[bengillies]

> Football hooliganism was well on the way to being solved by the early 90s

I'm not old enough to remember football hooliganism in the 80s and before, but abroad at least, it was very far from solved by the 90s - which is why passports are taken away.

> than all the security theatre prevented some atrocity

Without commenting on how effective any of this is, you won't hear about prevention because it isn't news.

[NeedMoreTea]

It was probably an order or two of magnitude worse in the seventies and eighties, and somewhat tied in with deprivation and NF racism of those decades. Dutch and British supporters were notorious for it. My father and uncles wouldn't take me to matches as a young 'un. Had they been interested and old enough, I'd have pretty comfortable taking my kids in the nineties.

By the nineties there was just a dwindling hard core minority of hooligans, that were starting to become removed from the clubs. Same for the international element, it had become some thugs being thugs, and mostly separated from grounds, matches and the general support. They tagged along with the footie event, for a good punch up in a city bar or city square. From a point of view of "everyone well behaved" it remained a problem. From a point of view of hundreds or thousands of opposing supporters kicking off, it was mostly solved.

Prevention isn't news, but arresting someone preparing a bomb, or caught on a bus with a machete on their way to wherever is. Yet for all the additional surveillance...