Abstract: The search for an explanation of the Brussels tragedy took critics into a broad criticism of most of England's contemporary institutions — few of them offering an easier target than the state of the nation's schools. Of course, it needs to be stressed that any analysis of the behaviour of fans in Brussels which turns to the school system must inevitably concentrate on Liverpool's schools — or rather on the schools of those men known to have been involved in the troubles. What happened, however, was an attempt to explain the particular (the Brussels disaster) by reference to the general (the 'decline' in the school system). It is abundantly clear that the major economic decline of Liverpool itself had been reflected (perhaps inevitably so) in serious social and educational problems within the city's schools.1 But for many, this was merely part of a national problem. In the words of Richard West, 'The collapse of teaching and discipline in our schools … is nowhere more evident than in Liverpool.'2 In that official weekly guide of the teaching profession, The Times Education Supplement, two authors remarked: In the furore about football hooliganism, it should not be overlooked that, just like every madman, psychopath and delinquent, they have spent something like 15,000 hours in the classroom — less, of course, any all-too-likely truancy.
Publication Year: 1986
Publication Date: 1986-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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