Difficult to view things now as opposed to back then when it started in the early to mid eighties. When it did hit I've never seen a youth movement grow like it..especially as it was fuelled from within with no real external stimulus. It might seem to younger folk now that the 80s were a fun time (given the programs you see on tv) but my memory is of my Dad being made redundant, having a constant and hated Tory govt, being treated like absolute scum by the Police at football, and sporadic and indiscriminate violence on the news (miners strike especially where it seemed it was open season on pickets) in pubs, clubs and up the town (Lothian Road especially). To some extent my group of 14/15 year old mates and I were pretty conditioned to violence and we had a pretty nihilistic view on society so I guess we were pretty suggestable when a new and exciting movement came along.
Hibs was pretty tight knit..most boys still let on to each other to this day..we were a very good mob by any yardstick (if your club was going to have a mob it might as well be decent). There were some absolute lunatics amongst it and other lads like me and my mates who were loosely connected but not main protagonists. I stopped getting involved in the late 80' early 90s after an arrest at Ibrox nearly resulted in me losing my job, a mortgage Id just been approved for and my girlfriend at the time. Clubbing had come along and lots of lads were into that rather than the casual thing anymore (tho they still turned out for big games).
I made friends I still speak with to this day, had some great laughs, was scared out of my wits, took a couple of pastings and came out of it relatively unscathed. Looking back now if I had kids of that age Id be absolutely horrified if they got involved in anything similar. It is romanticised to an extent imo, there were incidents I;ve seen that made me feel sick tbh but as others have pointed out that was usually down to individual bams rather than a collective decision.
Im not trying to mount a defence a for it..obviously ethically its difficult to do that, just provide a context round it.