'The enemy within' football hooliganism and the miners' strike' 

During the 1980s Margaret Thatcher’s government attempted to reduce the economic power of the industrial working class by legislating against the trade unions and defeating the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike. At the time English football was an important part of male working-class culture, particularly for northern industrial workers and was under attack from the Government and Press over football hooliganism. It has often been argued that Thatcher’s trade union policies were designed to break the economic power of the industrial working class (Young, 1993, Richards 1996). If, through comparison, a link between this policy and the treatment of football supporters is found it will determine whether this conflict had a cultural aspect. Scholars such as Giulianotti (1985) and McArdle (2000) have anecdotally made this link but there has not been sufficient analysis of the comparison. Waiton (2012, 2014) also references the similarities in Thatcher’s description of football fans and strikers with the IRA but does not interrogate this in depth. This paper will address this and focus on the Government and press treatment of football and trade unions and assess whether the Government was seeking to bind the two issues together.


Tom Campbell is a maths teacher at the UCL Academy in North London, he completed his masters in history at Durham University for which he won the Richie Prize prize. Despite pursuing a career in education he has kept his hand in the sports history gamen and has spoken at various conferences over the last 3 years on topics such as the interaction between racism and boxing in regency England, the importance of memory in football fandom, the development of football stadia and the history of football hooliganism. He recently published 'The enemy within' football hooliganism and the miners' strike' in Sport in History which he also spoke on at last summers' BSSH conference.

Thomas Campbell - The Miners' Strike and 80s Football Violence

This week Geoff talks to two guests, Prof Matt Taylor and Dr Raf Nicholson, who have co-authored an article for the latest issue of the Society’s journal, Sport in History, 'Women, sport and the people’s war in Britain, 1939–45'.

Geoff also catches up with Richard Boddie to talk about the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize which is awarded each year by the Society to recognise excellence in sport history.

To access the journal article go to https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2020.1824939

Matthew Taylor is Professor of History in the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, where he is one of our foremost sports historians with numerous publications on the history of association football in particular. His latest book is Sport and the Home Front: Wartime Britain at Play, 1939-45, which was published by Routledge in 2020 and is available in all good bookshops.

Dr Raf Nicholson of Bournemouth University is a longtime friend and presenter of the podcast and current chair of the BSSH, who specialises in women's sports history. Her most recent book is  Ladies at Lord’s: A History of Women’s Cricket in Britain, which was published by Peter Lang in 2019 and short-listed for the Lord Aberdare Prize in 2020.

Matt Taylor & Raf Nicholson Women's Sport in WW2

The Sport in History Podcast brings you the latest in cutting edge research with interviews and talks with leading sports historians and up and coming researchers into Sports History. The podcast is a British Society of Sports History production from the UK's leading scholarly society for the history of sport. Click through to our website for further information on our events and to find out how to join the Society.

Thomas Campbell - The Miners' Strike and 80s Football Violence

Sport in History

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