Policing football in Scotland: the forgotten team

In this article, I suggest that the prevailing literature which has been generated by academics and official enquiry on football spectator culture and violence has neglected one of the main features of any UK football match: the police. I demonstrate through reference to my own work with Scottish police officers how a significant police culture exists in relation to football. A key aspect in this culture is that the police do not operate as one homogeneous unit, or ‘team’ in Erving Goffman’s (1959) terms, but as several smaller teams working largely independently of each other. This police culture needs to be investigated further in order to gain a complete understanding of football spectator culture and violence.