i dont see how we should evaluate from this that english fans are all that..its all about the Poles and Ukranians...just because they are a bunch of nazis and fascists...does not all of a sudden mean English fans are all rosey...ive seen them attack their own...but these are individual experiences...and i am 100% sure that if such a programme was made for England then it could easily be an hour long.....it surprises me that there are people trying to say 'its not as bad' here because they are comparing it to crowds with Swastikas and fascist taunts and quite frankly a bunch of skinheads in it. Well i suppose we should all be glad that we have and have had the people we have in politics..i mean we could have ended up with a Hitler yeah? at least the ones we have keep our shores safe even though they screw up every other country in the name of 'terrorism' and go about killing innocent civilians and call it 'collaterel damage' we should never compare ourselves to scumbags in order to feel better. violence is violence ask the guy who gets ten bags of **** kicked out of him for being diffrent for whatever reason...
Panorama did feel like a long bout of a stroppy teenager repeatedly slamming their bedroom door for attention - it's so typical for those in a position to highlight problems with football fans to focus on fans elsewhere (be it Russia, Poland/Ukraine, Italy, Serbia, Old Firm games) and hope that nobody notices that English fans don't get a mention. The FA et al are happy to portray England fans as the flag-waving, face-painted family crowd post-Euro '96, and ignore the fact that a friendly at Lansdowne Road between Ireland and England had to be called off during the first half due to the England fans trashing the stadium before throwing bits of the stadium at the Irish supporters, let alone England fans kicking off during France '98 or Euro 2000 and having the water cannon used on them.
That was a while ago. It's certainly nothing like As bad as it used to be. I'd feel fairly safe taking my kids to a match, nowadays. I certainly didn't back then.
Yes there are problems in the UK still, but as Mr Spain says it is nothing compared to how it was, for example when I started going to matches in the mid '70s. We should certainly not be complacent, and there is still work to do, but I would argue what we have seen from other countries is "on another level".
Football violence will always be a major fear for the Establishment. Where else are you going to get an emotionally-charged crowd of tens of thousands of potential anarchists?
Massing around the Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremony when it's revealed how much taxpayer's money was really spent hosting the farce...
