Patrick Comerford
It would take deep and long sessions of psychotherapy and counselling to grasp why many young boys pick a football team to support, and end up identifying with that team for the rest of their lives.
Some pick a team because their fathers and other family figures made the same decision a generation or even two generations before them. Others make a choice based on geography: matches are accessible and all their friends are going there too. Still others are swayed by fashion: a team is fashionable one year or season, and retains popularity with the followers it collects along their way, or their merchandise is ‘cool’ to wear because of its colours or design.
Growing up in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s, many of my contemporaries as schoolboys supported Shamrock Rovers, and a smaller number were Shelbourne fans. A handful would support one or other provincial side because their mother or father was from the area.
I remember a colleague on the subs desk in The Irish Times in the 1970s who was from Sligo. Long after moving to London and the subs desk on a Fleet Street newspaper, he would still ring the subs desk in the Irish Times every Sunday evening to ask for Sligo Rovers’ result that afternoon.
My uncle and godfather Arthur Comerford was a keen supporter of Bohemians and a club member, and for two or three years in the mid-1960s he brought me to Bohs’ matches on Sunday afternoons. Bohs were known from their foundation for taking a stand against sectarianism and the politicisation of football, and I still take a benign interest in the way Bohs continues to take a stand against racism and for diversity.
When it comes to selecting English football clubs to support, many of my age ended up as Manchester United supporters. There were many Irish players on the side for decades, and the Munich air disaster in 1958 generated strong sympathy for the club in Ireland.
When I was growing up, the area close to Donore Avenue was still Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’, although the Jewish community had moved in large numbers by then to south Dublin suburbs like Rathfarnham and Churchtown. When I was about 11 or 12, some friends introduced me to a schoolboys’ soccer club called Port Vale. The clubhouse was in the Donore Avenue area, but home games in the Dublin Schoolboy League were played in Bushy Park in Terenure.
I must have been no good, because I only remember playing with Port Vale for a few weeks. But the good players I remember who were of my age included Alan Shatter, then living in Crannagh Park and later Minister for Justice in a coalition government. His memories of Port Vale, Donore Avenue, Bushy Park and Rathfarnham, recalled in his book Life is a Funny Business: A Very Personal Story, have many resonances with my own memories.
I never ended up as a fan of the English club Port Vale, despite that experience, nor did I follow other boys sheepishly into supporting Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool. Instead, I ended up with Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur as my first and second teams of choice. I celebrated those choices in Stony Stratford last Saturday afternoon as I watched the match between Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur.
In my late teens, Villa Park was just a few stops away from Lichfield. Part of Spurs’ traditional support base was for long in the Jewish community in London, so that to fans of Chelsea and many other clubs, Tottenham Hotspur is a Jewish club, and in response to racist and antisemitic taunts, Spurs fans long ago adopted as their own chant: ‘We are the Yids.’
Aston Villa too has a proud tradition of standing up against antisemitism and racism. Almost 90 years, Aston Villa was invited on a three-match tour of Germany in the summer of 1938. Villa was then the most famous club in the world and manager Jimmy Hogan had enjoyed great success through Europe as a coach prior to arriving at Villa Park. Villa’s tour coincided with a tour by the England national team, and both tours were only weeks before Neville Chamberlain appeased Nazi Germany and signed the Munich Agreement.
The day before their first match, the England football team bowed to pressure from the British Foreign Office and performed the Nazi salute during a friendly match on 14 May 1938.
On 14 May 1938 an England side including Villa centre-forward Frank Broome played against Germany in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, before a crowd of 110,000. As the England players were changing, an FA official went to their dressing-room and told them that they had to give the Nazi salute during the German national anthem.
Villa’s Frank Broome (1915-1994) said at the time: ‘The dressing room erupted. There was bedlam. All the England players were livid and totally opposed to this, myself included. Everyone was shouting at once.’
‘Eddie Hapgood, normally a respectful and devoted captain, wagged his finger at the official and told him what he could do with the Nazi salute, which involved putting it where the sun doesn’t shine.’ The FA official left only to return minutes later saying he had a direct order from the British Ambassador, Sir Neville Henderson. The England team reluctantly gave the Nazi salute, and then went on to win 6-3.
The following day, Villa’s first match was against a German Select XI that included players from the Austria, recently annexed by Nazi Germany.
The Villa players were told too to give the Nazi salute. The Villa inside forward Eric Houghton later recalled: ‘We had a meeting about this and George Cummings and Alec Massie and the Scots lads said “There’s no way we’re giving the Nazi salute” so we didn't give it!’
This match was marked by continual jeering and whistling. Villa’s use of the offside trap was unfamiliar and frustrating to the German players and fans. When future Villa manager, Alex Massie fouled Camillo Jerusalem, the referee had to separate the teams. Villa had a 3-2 victory. Hostility from the 110,000 crowd got worse when Villa left the pitch without the players giving the Nazi salute.
The second game was in Düsseldorf. Once again Villa refused to give the Nazi salute, and they won the game 3-2 too. The Villa players went to the centre of the field and gave the crowd a two-finger salute, but this was not understood in Germany and the game passed without incident.
The third Villa game was in Stuttgart and against a German Select XI. This time, British diplomats were even more insistent in their demands that the Villa players did what their German hosts demanded, and SS guards and Stormtroopers were called in to protect the players from the crowd.
Later during World War II, it was reported, the Villa reserve team were all captured at Dunkirk, and in captivity they thrashed their SS guards.
Ever since, Villa supporters have seen their players at the time as keeping with the finest traditions of the club. Villa’s reputation should not be sullied or forgotten because of the way the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from a match next month (6 November) has been covered.
Maccabi Tel Aviv FC is one of Israel’s biggest clubs and plays in European competitions despite being in the Middle East, because Israel has been effectively excluded from Asian competitions. A survey by Yedioth shows that Maccabi Tel Aviv are the second-most popular team among Israeli football fans (23%), behind rivals Maccabi Haifa (28%), and a third of people in Tel Aviv residents support the team.
But In recent years, Maccabi Tel Aviv have developed a reputation for thuggish and racist behaviour, and reports by the New Israel Fund found that Maccabi Tel Aviv has the second-most racist fan base in Israel, behind Beitar Jerusalem. A study by the Jewish Arab Centre for Peace, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans lead the charts of racist chanting with 118 racist chants during a single season in 2024-2025.
Fans have been known to yell racist slurs and insults at Arab and black players. Players on the team often face racist abuse from their own fans. Fans have yelled anti-Arab slurs at Maharan Radi, an Arab player, and taunted Baruch Dego, an Ethiopian-Jewish player yell monkey noises.
The fans are also linked with far-right and racist militants. During protests in 2020-2021 against Benjamin Netanyahu, Maccabi fans attacked protesters with batons and broken bottles. Countless viral online videos show Maccabi fans singing: ‘Let the IDF win, and f**k the Arabs’, ‘why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there’, ‘f**k you, Palestine’ and ‘death to Arabs. Is it any wonder that the far-right crowd-stirrer Tommy Two-Names Robinson recently posed in a Maccabi Tel Aviv shirt?
Israeli police cancelled the Tel Aviv derby between Maccabi and Hapoel last Sunday night due to violent fan unrest, where smoke grenades and stones were thrown, and several police officers and civilians were attacked.
These are the sort of safety concerns raised by the community leaders and local residents of Birmingham, as well as West Midlands Police, when it comes to the fixture at Villa Park on 6 November.
Tension erupted among Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Syntagma Square in central Athens last year (March 2024) ahead of a fixture with Olympiakos, when Maccabi fans assaulted a man of Arab descent as he left a metro station. More recently in November 2024, five people were injured during a wave of violence that erupted in Amsterdam when supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv stormed through the city. Dutch police arrested 62 people in connection with the vandalism and violence.
Villa’s famous and celebrity fans have included Prince William, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah, cricketers Ian Bell and Chris Woakes, television and film stars Tom Hanks, David Bradley, Oliver Phelps and Brendan Gleeson, musicians Ozzy Osbourne and Nigel Kennedy and Simon Le Bon and Roger Taylor of Duran Duran. The Irish players have included Paul McGrath, Steve Staunton, Andy Townsend and Ray Houghton. But Aston Villa retains a loyal, locally-based core of supporters, who are mainly working class, and with a catchment area that extends as far north as Lichfield.
Aston Villa last year celebrated the 150th anniversary of its formation. It seems challenging racism, thuggery and violence, no matter where it comes from, is built into the DNA fans.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
