Violence erupts at London derby

[Chris]

Always going to happen. Bit old school, no biggie.

A few years ago you'd of described this as "ghastly" "horrendous" etc while correcting a few posters spelling mistakes. Theres been quite a change in you.

I like it!

[anfieldanfield]

To be fair mate, your 'cool' and "i'm old school, nothing shocks me" routine is pretty misplaced here.

People chucking bottles and bricks in areas where children are present, is a biggie. A bloke being stabbed is a biggie. People not being able to walk out their front door due to riots, is a biggie.

You need to dust off this 'image' you try to keep and get real.

I'm hardly 'old school' seeing as I was born in the 80's and didn't start going to football matches regularly until about four years ago.

Yeah, it's pathetic what happened. But it's Millwall for ****s sake, what did people expect ? You go to a midweek night game between West Ham and Millwall and of course there's going to be trouble.

There's a lot more serious things going on in the world, what happened to Calum Davenport for example is much more serious in my book and is recieving a lot less coverage.

[Shaggy]

Any good footage on YouTube yet? I’m at work so can hardly be seen browsing the net for footage of last night’s fights.

As much as I hate this violence, I do like to watch it out of morbid curiosity…

[anfieldanfield]

As much as I hate this violence, I do like to watch it out of morbid curiosity…

[Craig_H]

I'm hardly 'old school' seeing as I was born in the 80's and didn't start going to football matches regularly until about four years ago.

Yeah, it's pathetic what happened. But it's Millwall for ****s sake, what did people expect ? You go to a midweek night game between West Ham and Millwall and of course there's going to be trouble.

There's a lot more serious things going on in the world, what happened to Calum Davenport for example is much more serious in my book and is recieving a lot less coverage.

If you want to talk about things receiving the right amount of press coverage in relation to how serious they are, then that's a different issue and i agree with you.

But there's different levels of 'big deals' and everything is of course relative. One could point to war in Afghanistan and terrorism, and then say that in relation to that, the Davenport thing wasnt a big deal. There'll always be SOMETHING 'bigger', as it were. Doesnt make the original thing easily dismissable as 'no big deal' though, i dont think.

I think (and correct me if i'm wrong), that if you were personally caught in the middle of what happened last night, it'd be a bigger deal to you.

My previous post wasnt intended to have a go at you because i know you're a good fella and i know you're clued up on stuff. Perhaps i worded it poorly.

I just think it's easy to dismiss stuff as small fry, partly because in society nowadays, so much **** happens that we get desensitized to a lot of it.

But if we're able to actuall put ourselves in the position of some of these incidents, i think most of us would agree that we wouldnt think so lightly of it if we were actually unfortunate enough to be involved.

[Craig_H]

Any good footage on YouTube yet? I’m at work so can hardly be seen browsing the net for footage of last night’s fights.

As much as I hate this violence, I do like to watch it out of morbid curiosity…

Very much so, i'm the same. It's pathetic what these idiots do, but (maybe because i dont really go around seeing this stuff happen much), it IS something you cant help but watch. It's the old 'car crash' analogy isnt it?

[Shaggy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/olliewilliams/2009/08/how_violent_your_teams_fans_ar.shtml

Violence at football matches of the kind witnessed outside and inside Upton Park at Tuesday's Carling Cup match between West Ham and Millwall has been thankfully rare in recent years.

But the Home Office keeps a record of every arrest relating to professional football in England and Wales, as well as banning orders handed out to persistent or serious offenders.

Each year, it publishes a club-by-club breakdown of arrests made, including the type of offence, ranging from ticket touting or pitch invasion to violent disorder or possession of a weapon.

So where do each team's supporters rank?

Taking Tuesday's two sets of fans as examples, by November last year, 117 Millwall fans had been given banning orders. Only Leeds United (152) and Cardiff City (136) had more.

West Ham had 39 supporters with banning orders in the same list, in the middle of the table for Premier League clubs, which was headed by Portsmouth with 91.

The last set of figures published covers the 2007/08 season, but the Home Office online archive stretches back at least to 2001. You can download PDF files of the data here:

Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2007-2008

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/football-arrests-0708?view=Binary

Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2006-2007

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/football-arreststatistics-2007?view=Binary

Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2005-2006

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/football-arrests-0506?view=Binary

Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2004-2005

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/football_Arrest_BO_2004-5.pdf?view=Binary

Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2003-2004

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/football-arrests-0304?view=Binary

Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2002-2003

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/football-arrests-0203?view=Binary

Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2001-2002

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/football-arrests-0102?view=Binary

Using all the links, you can see how arrests and banning orders for each team - and for whole divisions, the Football League and the Premier League - have changed so far this century.

For some additional context, there's also a helpful page from the University of Leicester listing figures for arrests at football matches from the 1986/87 season through to 1998/99.

Broadly, the trend shows violence at football matches continues to fall - or at least, arrests do.

In 1988/89 there were just over 6,000 arrests at games in England and Wales. There were 3,842 arrests in 2007/08.

The University of Leicester points out that hooliganism has long been more of a problem outside grounds than inside and the Home Office figures suggest around six in every 10 arrests are made outside the stadium.

But two-thirds of games manage to pass off without a single arrest being made.

It's difficult to draw many conclusions about individual teams without spending time properly analysing the data, but I've pulled out some more info from these files and added it below - add a comment if you find anything else interesting.

In terms of arrests at matches, Manchester United fans were the biggest offenders looking at the raw data, with 248 supporters arrested in 07/08.
That doesn't take into account the club's larger attendances - and dividing by home attendance won't work, since arrest figures include their supporters at away matches (and it's largely away fans causing the trouble), so it's unfair to simply label United fans as the worst-behaved without really crunching the numbers.

Reading and Fulham can both be proud of largely unblemished records in the top flight that season, though, accounting for just 31 arrests between them.
Almost a third of Birmingham fans' 99 arrests were for the serious offence of violent disorder, far more than for any other top-flight team.

Further down the divisions, Cambridge United's figure of 16 arrests stands out in the Conference National, while Chesterfield had the highest number of arrests in League Two.

Leeds fans recorded more arrests than those of any other professional team, with the exception of Manchester United. (Though again, remember their home attendances and away support will have been higher - not that this entirely accounts for the figure of 156 arrests.)

It's interesting that the figure for Leeds has increased by 52 since the 2002/03 season, when Leeds were in the Premier League.

Millwall's figure for arrests has increased from 18 to 78 in that time. One Millwall fan was arrested for a public disorder offence in 2002/03; 40 supporters were arrested for the same offence in 2007/08.

However, when publishing these figures in 2008, the Home Office said the last four years had seen "the lowest number of football-related arrests since records begun".

Is violence at football matches on the way down, despite events at Upton Park, and do all these stats reflect your experiences at matches?

[Craig_H]

Things have got much better, which is partly why it comes as a bit of an unpleasant surprise when something like that does kick off.

Those arrest figures need to be given in terms of percentages as well though.

Interesting that Leeds, Cardiff and Millwall figure so highly - the three groups of fans i'd instantly think of with regards to causing trouble. Not all stereotypes are wholly inaccurate, clearly.

[PTP]

They should have just banned away (Milwall) supporters for this game knowing the history between the two sets of fans.

i may be wrong but i am sure when the draw was done the police advised the FA to play it behind close doors but the fa and the clubs refused because of ticket sales

[DannyMan2006]

Just ban millwall from the football league all together! Why cant those ****ers go into administration!

I hear the problems came mainly from the happy hammers.

[JohnDoe]

Imagine Millwall back in the Premier League.

[Shaggy]

I hear the problems came mainly from the happy hammers.

Not according to the copper I saw on the telly - he said around 2000 Millwall gathered before the game and broke through a line of about 500 riot police. They also chanted racist abuse at Carlton Cole throughout. Clearly both sets of scumbags are to blame.

Looking forward to watching it on YouTube though…some bloated bald men throwing lame punches and waving metal bars about

[PTP]

just had a little look on youtube - nothing of interest there yet but to whet your appetite for hooliganism i have posted this

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLOTaR9eMlg"]YouTube - Football Hooligans - Watford v Luton (2002)[/ame]

[Craig_H]

I dont get the appeal. I really dont. What's enjoyable about fighting?

[Shaggy]

I dont get the appeal. I really dont. What's enjoyable about fighting?

It’s not enjoyable at all but I know what they mean. I've found myself in numerous ‘situations’ and it can be terrifying, but the adrenaline really flows and it must be a right ****ing buzz if you like that kind of thing and your life is empty/**** enough to need to fill it with that kind of buzz.