A NEW season of English league football gets under way this week against a backdrop of racist rioting across the country and large-scale resistance to it.
As stadiums open their gates and teams return to action with fresh hope for a new season, football fans now have their chance to add to that resistance, as they have done on so many occasions in the past.
It is an opportunity for football to show its solidarity with those who have been targeted and forge working-class unity using the sport as a vehicle.
The sport and society are inseparable, and football has forever been intertwined with politics.
The mass gatherings of diverse but like-minded groups of people, from local communities and beyond, is a signal that the divisions the far-right extremists attempt to sow do not really exist, and a chance to right back against them.
Football's governing bodies and its clubs, particularly those at the top level, have increasingly tried to suppress political sentiment at matches.
A lot of this is done so as not to offend advertisers or sponsors, who like their message to be displayed in an arid, politics-free environment.
But outlawing such expression in stadiums only serves to stifle shows of resistance. This can lead to an environment where, as we have seen in wider society, racists and bigots begin to feel more emboldened.
This marriage of football and politics inevitably means there will be some fascist elements lurking in this global game, reflecting wider society.
There is no hiding from the fact that though football is generally known for left-wing movements, the sport has numerous clubs that have a reputation for being right-wing due to elements of their fanbase or history.
But some of those clubs also have their own anti-racist and anti-fascist groups who resist and fight back against these reputations and are looking to change them from within.
Back in England, anti-racist and anti-fascist movements have mobilised across the country in the past week, showing that on-the-ground resistance can triumph where political parties have failed.
It shows there is still a movement that can organise quickly and in unity when needed, even when it feels like the left more generally lacks co-ordination in a political sense.
A newly elected Labour government that flirted with the right during its election campaign rather than condemning it outright, gave these racist and discriminatory viewpoints as much credence as those that concocted them in the first place.
It is often said that fascism festers when centre-left parties move towards the right, and this is what has happened across Europe in recent times.
Proponents of those views were looking for an excuse to take their emboldened racism out onto the street and into the real world, and they got that excuse on the back of this political shift and as a result of misinformation peddled on social media sites.
One of those sites, X, formerly Twitter, whose owner Elon Musk has been endorsing various far-right figures, including Tommy Robinson and Britain First leader Ashlea Simon, to his hundreds of millions of followers, has been particularly culpable in spreading misinformation.
As a result of all this, there will be people feeling more unsafe or more vulnerable than usual as they make their way to football games in the coming weeks.
Not due to the environment around the football itself, but due to the emboldening of racists and extremists as a result of the political climate and irresponsible, reckless media.
Having stoked the fires, those politicians and their media are now faced with the reality and consequences, but refuse to take responsibility.
Their response has been to increase police presence and threaten those involved with banning orders, but the biggest comfort for those targeted will come through support from their fellow community members and, at football, fellow fans.
The sentiment of the simple but effective chant of resistance: “This is what community looks like,” heard across the country in recent days, can be demonstrated at football grounds up and down the leagues in the coming weeks.
It is a chance for the resistance movement to come together at football, and for the game to be part of this wider show of unity and solidarity, showing that those newly emboldened racists are far outnumbered by the resistance movement that is fighting back and needs to continue to do so.
"Unity of action of the proletariat on a national and international scale is the mighty weapon which renders the working class capable not only of successful defence but also of successful counter-attack against fascism.” — Georgi Dimitrov, 1935.
