GLASGOWRANGERSSUPPORTERSINTHECITY OFMANCHESTER The Degeneration of a ‘Fan Party’ into a ‘Hooligan Riot’ Peter Millward Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Abstract On 14 May 2008 Glasgow Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg contested the UEFA Cup final at the City of Manchester Stadium. Zenit St Petersburg won the match but the event was marred by violent clashes between Glasgow Rangers supporters and Greater Manchester Police’s Tactical Support Group officers in Manchester city centre during the game. News coverage largely attached blame for the disorder upon Glasgow Rangers’ supporters, however, this article, principally drawing upon participant observation material supported by other relevant literature, will argue that responsi- bility is diffuse across a number of constituencies and that Rangers fans alone should not be blamed for the degeneration of a ‘fan party’ into a ‘hooligan riot’. Key words • event organization • fan party • football fandom • Glasgow Rangers • hooliganism Introduction On Wednesday 14 May 2008, Rangers Football Club of Glasgow (hereon referred to as Rangers) contested the 2007/8 UEFA (Union de Associations Europeénnes de Football) Cup final with Russian club Zenit St Petersburg at the City of Manchester Stadium. Zenit St Petersburg won the match but the major news story came from Rangers supporters’ behaviour in a ‘fanzone’ erected at Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens. In the days after the final, news stations reported that 42 Rangers fans had been arrested in connection to incidents in and around Piccadilly Gardens, with one Zenit St Petersburg fan stabbed (at the stadium). CCTV footage showed a police officer on the floor and surrounded by a ‘mob of twenty [Rangers] fans’ (The Guardian, 16 May 2008c). Newspaper reports stated that ‘Glasgow Rangers fans went on the rampage in the city after their UEFA Cup final defeat’ 1 (The Guardian, 22 May 2008d), with an image of a Rangers supporter being attacked by a police dog discredited by reporting the photographed man as a ‘convicted murder . . . show[ing] the calibre of people who were involved’ (The Daily Mail, 17 May 2008). Meanwhile, The Times ran a news headline describing Rangers as ‘[a] club with a poison at it its core’ and ending the same article with the damming verdict that ‘the once-proud name of           INTERNATIONALREVIEWFORTHESOCIOLOGYOFSPORT44/4(2009) 381–398 381 © The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav http://irs.sagepub.com 10.1177/1012690209344658