For, where the English football team goes, there go English football hooligans, the red and white standard of St. George and mayhem. In Marseilles, where England beat Tunisia, they were everywhere, wrecking bars, beating up people, throwing stones and chucking beer bottles. Over a hundred of them were arrested and some have been imprisoned for violence and other offences. But there are more -- and Toulouse is preparing for their onslaught. But who is a Football Hooligan? He is male and white.

Invariably a working class English lad, with a good job and a family (among those arrested in Marseilles included a postmen and a soldier) he tends to be found around football fixtures. He drinks beer by the gallon, is enthused by chants of "Eng-er-land" or "We're coming home" and may in addition have a beerbelly, tattoos and a shaven head. What marks him out from the average football supporter is that he likes to stick his own boot into the opponents faces, pelt them with beer cans or beer bottles and ripped out seats, crack open their heads with anything hard at hand; and all this for the greater glory of Eng-er-land.

Eng-er-land is, however, rather embarrassed by its hooligans. Even the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have found themselves apologising for their nationalistic no-gooders. But, politicians and the police, the football establishment and sports writers, by and large, are prone to explaining football violence as the work of a minority, who "besmirch" the name of the game and the majority of "genuine fans". Some insist that hooliganism has nothing to do with football. Although there is all round anger at what happened in Marseilles, even the most rational look to blame others.

Last year the disruption during the Italy- England play off was blamed on Italian policing. Again, this time, theFrench police are being blamed for not containing the mob, and French bars for staying open and selling beer to English fans. But football and hooligans in England go together, like bangers and mash.

The game has a reputation for off-field violence which it has tried unsuccessfully to get rid of. Certainly things have changed since the grim '70s and early '80s and a majority of English football fans, who spend millions of pounds a year supporting the game, are not violent. But, English football fans -- whether a "rotten core", or "the tiny minority" -- riot whether they win or lose, whether its their country playing or their club. Whether they're in England or abroad. Anyone wandering through Islington, in North London, around this time last month would have been struck by the sight of Arsenal fans (which won both the First Division and Premier League cups) creating mayhem near their home ground.

Football is far more than just a game here. Listening to English football commentary, even on the hallowedBBC, gives one a taste of what the game means to this country. No one is quite as good as them. No striker compares with Shearer and no goalkeeper with Seaman. They are more fouled against than fouling. And God Saves Their Queen.

Its significance is such that the Labour Government has created a whole new job for a football fans representative, the Prime Minister even took time off to speak to coach Glen Hoddle before the match with Tunisia and let it be known that although he was meeting with European Union heads of government during the match it was being recorded for him. And as a little moral boosting cherry on top of the pie, they announced that an England player who scored the winning World Cup goal 30 years ago was to be knighted.

Most countries, it seems, need something to hold on to. Something to make them belong to a country they are proud to belong to. For England, it seems to be a football.

Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.