Last night's Carling Cup game between West Ham and Millwall was marred by violent scenes between fans both inside and outside the ground.
A lot has already been said about the actions of the supporters, but I think the situation should have been handled better by the police.
When the draw for the Carling Cup 2nd round was made a couple of weeks ago, I remember watching it in the pub and straight away we all said there would be trouble in this game. Surely if we could have predicted riots then the Metropolitan police could have worked it out.
There was a police presence around Upton Park last night, but the fact that back up had to be called shows that not enough police were on the scene to begin with. When Millwall came to St Marys earlier this month (see video at bottom of this post) Southampton city centre was packed with police (it was just like watching The Bill!) and apart from the incident outside Yates on that day, the operation was a success.
After watching footage of last night's game, I was surprised there weren't more stewards in Upton Park to prevent the pitch invasion when West Ham equalised. I would've expected stewards to form a wall between the stands and the pitch, but there were gaps which allowed fans to get onto the pitch. If necessary, the cost of extra policing and stewarding could be charged to both clubs. This was done last season at Southampton when Rupert Lowe spent £60,000 extra on policing at games until the end of the season after protests during Saint's home defeat to Doncaster in January.
Both West Ham and Millwall have very passionate sets of supporters and this is probably the fiercest off field rivalry in British football. Just look back to the clashes between West Ham's Inter City Firm and Millwall's Bushwackers in the 1980s for further evidence.
Lets just hope last night's scenes don't effect England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
Above: A heavy police presence prevented trouble when Millwall played Southampton earlier this month.
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listening to 606 on the way home from Wolves last night, a steward phoned in who was working in the away Millwall section. West Ham had wrongfully decided to use stewards rather than Police to patrol and keep the away supporters at bay and he said the stewards had been complaining for weeks that they didn't want to be put at risk like that, and many stewards never turned up to the match because they were so scared.
From what I've heard it was more West Ham re the pitch invasions but both sets of "supporters" must share the blame and I think West Ham are going to get punished heavily for this.
Driving home from work today Radio 1 Newsbeat read out a text they'd got and it said "me and a mate travelled to upton park last night from Manchester just for the violence, it was a warzone and we loved it".
The scenes are totally outrageous. Personally, i think these scenes being linked back to the 80's when hooliganism was described as a "footballing disease" has been much glorified by films such as football factory and green street and now you have people coming together as "firms" to look towards idols such as Cass Pennant who's life as a chief of the ICF was recently detailed in his book and later made into the film Cass.
The levels of policing was an absolute joke, we had more policing at the county ground last season when the likes of Millwall and Bristol Rovers came down, and there was a huge police presence surrounding the away stands and close home stands when Leeds came down.
You've seen the pictures and videos on the telly, now arrest the bastards and ban them for life.
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