of the bus,
Speaker 2: as the panicked driver wonders when the cavalry might arrive.
Speaker 2: A notable feature of this documentary, which is very thin,
Speaker 2: by the way, and covers nothing that's not contained in
Speaker 2: the vastly more detailed Casey Report, is the testimony of
Speaker 2: various thugs and gibbers and antisocial opportunists who testified to
Speaker 2: the transcendent thrill of adrenaline. Pure chaos, a chaos that
Speaker 2: harms and spooks and intimidates, remains a wonderful antidote to boredom,
Speaker 2: just as Bill Buford found in his nineteen ninety memoir
Speaker 2: of hooliganism. Among the Thugs, it was like a medieval
Speaker 2: football match, one local council staff member told the inquiry.
Speaker 2: Stuff was getting chucked in the air. It was dangerous.
Speaker 2: People were climbing the trees and climbing traffic lights. Things
Speaker 2: had buckled. But the central interest of Casey's inquiry, as
Speaker 2: it is here with the documentary, is the breaching of
Speaker 2: Wembley Stadium in a country still haunted by the Hillsborough
Speaker 2: disaster of nineteen eighty nine. A critical mass of very
Speaker 2: drunk men whose stamina had been held helped by the
Speaker 2: ingestion of class as, were scoping a porous perimeter that
Speaker 2: was understaffed by overburdened attendants who also had to check
Speaker 2: fans COVID status. I am clear that we were close
Speaker 2: to fatalities and all life changing injuries for some, potentially
Speaker 2: many in attendance. The Casey report reads, at five twenty
Speaker 2: five pm, the first violent breach of the stadium occurred.
Speaker 2: Stewards and police were swarmed, punched, and crushed beneath toppling barricades.
Speaker 2: There were simply too many fans. Once inside the sterile area,
Speaker 2: but before the turnstiles, they looked for access to the
Speaker 2: stadium itself. Pass gates designed for disabled fans were a
Speaker 2: popular route. These were swarmed. My son, who needs twenty
Speaker 2: four to seven care, was stuck in the middle of
Speaker 2: this in his wheelchair, was the testimony one parent gave
Speaker 2: the Casey inquiry. The inquiry also heard of one man
Speaker 2: who breached the stadium while wearing a fake high viz
Speaker 2: vest to suggest his authority, then seized the occupied wheelchair
Speaker 2: of another man's son. Father and child were separated in
Speaker 2: the chaos as the goon wheeled the boy away. About
Speaker 2: two thousand people successfully made their way into the stadium
Speaker 2: without tickets, breaking emergency doors and taking the seats of
Speaker 2: disabled fans in the process. Thousands more were still attempting
Speaker 2: violent entry outside. If twelve hours of hard drinking blunted
Speaker 2: their strength and desire, the kocain revitalized them. Stewards also
Speaker 2: had to make potentially life or death decisions when emergency
Speaker 2: doors were destroyed and they had to move into those
Speaker 2: crowds to prevent crushes. The Casey report says the game
Speaker 2: finished one all after extra time, the European champions would
Speaker 2: now be decided by penalty shootout. Football Association staff were
Speaker 2: badly conflicted a potentially fatal crush might be avoided if
Speaker 2: England lost, thus denying the thousands of unhinged fans outside
Speaker 2: motivation to revive attempts to storm the stadium. And so
Speaker 2: it was. England lost the shootout, and then it began
Speaker 2: to rain. The mood was sour but not explosive. Fans left,
Speaker 2: none outside tried to enter what was now awake. If
Speaker 2: England had won, I think it would have been horrific,
Speaker 2: an emergency services official told the inquiry, and we'd have
Speaker 2: had to have declared a major incident both Central London
Speaker 2: and Wembley. I can guarantee that we would have been
Speaker 2: on our knees. Many sighed with relief, but another ugliness
Speaker 2: was expressed. Three England players missed penalties in the shootout,
Speaker 2: all were black. The racist taunts began in the stadium
Speaker 2: continued outside it and was sustained by social media and
Speaker 2: public graffiti. The day was spoiled by a horde of
Speaker 2: six thousand or more ticketless fans, many of whom were
Speaker 2: no more than mindless thugs. Baroness Casey wrote the outpouring
Speaker 2: of vile racist abuse that followed in the days after
Speaker 2: only made this worse. What can be happily noted here, though,
Speaker 2: is a year after this near fatal bedlam, the women's
Speaker 2: England team won the Euros at a packed Wembley. It
Speaker 2: was a joyous and non violent evening. And then a
Speaker 2: year after that, Australia co hosted the Women's World Cup,
Speaker 2: peacefully sold out our stadiums and generated a thrilling sense
Speaker 2: of national bonomie as the Matildas made their way to
Speaker 2: the semi final, and all this without rivers of piss
Speaker 2: and kidnapped children.
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