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What Is It About Soccer That Brings Out the Hooligan in Its Fans?

Red Card

Soccer hooligans do not rampage the way they once did, but they do still romp and stomp to make you wonder what it is in the beautiful game that inspires such ugliness.

articles/2014/06/25/what-is-it-about-soccer-that-brings-out-the-hooligan-in-its-fans/140624-morris-soccer-hooligan-tease_p907te
Christopher Furlong/Getty

While living in England in the 1980s, the American writer and editor Bill Buford did an astonishing thing. He embedded himself in that army of world-class sociopaths known as English soccer hooligans, attending matches with them, traveling with them, getting drunk with them, brawling with them and, finally, getting viciously...

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