Among the soccer hooligans sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court last week were a company director and other professionals. Sarah Foster asks what drives these people to football-related violence.

AS if prompted by an inaudible starting pistol, the two rival gangs rush towards each other, weapons aloft and a guttural war cry coming from their throats. The stench of blood is already in their nostrils before they strike the first blow, and the pleasure of seeing their enemy collapse in agony is one they have experienced many times before.

With all its blood and gore, adrenaline, and sense of good versus evil, the battle readily evokes in the minds of the spectators the film Braveheart, with which it has been compared.

But this is North Shields, not the Scottish Highlands, and in the place of noble warriors fighting for their birthright are the Gremlins, a pro-violence group that attaches itself to Newcastle United Football Club, and its Sunderland Football Club counterpart, the Seaburn Casuals.

At Newcastle Crown Court last week, the last of the 35 people arrested after the fight, at the North Shields ferry terminal on March 18, 2000, each received sentences of up to four years. Their co-accused were previously dealt with at Teesside Crown Court.

The surprisingly large number of people were brought to justice after a prolonged police campaign, in which officers sifted through mobile phone records to construct their case.

What came as even more of a surprise was the type of people involved.

Far from being shaven-headed yobs with no jobs and few prospects, many were professional men with families, and seemingly no predisposing factors to violence.

They included Falklands War veteran John Sharp, 39, of Seaton Sluice, Northumberland, who is now unemployed but used to be a Navy diver. He was commended for dismantling mines prior to the British forces going into the Falklands, but tarnished the honour by becoming one of the Gremlins' ringleaders. Sharp was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his part in the March 18 confrontation.

Another unlikely aggressor was Stephen McGeorge, a co-director of Gateshead-based Hollygarth Care Homes Limited. McGeorge, 33, from Sunderland, received a 100-hour community service order. The same sentence was given to ex-professional cricketer Andrew Robson, 30, from East Boldon. Officials at the amateur Horden Cricket Club, for which he now plays, expressed surprise that such a talented and well-liked player could have got caught up in such a sordid business.

As officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Sergeant George Duff helped prove that the fight between the Seaburn Casuals and the Gremlins was pre-arranged. His task was made harder by its occurrence on a non-match day and the suspects' outright denial of their involvement.

From the outset, it was an unusual case. "It was unusual for a criminal investigation to have people from so many walks of life," he says. "No one admitted it, and, when we got to court, both sides gave evidence to assist each other. But they always turned up for bail, and not one failed to attend a court appearance.

"A lot of these people had been involved in this sort of incident for a number of years. On match days, they were always in the same place, and a lot of them wore Stone Island clothing, which is an expensive brand. They were respectable enough citizens."

As if to illustrate the point, one of the defendants asked for - and was granted - a £1,000 fine instead of a community punishment order, to allow him to go to America to work.

Leading a respectable life during the week, but indulging in violence on a weekend obviously required some duplicity. Those involved have argued that this was the worst of their crimes, as the violence was restricted to themselves, and never threatened to draw legitimate supporters in. But when fists and weapons were flying, how could they guarantee anyone's safety? And where did they set the limit on what they considered to be an acceptable degree of violence?

Dr Carwyn Jones, a senior lecturer in sports studies at Teesside University, says it would have depended on the norms established by the group. "What counts to people is how they are seen in their group," he says. "Once you are in a group with rules and norms, it is very difficult not to go along with them. People would probably justify their actions in terms of the values that everyone finds acceptable, like loyalty to their group, and ascribe negative values, like cowardice, to the opposite group."

In the most extreme case, this might translate to justifying the savage attack on one of the Seaburn casuals, who was so badly brain damaged that he will never stand trial.

Dr Jones compares the hooligans' attitude to that of regular criminals. "Criminals say things like 'they deserved it'," he says. "It's very rare that you get people who don't try to justify their actions."

While the media reporting the court case reflected people's shock over the respectability of some of the protagonists, Dr Jones was not at all surprised. "I think a lot of the literature from the 1970s and 1980s helped create a myth that hooligans were the 'lumpen proletariat', identifiable as being skinheads and folk devils," he says.

"There's a big debate as to whether that was ever true. It makes us feel better if we can demonize people, but hooligans are people we all know and work with. The surprise to me is that people are surprised."

Norman Dennis, a visiting fellow of Newcastle University and director of community studies at the London think-tank, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society (Civitas), believes the problem of hooliganism is a by-product of modern society.

"There's been an enormous change from a society where self-restraint was highly valued," he says. "The expression of excessive emotion, including violence, has become more and more valued as a good thing. If you look specifically at hooliganism, all bases of solidarity have been removed - young English people are not allowed to be patriotic and neighbourhood solidarity has been destroyed. About the only thing left to be loyal to and passionate about is football."

According to Mr Dennis, the breakdown of the family structure has left men without vital restraints on their behaviour - their traditional roles as husbands and fathers. The result, he says, is a heady sense of freedom that manifests itself in thrill-seeking.

"Bashing people up is great fun if you can get away with it," he says. "A lot of this crime is pure fun. This is now British culture. From being top of nearly every civilisation 40 years ago, Britain is now near the bottom. We've asked for it, and we've got it."