Football Alcohol Ban Should Stay

I read an interesting article earlier today, proposing that football should be brought into line with other sports such as rugby, cricket, etc and allow for drinking in the stands.

Now I love beer. And I would love to be able to have a drink whilst watching the game.

And I love equality – it really is not fair that you can have a pint in your hand during a rugby league match but not a football match.

However, I really do not believe that we have reached a level of maturity throughout the football community, where increased alcohol consumption should be encouraged.

A few years back when I watched the rugby league at Wembley, there was a mass brawl between Hull FC fans just behind me. Also around the same year, I went to watch the cricket at Headingley, and there was some trouble there – a little scrapping with stewards and certainly some quite inappropriate behaviour.

Yet if one goes to watch the cricket at Lord’s, you can drink all day and there is not a scrap of rudeness, let alone misbehaviour. All very civilised (not to mention you can take your own cans of beer in the ground – double bonus!).

I guess the main problem is, that it is the minority that ruin it for the majority that can and will behave themselves. I simply do not believe that it would be a wise idea to allow, say Millwall fans to be able to have 6 pints during the game.

The potential for trouble is there – not to mention the inconvenience of the people constantly getting up and walking past you to buy beer or have a pee.

I stress that I really would love to have a beer whilst watching football. And maybe as society continues to mature, this will one day be possible.

At best, there might be an argument for localised decisions on alcohol consumption – perhaps there could be trials in certain home stands for clubs with near-perfect records on trouble, if the local plod approve.

In fact, I think I have persuaded myself to change my position whilst writing this article. Yes, there should be trials at trouble-free clubs for limited alcohol consumption in limited areas during games.

But I would fear that granting everyone the right to drink as much as they want during the game is asking for trouble.

What do you think?

One response to “Football Alcohol Ban Should Stay

  1. You’re right. I’m a regular in the closest section the Emirates gets to rowdy, and an occasional visitor to the Ealing Road terrace at Brentford. On a day at the football I will not deny I drink plenty, but at neither club can I see the benefit of being able to drink during the game. The potential additional aggro, the mass of plastic bottles doubtless dropped straight on the floor (especially hazardous on terracing), the people constantly in and out for the bar and the khazi – not worth it, in my view.

    And as you say, football fans aren’t yet at a point where we deserve to be treated like adults given a lot of us don’t act that way a lot of the time.

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