Search: 'Fan culture'

Rich Zahradnik came over from America for Euro '96 and, much to his surprise, found himself in a Catholic country

I arrived on the morning of the first match of Euro ’96 to find a nation still recovering from “The Shame!!” Members of the England team had had some drinks in a dentist chair then, played rough with the interior of an airplane. Shame was everywhere, the same shame felt by the entire British nation when one of its politicians, vicars, talk show hosts, policemen, soldiers, dogs, cats or royals does something the rest of us probably do all the time anyway.

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Jon Rea explains why the fun of Euro ’96 never quite made it to Nottingham

The disappointing support from local fans is only partly helpful in explaining why, for Nottingham at least, Euro ’96 was the story of the party nobody came to.

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What will be the lasting effect of Euro '96 on the culture of England fans?

So, the parts of England where most of the domestic trophies go finally saw some competitive international football for the first time in thirty years. England played well in a couple of games and might even have won it. Most of the visiting supporters seemed to enjoy themselves and German fans celebrated in Trafalgar Square after the Final without there being a riot. Things went so well, in fact, that the FA have announced that it intends to mount a bid for the 2006 World Cup. 

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Mike Ticher has been leafing through revised edition of Simon Inglis's Football Grounds of Great Britain

Between 1975 and 1985, there was perhaps only a single football book published in Britain that could genuinely be called a classic. Simon Inglis’s The Football Grounds of England and Wales (1983) was a revelation for two reasons. First, because it appeared at a time when football was grossly unfashionable. Second, because it differed utterly in form and content from the landmarks in football publishing which both preceded and followed it.

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The 1995-96 season was the first time that Welsh Clubs playing in England were excluded from the Welsh Cup, resulting in the final being an all-League of Wales affair. Thomas Crockett explains why the occasion didn't get the publicity it deserved

Many supporters felt that the absence of the holy trinity (Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham) devalued the Welsh Cup, one of the world’s oldest football tournaments. Pre-match prognoses in the press were pessimistic, Wales on Sunday dishing the dirt by predicting the FA of Wales would lose £30,000 by holding the final at the National Stadium in front of a low crowd – a self-fulfilling prophesy if ever there was one.

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