Football hooliganism, sometimes referred to by the British media as the English Disease, is unruly and destructive behaviour—such as brawls, vandalism and intimidation—by association football club fans. Fights between supporters of rival teams may take place before or after football matches at pre-arranged locations away from stadia, in order to avoid arrests by the police, or they can erupt spontaneously at the stadium or in the surrounding streets. Football hooliganism can range from shouts and small-scale fistfights and disturbances to huge riots where firms attack each other with deadly weapons such as sports bats, glass bottles, rocks, knives, machetes and pistols. In some cases, stadium brawls have caused fans to flee in panic; some being injured when fences or walls collapsed. In the most extreme cases, hooligans, police, and bystanders have been killed, and riot police have intervened with tear gas, armoured vehicles and water cannons.

A football firm (also known as a hooligan firm) is a gang formed to oppose and physically attack supporters of other clubs. Some firms exist to promote fringe political causes, both on the far Left and Right, with the football aspect of the club of minimal importance behind the promotion of their political ideals through violence. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the casual subculture transformed the British football hooliganism scene. Instead of wearing working class skinhead-style clothes, which readily identified hooligans to the police, firm members began wearing designer clothes and expensive offhand sportswear.

Football hooliganism has been depicted in films such as I.D., The Firm, Cass, The Football Factory, Green Street, Rise of the Footsoldier and Awaydays. There are also many books about hooliganism, such as The Football Factory and Among the Thugs. Some critics argue that these media representations glamorise violence and the hooligan lifestyle.

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• Football Hooliganism in Europe
  sirc.org
  Provides a historical overview and includes discussion of cross-national variations, media coverage, racism and alcohol.
• Football Unites, Racism Divides
  furd.org
  A study of race and football.
• Soldiers, Sashes and Shamrocks: Football and Social Identity in Scotland and Northern Ireland
  physed.otago.ac.nz
  Extended article examining the extent to which clubs are used by various social groups for the expression of certain elements of their identities. Includes annotations and references.