11/05/24
June 21, 2006
Germans Play Defense in Cologne: A crowd of German hooligans stormed a gathering of English fans at the final whistle of the Sweden match Monday and were blocked by a human barricade of riot police. "The white-helmeted police officers made several baton charges to clear Germans to the east side of the square and drove England supporters towards the west."
Of course, if then English fans had stormed the Germans then there'd already be letters on FIFA's desk asking for us to be thrown out of the tournament. I expect England's fan's to launch their stupidly destructive counter attack about five seconds after England are dumped out in the Quarter finals.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 10:44 AM on June 21, 2006
You shouldn't be thrown out of the tournament because of the behaviour of a minority of idiot fans - you should be thrown out for being god-awful at football! Your team suxors etc. To be fair to the vast majority of England fans, you got dumped out of Euro 2004 by Portugal, in Portugal, and not one of your fans got arrested after the game. It's a bit of a weird thing to congratulate someone for, but compared to the dark days gone by, England fans have become a lot better.
posted by JJ at 10:58 AM on June 21, 2006
These aren't soccer fans causing the riots, the Neo Nazis have been planning to cause chaos, and they will look for any opportunity to do it.
posted by zippinglou at 11:16 AM on June 21, 2006
Clubs and the national team in England have been working really hard to cut both holiganism and raicsm out of our game and although it's probably impossible to squelch it all, so much work has been done that I'm praying there's no trouble, because the people behind Kick it Out and other programs don't need to see their efforts negated.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 11:27 AM on June 21, 2006
“Our spotters recognised 30 category C football hooligans" I like the fact that football hooligans are catogorized, kind of like hurricanes. can anyone explain the difference between a category C hooligan and a category B or A?
posted by HATER 187 at 11:30 AM on June 21, 2006
The police in the EU pass around information on football fans, especially around internationals and European club competitions. Category A fans are the "good" fans - chances are they're members of official fan or travel clubs and they are peaceful fans who don't cause trouble. Category B fans are those who either have been involved in trouble before at a football ground or are known to get very drunk around football matches. They are a risk for disorder, but not are not part of organised hooligansim. Category C fans are the worst and are on watch lists. They are known to be part of an organised group or an organiser of a group of violent fans. Category C fans who are arrested for trouble at a football stadium may be forced to hand in their passports to police before a relevant future international or european club game and may be forced to report to a police station on the day and time for domestic games.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 11:41 AM on June 21, 2006
These aren't soccer fans causing the riots, the Neo Nazis have been planning to cause chaos, and they will look for any opportunity to do it. We all saw the post about Neo-Nazis at the Cup. Do you have any evidence to back this assertion?
posted by yerfatma at 12:06 PM on June 21, 2006
If this had anything at all to do with Neo-Nazis, the headline would be in much larger type, and it would scream "Nazis attack English football fans." No editor worth their salt would ever pass up the chance to put the word "Nazi" into a headline.
posted by The_Black_Hand at 12:19 PM on June 21, 2006
I doubt the Englishmen being assaulted would have forgotten to mention it either. Unless the reporter missed it in the confusion; "Wot happint wuz, these Jerries see . . . "
posted by yerfatma at 12:52 PM on June 21, 2006
Fron the article: “There were no problems at all with the English fans, they did not cause any trouble. We were acting on intelligence information.” ... A number of English fans were seen throwing chairs. Hrrrrm......so much for German Intelligence.. It is too bad that ANY fan ANYWHERE has to act in this fashion. But then again, isn't fan just short for fanatic? Perhaps we should all just be called athletic supporters.....oh, wait...that's already taken.