World Cup 1990: World in Motion
How Italia 90 changed what it meant to be a soccer fan
One night in Turin, a helicopter buzzed over an illuminated bowl that was filled with sound and life. This was the Stadio delle Alpi, the Stadium of the Alps. Europe’s highest mountain range could be seen to the west, looming out of the evening dusk. The brand new stadium had been purpose-built for the 1990 World Cup finals — Italia 90. Like some futuristic update of an ancient Roman amphitheater, its sleek oval design seemed more reminiscent of a downed flying saucer than a traditional soccer ground. In the streets around the stadium, streams of football fans and convoys of supporters’ coaches filed closer as kick-off approached. The date was July 4, 1990, and the occasion was England v West Germany in the World Cup semi-finals.
Inside the stadium, England fans were heavily outnumbered. The English Football Association had been given an official allocation of just 3,000 tickets, in a stadium that held more than 70,000. But the English were highly visible — sunburnt and merry after a month in Italy. Many wore Umbro England shirts with a shiny diamond-embossed fabric and logo-trimmed collars and sleeves. Some were shirtless, with British bulldog tattoos, Union Jack shorts, and Three Lions caps.
The advertising hoardings, concrete barriers, and perimeter fences were draped with Union Jack and Cross of St George flags bearing the names of teams and towns from up and down the football pyramid and all across England, from Wolves to Workington. Among the flags was a large white sheet bearing the message “Pay No Poll Tax”, a protest against the UK government’s recently-introduced community charge, which had provoked mass riots across the country, and would lead to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. One England fan was photographed standing on the terrace reading the Sun, with the tabloid’s front page on the day of the match reporting a knighthood for the popular disc jockey and TV personality Jimmy Savile, who would later be revealed as a serial pedophile. These were indications that, even with the troubles of the 1980s consigned to history, not all was rosy in England’s green and pleasant land.
Facing the England fans, beyond the perimeter fences on the running track that circled the pitch, stood a line of Italian carabinieri, caps on their heads, sashes over their shoulders, pistols on their hips, and German shepherds at their sides. The atmosphere ahead of England’s biggest football match since 1966 was equal parts excitement and tension. This World Cup semi-final, and Italia 90 as a whole, would help shape the future of football, and change what it meant to be a football fan.
Italia 90 was the World Cup of Toto Schillaci’s goals, Roger Milla’s shimmies, and, ultimately for England fans, Gazza’s tears. It wasn’t necessarily a classic tournament, with negative tactics and a lack of goals contributing to some pretty dour matches. But the lasting influence of Italia 90 has more to do with what happened off the pitch than on it. Football had been the popular game for more than a hundred years, yet football fans remained, to some extent, outsiders. Society in general tended to look down on football fans, particularly following the troubles of the 1970s and 1980s. Outside of the working class, it wasn’t socially acceptable to be a football fan. Italia 90 helped begin to change that.
On the night of the semi-final, while England played at the Stadio delle Alpi, the Rolling Stones played at Wembley Stadium. Across London, 75-year-old Frank Sinatra played a Fourth of July concert at the former Docklands Arena. Ordinarily, Stones and Sinatra fans with expensive gig tickets might have entirely ignored the football. But on this night concert-goers followed the semi-final on pocket radios and mini televisions, and, when their team did well, chanted, “Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land.”
Meanwhile, in homes and pubs around England, 26.2 million people — half the population — watched the match on television. “England’s roads and places of entertainment were virtually deserted,” reported the Times of London, adding that an evening debate in the House of Commons was interrupted so MPs could watch TV.
BBC viewers were greeted by the network’s now-iconic Italia 90 theme tune, the Nessun Dorma aria from Puccini’s Turandot, performed by Pavarotti. (ITV viewers had to make do with Peter Van Hooke’s Tutti Al Mondo.) The popularity of Nessun Dorma, which reached number two in the UK singles chart during the World Cup, united opera and football fans, and helped create a bridge between two supposed highbrow and lowbrow cultures.
The tournament also had another soundtrack (actually England’s official World Cup theme), World in Motion by New Order, fresh from the success of their Ibiza-infused Technique album. The genius of World in Motion was, as John Barnes’ now-famous rap admitted, “this ain’t a football song”. There was talk in the lyrics of creating space and beating your man, but it was really a song about peace and love — a celebration of togetherness. “Love’s got the world in motion,” the chorus proclaimed before, only at the end, throwing in “We’re playing for England, En-ger-land!”
World in Motion seemed to reflect a change that was occurring on Britain’s football terraces, propelled by the emergent new youth movement — rave culture. The rise of rave was undeniably linked to the growing popularity of MDMA, popularly known as Ecstasy or E. The recreational drug became widely available in Britain from around 1988, fuelling all-night dance parties in clubs and warehouses. Underground raves were an enticing proposition for Britain’s working-class youths, and inevitably attracted football fans from the same demographic. But the psychedelic effects of E created a very different atmosphere than could be found at matches.
“Almost overnight, the box cutter-wielding troublemaker metamorphosed into the ‘love thug’,” wrote Simon Reynolds in his book Generation Ecstasy. Rival football firms were going to the same clubs and raves, but there was no trouble because they were “so loved up on E” and “too busy dancing and bonding with their mates”. It would be easy to overstate the influence of E on football. Not all fans were loved up on artificial stimulants. But the rise in popularity of rave culture was indicative of a change in attitude and atmosphere that did filter onto the terraces.
World in Motion tapped into the connection between football and rave culture, and promoted a tolerant and peaceful approach to football fandom. It also promoted positive belief in an England team that arrived at Italia 90 with pundits giving them little to no chance. New Order’s Peter Hook said the song “enhanced patriotism”. This was an era before every other vehicle on English roads flew a Cross of St George during an international football tournament. Before 1990, just about the most commitment the casual fan gave to showing their support for England was to collect World Cup coins or Panini stickers. World in Motion, and the atmosphere that inspired it, encouraged fans to go out in replica shirts, have a few beers, throw their arms around their mates, and holler, “En-ger-land!” It encouraged England fans to love the game again.
But England might not have participated in the 1990 World Cup had the government, in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster, agreed to a suggestion to withdraw from the tournament. Although Margaret Thatcher was advised that the forthcoming Taylor Report into the disaster would be “very damning” of the police and would attach “little or no blame” to the fans, the government’s focus remained on crowd trouble. A government committee suggested the World Cup would provide a “natural focus” for hooliganism, and the national team should be withdrawn. However, writing to Thatcher in late 1989, her then-deputy Geoffrey Howe advised that withdrawal would not be useful as “determined hooligans will make their way to Italy anyway and find a different cause to champion”.
In fact, crowd trouble at football was declining, and the media’s lust for violence had seen its focus shift in the first half of 1990 to the Poll Tax riots, the Strangeways prison riot, and the continuing series of IRA bombings. Arrests at football matches in England and Wales fell by nine percent in the 1989–90 season. There had been no discernible drop-off in match attendances following Hillsborough, although crowd numbers remained in a plateau that had existed throughout the 1980s, with a First Division average of 20,757 in 1989–90. So football violence was down, but football itself remained in a depression.
With English clubs banned from European competition following the Heysel disaster, the England national team was effectively exiled to the island of Sardinia for its three group-stage World Cup matches. Around 5,000 England fans stayed in Sardinia for the duration of the group stage, with several thousand traveling to the mainland after the team qualified for the knockout stages. Fan-led efforts to support traveling fans included the creation by the recently-formed Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) of football embassies, which provided advice and information, and aimed to act as a form of “damage-limiter” to keep fans away from trouble.
In a further effort to prevent trouble, the Football Association and the Home Office compiled a list of a thousand banned supporters. Football fans had been subject to banning orders since the implementation of the 1986 Public Order Act, originally introduced by the Thatcher government to tackle striking miners (referred to by the prime minister as “the enemy within”). Then fans were singled out in the 1989 Football Supporters Act, which was supposed to restrict foreign travel, but was wrongly drafted and could only be applied to domestic football. As a result, several of England’s most “notorious” hooligans were able to travel to Italy.
The worst trouble involving English fans during Italia 90 was the so-called “Battle of Rimini”, in which around 60 troublemakers in England shirts clashed with police in riot gear, exchanging plastic chairs and tear gas. Groups of local youths, some thought to be ultras, were blamed for igniting the violence. The ultras were fanatical groups associated with Italian clubs that emerged during the late 1960s and early 1970s, at the same time as British hooligan firms. But England fans survived the Battle of Rimini, and England won the round-of-16 match against Belgium, then beat Cameroon in the quarter-finals to set up the semi-final against West Germany.
For England fans heading to Turin, there was as much trepidation as excitement. Fears of heavy-handed police and Italian ultras were as much of a concern as the potential actions of a minority of English troublemakers. On arrival at Turin railway station, English fans were separated from other travelers and were violently shoved and corralled by baton-wielding police. “Turin had hooligan psychosis like no one else,” wrote Pete Davies in his acclaimed Italia 90 account All Played Out. Davies despaired of the “drunkenness, stupidity and violence” of some England fans, but he also criticized the aggressive policing, which he said was a “paranoid over-reaction to media and ministerial prophecies of doom”. English football fans, Davies said, had effectively been criminalized for the duration of the tournament.
Then came the match, the England v West Germany semi-final in the Stadio delle Alpi, with only a few thousand English fans in attendance, and half the population of England watching on TV. The key moments of the match would remain familiar to all who saw them. Andreas Brehme’s shot was deflected into the England net off Paul Parker, then Gary Lineker scored an equalizer. It was 1–1 after 90 minutes, and still 1–1 after extra time. Into the penalty shoot-out. Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle both missed, and England lost. (West Germany would go on to beat Argentina in the final.) England fans in the Stadio delle Alpi held their heads in their hands. Those at home did what the English seem to do in times of adversity — they made a cup of tea.
Half the population switched on their kettles after Waddle’s miss, creating a huge surge in demand for electricity rated at 2,200 megawatts (“equivalent to that used by four Liverpools”). But, after such a devastating result, some England fans needed something a little stronger than a cuppa. At the end of the BBC’s match coverage, presenter Des Lynam addressed viewers and said, “If you are having a drink tonight, have a drink with pride, not aggression.”
Some fans did go out and vent their frustrations, smashing windows and “damaging German makes of cars”, but the majority were able to swallow their pride and accept the defeat with dignity. England fans had suffered together, and there was something comforting about the fact that it had been such a large-scale communal experience. As long-standing fans already knew, and newcomers were just finding out, winning isn’t everything in football.
The semi-final defeat was a unifying experience, bringing together people from different backgrounds and walks of life, all united by their support of a football team. Italia 90 seemed to push football towards the forefront of British popular culture, making it more widely acceptable to be a football fan. “Lots of different kinds of people got interested in football, all different classes of people,” reflected England’s Gary Lineker. “I think it had a significant effect on the growth of football.”
The England team did not win the World Cup, but they did win the Italia 90 FIFA Fair Play trophy. And the behavior of the vast majority of England fans was equally creditable. According to the Guardian, far from retaining their position as the world’s number one football hooligans, England fans had behaved “rather better” than either the West Germans or Italians. Two days after the World Cup final, UEFA agreed to re-admit English clubs into European competition (with the exception of Liverpool, who would be readmitted in the following season). It felt like the beginning of a fresh start for English football, with the slate wiped clean. “1990 may come to be seen as a turning point in the course of football,” said the Times.
There was still a way to go before the game could properly move on from the failings of the 1970s and 80s. But Italia 90 seemed like a turning point, persuading disillusioned fans to fall back in love with the game. Two years later, in 1992, came the formation of the Premier League, and all of the bells and whistles that came with it. Football, and the experience of being a football fan, was changed forever. ♦
Paul Brown is the author of Savage Enthusiasm: A History of Football Fans.
Savage Enthusiasm: A History of Football Fans by Paul Brown is available now on Amazon
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