Birmingham City fans have invaded the pitch and thrown flares at rival Aston Villa supporters following their Carling Cup win. Riot police moved in to quell the violence that erupted minutes after Birmingham won 2-1 at its St Andrew's stadium. The invasion comes just hours before Fifa decide if England is fit to host the 2018 World Cup. Sky news sports reporter Chris Skudder, who was at the game, said: "This is not what the 2018 bid team wanted to happen tonight. "It's been a very volatile fixture down the years. "My understanding is there were concerns from the FA and the 2018 team with this fixture coming so close to the vote in Zurich - it wouldn't be helpful knowing the history of the fixture. "What we saw at the end were not the kind of scenes they would have wanted to see in Zurich. "While we didn't see violence in the scenes it was not far from that." Birmingham manager Alex McLeish said scenes of fan violence threatened to bring English football "back to the Dark Ages". But he said he does not feel it will harm England's 2018 bid when voting commences tomorrow afternoon. "I'm disappointed by that side of things," he told Sky Sports 1. "Fans shouldn't come on to the pitch at any time. It soured it a bit for us. "I don't think that will affect the World Cup bid, I'm sure that's already decided, and let's hope England gets it because it deserves it. "It doesn't look good though, when you see fans running on the pitch like that and carrying on. It takes us back to the Dark Ages." Sky News sports correspondent Ian Dovaston, in Zurich, said: "David Cameron and Prince William, both Villa fans, will be sorely disappointed that those scenes are happening. "But I think its one that can be written out as a fairly random incident."
av got 2 mates who support birmingham, they used to tell me some ****ed up stories about their matches. always big fights before and after the games. same with wolves aswell. the Zulu army wer mental back in the day
