The Fanzine of Blackburn Rovers F.C.
4000 Holes has no connection whatsoever with Blackburn Rovers Football Club. The contributions do not represent the views of anyone except the author and only then occasionally.
The game had been dominated for years by the Old Etonians, the Old Corinthians and such like. Then the industrial city clubs came of age with Blackburn winning the FA cup in 1884. Ever since, no gentlemen amateur team has ever won the competition, and the bourgeoisie took note of the danger the "northern" (i.e. working class) crowd posed. The football hooligan was invented when the Pall Mall Gazette reported on the Blackburn fans arrival for the final:
"A northern horde of uncouth garb and strange oaths -
These fiercely partisan crowds were not what the bourgeoisie had intended. They were vociferous. They drank on the way to the match. They were unruly and they solidarised with each other. These were the very first "hooligans"
GARB = Clothes
UNCOUTH = Scruffy
