ABSTRACT
We are living now in a time when the regulation of football fans can involve questioning supporters about their behaviour when the gaze of the CCTV cameras is not upon them. It is also a time when a magistrates’ court can order the destruction of an ‘offensive’ scarf:
Ancient rivalries in the Northeast of England fell foul of the law yesterday when a pub landlady was convicted and fined for the unusual crime of displaying an offensive football scarf. Draped above the bar at the Adelphi in the centre of Newcastle, the knitwear announced neatly in the black and white of the city’s Magpies football team: ‘Sunderland are Shite.’ …The magistrates fined Mrs Mann £400 with £180 legal costs. The scarf was
forfeited as a threatening, abusive or insulting sign likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, and is to be destroyed.
