Yid Army by Jonathan Hill

A B A D G E O F H O N O U R

R A C E H A T E W O R D

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The badge of Tottenham Hotspur and the Star of David are often seen together.

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yid army T

o tt e nh a m Hotspur, commonly referred to as Spurs, are a Premier League club based in London. Although they now have a diverse following, Tottenham are a club with a strong Jewish presence and heritage. Spurs fans have been at the receiving end of distasteful anti-Semitic taunts from their rivals for several decades now. Their supporters, in an act akin to rallying around the flag, began to flaunt their clubâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jewish history, irrespective of their ethnicity. A majority of fans now refer to themselves, with pride, as the Yid Army. These Spurs supporters can be said to have inadvertently laid the foundation for anti-Semitism to be accepted in mainstream English football.

Designer Jonathan Hill www.jonathanhill.co.uk Printer Newspaper Club www.newspaperclub.com Text from various sources, but all edited. No offence is intended by the contents of this publication.

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Spurs fans are effectively recruited to the Yid Army from a young age.

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av i d Baddiel has dismissed claims that ethnic origin entitles Tottenham fans to call themselves the ‘Yid Army’ by insisting only ‘three or four per cent’ are Jewish. Tottenham rallied around their supporters, after Society of Black Lawyers chairman Peter Herbert urged police to prosecute those who hold aloft banners bearing the name ‘Yid Army’ and chant it during games. Club bosses welcomed the police response that there was ‘no deliberate intent to cause offence’ and that it was more a form of selfparody by a predominantly Jewish support. But Baddiel, the comedian and writer who is himself Jewish and a fervent Chelsea fan, is adamant such a line of defence was factually incorrect and that anti-Semitic abuse should be stamped out wherever it occurs.

“The idea that Spurs fans are reclaiming the Y-word and are entitled to because so many of them are Jewish is simply not true,” he said. “There are only 250,000 Jews in Britain as a whole, and I’d say about three or four per cent of Tottenham’s crowd is Jewish.” “That means well over 90 per cent of those chanting ‘Yid Army’ are not actually Jewish and that is just one of several reasons why it cannot be right. If, for instance, there was a team in Brixton called Brixton United, and they had a mainly white support who adopted the N-word as their badge of honour and went round chanting ‘N***** Army’, they would be closed down tomorrow.” “At Tottenham, the club’s ‘Jewishness’ is just an historical association with the area. It’s

doubtful that there are more than five per cent actual Jews in the ground at home games. So the argument ‘but it’s just like Snoop Doggy Dogg using the N-word’ does not apply to most Spurs fans.” “I was at a Chelsea match with my brother Ivor two years ago,” he said. “It wasn’t even Tottenham we were playing. It was Villa, but news that Tottenham were losing at Hull appeared on the big screen and this bloke sitting behind us started saying, “Fuck the yids! Fuck the yids!” followed by “Fuck the Jews!” If there was any doubt about it being an anti-Semitic term, rather than a name for a group of fans, that answered it. “The thing to remember about yid is: it’s a race-hate word. It was daubed across the East End by Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts.”

“I’d say about three or four per cent of Tottenham’s crowd is Jewish.” “The only possible reason why a culture which has tried to dismiss other race-hate words to the margins of language would consider it acceptable is if the racism of which it is a part is somehow less offensive, somehow less significant, than other racisms.” “This is actually what the normalisation of the word at football has led to. It might seem strange that the fan at Chelsea could have shouted ‘Fuck the yids!’ without a steward intervening: racist abuse at football grounds is supposed to lead to an immediate ban.”

“But a friend of mine, a Watford fan, who once heard his fans chanting the Y-word, with menaces, at Spurs fans, on complaining to a steward was told, ‘I don’t hear any racism.’” “The chant, and associated anti-Semitic abuse, exists far beyond White Hart Lane, at Chelsea and Arsenal, at Millwall, at West Ham, even at Ajax.” “Tottenham, of course, can lay claim to be the only club chanting it in support of their team. I respect and acknowledge that. But there are reasons why that, too, has to be addressed.” “Although Spurs fans consider they are just responding to racist taunts, the continuing use of the Y-word by Spurs fans informs and sustains the racist abuse aimed at Spurs by other fans. The more Spurs do it, the more it comes back.” “Many opposing fans feel they are justified in using the chant (and associated anti-Semitic abuse) because ‘The Yids is what Spurs call themselves.’” “Additionally, we cannot mount a campaign aimed at stopping fans chanting anti-Semitic abuse and using anti-Semitic language while saying, ‘But of course, it’s OK for this one set of fans.’” “It has to be zero tolerance. And, as I have said, most Spurs fans are not in fact Jewish. If we are going to have zero tolerance, it has to be a level playing field, applied to all forms of racism.”

David Baddiel is a lifelong supporter of Tottenhamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fierce rivals, Chelsea.

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a c i s m has made a controversial return to the headlines, thanks to events in English football in recent years, just when you could be forgiven for thinking it was consigned to the past. John Terry and Luis Suarez have been involved in incidents where they were considered guilty of using racist language, but received support from their clubs, and this seems to have lead to an increase of abuse from the stands. Paulo Di Canioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s appointment as manager of Sunderland caused a storm in the press. His quote in 2005, after performing a fascist salute when he was playing for Lazio, stated that he is â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;a fascist, not a racistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. In Britain, the two are seen as being one and the same.

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Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz!

Chants celebrating Hitler and the Holocaust, although they are being punished, can be heard sung on the terraces from Spursâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; rival fans.

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Sieg heil! Hitlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gonna gas â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;em again!

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t is a stark reminder of a bygone era, and yet it continues to rear its head even today in the Premier League. While football leagues around the world continue to tackle racism in its many forms, with different degrees of success, the Premier League is reeling under revelations that a strong undercurrent of anti-Semitism exists and, worse still, is being overlooked. Incredibly contagious and posing a threat infinitely more serious than mere prejudice, anti-Semitism rakes up some of the darkest chapters in European history and dealing with it is often a matter of uneasiness, be it in politics or in sports. Chelsea’s rapid ascent to the top bracket of the Premier League standings in the past decade has meant the West Londoners have not had the time, or the resources, to deal with the skeletons in the closet before the spotlight inevitably turned on them. What has emerged from behind the tales of glory, the silverware and the paper streamers, is a sordid tale of one club’s struggle to root out a fringe brigade comprising hardened anti-Semites from within the ranks of its own fans. Some of Chelsea’s own fans were horrified to discover fringe elements make hissing sounds to mimic the sound of gas chambers used in Auschwitz and elsewhere to slaughters Jews en masse. West Ham and Arsenal fans, too joined in, and it is hard to say who initiated the whole affair. If reports are to be believed, even Avram Grant was subject to racist taunts and death threats during his time at Chelsea, and after his departure to Portsmouth and West

Ham. Israeli international Yossi Benayoun, during his time at Chelsea, was also at the receiving end of ‘Yiddo’ chants from his own supporters.

“make hissing sounds to mimic the sound of gas chambers” The anti-Semitic behavior has since widened to include chants like ‘Spurs are headed to Belsen’, and allegedly at one point, singing songs glorifying Hitler. The situation has gotten so bad, that even relatively harmless gestures wherein supporters of a side go ‘Shhh’ in a bid to silence their rivals, are now being viewed with suspicion. The powers-thatbe at Chelsea have stepped up admirably and have promised to ban any supporter found engaging in such behavior. By putting aside any pretensions of behind-the-scenes action, and taking on this menace within head-on, the West London club are hoping to break with the past once and for all. No other club has a greater moral responsibility or a greater calling to fight anti-Semitism, than Chelsea does. They are, after all, a club owned by a Russian Jew, with prominent men of Jewish origin amongst its board. But most importantly, because of the club’s shared history with its original mascots, The Chelsea Pensioners, those brave men who fought in World War 2 to save Jews and others from a terrible fate. Chelsea owes it to them, more than to anyone else.

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d e t e g r a t A

s much as there are fans with right-wing views in English football, there is hardly a comparison with some clubs in mainland Europe. A number of clubs have loyal, organised, right-wing fan groups who occupy sections of their home stadium, and are involved in violence inside and outside the ground. It was these â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Ultrasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; that Spurs fans encountered in their Europa League campaign.

In November Tottenham supporters were attacked in a pub in Rome the evening before their match with Lazio, and the same happened to travelling fans in February in Lyon. Both incidents are said to have been motivated by anti-Semitism, with Nazi salutes and anti-Semitic chants seen coming from the perpetrators.

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a ny Italian clubs can count violent hooligans among their fans. But when it comes to racism, Lazio’s ‘Ultras’, as they are known, are in a league of their own. The extreme-right fanatics, known for their passion, are also among the most feared of the Italian supporters. Neo-Nazi banners are regularly paraded in the Curva Nord, the Ultras’ section of their home stadium, and scuffles with opposing supporters and the police are commonplace. Lazio have been fined for the behaviour of their fans, who boo black players and chant anti-Jewish songs. From the outset, the team had military connections. The club was founded in 1900 by army officers and the club logo, an eagle, was a fascist icon for the Nazis as well as for Italy’s Brownshirts. Even today, the Ultra banners often make play of the letters ‘SS’ in the club’s official title — Societa Sportiva Lazio.

Their ‘fascist’ salute, that Paolo Di Canio is notorious for performing, recalls Benito Mussolini, the wartime dictator who implemented Adolf Hitler’s racial laws in Italy. Mussolini was initially drawn to the club by Silvio Piola, a national hero and legendary striker. But even after Piola’s era, Il Duce, as he was known, remained a dedicated Lazio supporter and could regularly be seen on their terraces. The Italian dictator built the Stadio Olimpico, where home matches still take place.

“boo black players and chant anti-Jewish songs.” Since the 1960s, various political groups have claimed leadership of the Curva Nord. Alleanza Nazionale, the Italian equivalent of the National Front, and other extreme rightwing parties seized on matches as fertile territory for recruiting. Banners at matches have included messages of support for the

extermination of Jews at Auschwitz. However, as immigration into Italy increased during the 1980s, the racism widened from being primarily anti-Semitic to include the abuse of a growing number of players from Brazil and Africa. Aron Winter, a black Holland midfielder signed in 1992, was the subject of savage abuse by Lazio fans during his four seasons with the club. Lazio fans have formed alliances with similar groups in other Italian cities, particularly supporters of Inter Milan and Verona — known as Interisti and Veronesi. Meanwhile, their sworn enemies include supporters of traditionally left-wing clubs such as Pescara and Livorno. Stabbings among supporters are an all-tooregular occurrence, especially when Lazio play arch-rivals Roma. In response to the throwing of Molotov cocktails and the setting off of flares during matches, a plastic wall was built to separate fans from the pitch. Visiting supporters are seen as legitimate targets.

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shl e y Mills, 25, was knifed in the groin and suffered head injuries after 50 thugs descended on the Campo de Fiori Square in Rome to confront their Tottenham rivals. Speaking from his hospital bed he told the Evening Standard: “They came out of nowhere. I remember being pulled out, along the ground, after I had been stabbed. I was scared.” Eleven Spurs fans were taken to hospital after the attack and Mills, from Brentwood, Essex spent the next two weeks there. Mr Mills told the London newspaper: “I didn’t see the guy who stabbed me. There were too many of them. There was a good atmosphere in the bar. Everyone from back home was having a few drinks. We were having fun. And then the atmosphere changed really quickly.” “I was standing outside drinking and the next thing I knew there were loads of them. It happened very quickly, I don’t remember much. I remember being pulled out, along the ground, after I had been stabbed. I was scared at the time. I would not have come if I’d known this was going to happen.” He added that he was determined to travel abroad again to see his team. “It’s a one-off and now I want to get out of here as soon as possible and put this behind me,” he said.

There are suggestions the attack was racially motivated, as witnesses claim there were shouts of ‘Jews’ and anti-Semitic chants when up 50 Italian hooligans descended on the Campo de Fiori Square in Rome to confront their Tottenham Hotspur rivals. The attackers are thought to be Ultras — extreme right-wing supporters of Lazio.

“the atmosphere changed really quickly.” Tottenham Hotspur has a strong Jewish presence among its fans. The Lazio fans at the Europa League fixture in Rome sang antiSemitic chants, including ‘Juden Tottenham’, using the German word for Jew. They also unveiled a banner reading ‘Free Palestine’. The violence the night before the game was described as ‘urban warfare’ by the Italian press. Masked thugs armed with knives, baseball bats and knuckle dusters stormed the Drunken Ship, hunting for Englishmen to attack. Gas canisters were thrown through the windows of the pub and the thugs tried to stop anyone entering or leaving. Fleeing fans were chased down neighbouring streets and were saved only by the arrival of police ten minutes later.

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YID ARMY