Moronic fans must not be allowed to destroy the game

A few months ago I wrote an article about my fears that crowd violence was creeping back into the English game. As a football fan who went to games all over the country in the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s that prospect frightens the life out of me and saddens me hugely.

Morons

Last weekend the violence displayed was of a new and frightening type. No longer were the morons who want to cause trouble satisfied with attacking other morons, but they turned their attention to the players.

At Sheffield Wednesday and at Luton Town there were disgraceful scenes that shamed the clubs and football in general. There were FA representatives at both games and we can only hope that the FA absolutely throw the book at the two clubs and send a message that this type of thing must never happen again.

Safe

For football to have any meaning and any place in our lives the players must be safe on the pitch. Football is full of emotion and full of passion but it remains a game of football. If players are to be attacked by fans then we should all pack up and go home because it would no longer be worth it.

At Sheffield Wednesday the emotions were high because they were playing a crucial game against Crystal Palace. Wednesday needed a win to stay in the Championship and Palace needed a point. The game ended 2-2 and any football fan knows the excitement that the Palace fans and players must have felt and the disappointment and despair that Wednesday must have gone through.

Attack

The pitch invasion at the end of the game was to be expected and the stewards and police would have been geared up to ensure that the two sets of fans were kept apart. What nobody could have expected was that the fans would start to attack the players. Angry Wednesday fans actually physically attacked their own players in scenes that were nothing short of a disgrace.

That was bad enough but what happened at Luton was even worse. They were playing York in a play-off semi-final in the Blue Square Conference, trying to get back into League 2. Luton have a huge amount of public sympathy for the way they were treated for financial irregularities in the past and docked such a large amount of points that relegation from the league became inevitable. That sympathy has now totally disappeared.

Idiots

York won the game at a packed Luton ground and again there was a pitch invasion at the end. The York players were attacked by the fans and had to run away into the crowd. As they cowered at the back of the stand, coins and other missiles rained down on them as a huge mass of out of control idiots tried to force their way past stewards and police to attack the players.

In the end the players could only escape by being sneaked out through the police office. Luton as a club immediately apologised and distanced themselves from the ‘minority of hooligans’ involved. I’m afraid that apology is not enough. There was a large group and they were certainly a sizeable minority. What they did was unforgivable and anyone found to be involved should be banned for life.

Destroyed

The FA have to act because violence on the terraces was a cancer that nearly destroyed the game. People have worked so hard to rid the game of it and now it is coming back. That is bad enough but players being attacked is a step beyond that and if it continues then the game will surely die.

The football community must not allow that to happen and we must all make sure that the thick, stupid, selfish and pathetic morons do not ruin it for everyone.