West Ham and Millwall take us back to the 1970s

The terrible scenes in and around Upton Park on Tuesday evening at the Carling Cup game between West Ham and Millwall were worryingly reminiscent of the 1970s when violence on the terraces led to thousands of football loving families turning their back on the game.

Period

The 1970s and early 1980s were a very dark period in English football with crowds diminishing, interest in the game waning and the national team failing to qualify for World Cups. The terraces became like war zones and football grounds were simply not the place to be if you were a decent human being.

The levels of violence eventually led to the long expulsion of English teams from European competition following terrible incidents such as the tragedy in Heysel.

Decent

Over the following years with the implementation of the Taylor report after the Hillsborough disaster we have seen English football apparently clean up its act. We have seen the introduction of all seater stadiums, the introduction of decent facilities (anyone who went to the toilet at any football ground in the 1970s will know exactly what I mean!), families returning to the game, attendances going up and up and the level of crowd violence hugely reduced due to better policing and stewarding and sensible intervention from the authorities.

In fact, in recent years, as English football has become a global phenomenon and the sport has become an acceptable form of entertainment across the board, we have looked on crowd violence in other countries in a rather smug way. We have thought, “We used to have problems like that, but now we’re OK. If only the rest of the world could learn from us.”

Anecdotal

Although the statistics revealed have not shown a large increase in English football violence over the last couple of years the anecdotal ‘word on the street’ is that some of the bad times have been returning slowly but surely.

A game between West Ham and Millwall, near neighbours in the notorious east end of London with a large amount of history between them and sets of fans with a reputation for violence earned over many, many years, was always going to present problems. When the draw was announced a collective “oh no” could be heard around the country, nowhere louder than at the offices of the Metropolitan Police.

Idiots

As the game approached plans were put into place as everyone, apart from the hundreds of idiots who wanted to cause trouble, hoped that the event would come and go peaceably. If we could get through this game with minimal disturbances then a message that football violence was finally a thing of the past would be sent emphatically.

Unfortunately as we all now know the evening was a very long way from being peaceable. There were riots outside the ground lasting from two hours before kick off until two hours after the end of the game. There were fights inside the ground and three pitch invasions which led to the players leaving the field at one point. The riots did not involve a small amount of mindless idiots; the police described it as ‘large scale disorder’ involving hundreds of people. They were disgraceful scenes that do a total disservice to both of the clubs, the game and the country.

Banned

I dearly hope that this is a ‘one off’ and that anyone proved to be involved in the fighting or pitch invasions is banned from football grounds for life. The authorities must take drastic action in order to ensure that the game does not slide down the slippery slope to the dire state it once found itself in. I stood on terraces all over the country back in the 1970s and we must allow the game to go back there.

When English clubs were thrown out of Europe a massive will was discovered at clubs to rid the game of the evil of crowd violence. Maybe individual clubs need to be hit hard now so that they rediscover the will to eradicate these idiots from their support.