Headhunters, Hooliganism and Margret Thatcher

This Article has been translated from a Peruvian website, some words may be lost in translation.

On December 29, 1984, after a game of English Premier Division, Kevin Whitton a member of the organized Chelsea Firm (known as The Headhunters ) was arrested for rioting outside Stamford Bridge and then attack a bartender in a pub in King’s Road . In the pub, Whitton had only held the victim while another unknown member of the Headhunters used a broken beer glass like a knife to apply multiple stab wounds in the face. The bartender saved

his life, but 11 months after Whitton was sentenced to life imprisonment by a British court.

The place at the wrong time

Whitton, such as “Crazy David” and “Cholo Payet” the night of September 24, 2011 at the Monumental de Ate, had chosen the wrong time and place to make a show of savagery he used to practice for several years. Violence and the dead in English football were nothing new. Since the early seventies, organized firms such as Inter City Firm of West Ham United, The Red Army Manchester United, The Zulus of Birmingham City or mentioned Headhunters Chelsea, among others, turned to the island in shame World football.

Unfortunately for Whitton, between the time he was imprisoned and sentenced occurred two events that sealed his fate : The March 13, 1985 in a match of the FA Cup, thousands of fans of the London club Milwall (the dreaded Bushwackers ) invaded the stadium field Kenilworth Road in Luton, causing the worst pitched battle from which until then had record in English football. Everything happened before the impassive gaze of television and made the cover of every newspaper the next day. Then on May 29, 1985, 39 Juventus fans died crushed in Brussels during the end of the European Cup against Liverpool in contention. The event now known as the Heysel tragedy , showed to the world the cavernous and macabre face of British football hooliganism.

Enter the Iron Lady

These two events made the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took the political decision to end violence in football. This formed a War Cabinet , whose final product was the implementation of the 1989 Act Viewers , a standard that set the stage for all the changes that make today’s English Premier League an example in the control of violence . In 1985, however, the public outcry needed to put a face to the hooliganista barbarism. English justice decided that this was the face of the headhunter Kevin Whitton. As the events of Monumental Ate ended with England, grisly death of Walter Oyarce were the straw that broke the camel. Violence in our football is a matter of more than two decades that had already claimed several deaths. This time, however, the incident took place and n the most exclusive section of a sports stadium , after the biggest game of the Premier League and in front of the cameras live national television.

“This is not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning” (Sir Winston Churchill)

The ruling that sentenced to 35 years in prison for murderers of Walter Oyarce represents a clear and strong message not only to those who use football as an excuse to kill and steal but also racist and misfits who believe that the stands of a stadium remains the exception space where they can air their pathologies. Photo: El Comercio Photo: El Comercio Before declaring victory, however , it should be clear that the judgment of Oyarce case, being a great first step, we still put several years of peace in the courts. precisely in England in 1985 The difference is that with to severe labor courts, England implemented a series of administrative, police and budgetary measures that were understood to football violence as a social problem and not exclusively legal. In Peru we have the faces of two murderers. But only that. In 1985 England had the face of Kevin Whitton ( and then to the Headhunter “Hickey” Hickmot ) and, in addition, they also had to Thatcher and British institutional solid . We still have to Ollanta, judges that climb walls and a leadership that can not arm or an Excel spreadsheet when you schedule games. Go to a football stadium remains a high risk activity.

Article available here http://goo.gl/Hgw1nk from Peru