Football Fan Violence....West Ham in Trouble?

[QPR Report]

Guardian - Dominic Fifield

West Ham face ground closure over violence

• Carling Cup expulsion also open to FA as inquiry starts
• Club must show they could not have stopped trouble

West Ham United will need to prove to the Football Association they did everything possible to prevent the ugly crowd scenes that marred Tuesday's Carling Cup tie against Millwall to stave off the possibility either of being forced to play behind closed doors or cast from the competition.

The repercussions of a night of violence rumbled on yesterday as the FA, aware of the eyes of the world being on the English game ahead of a bid for the 2018 World Cup finals, held preliminary talks with the Football League, the Metropolitan Police and the two clubs. All parties are conducting their investigations into the scenes inside and outside the Boleyn Ground, which saw one man stabbed in the chest in mass brawls outside the arena and three pitch invasions, with the FA reinforcing its commitment to see all proven offenders banned from attending games for life.

All potential sanctions are technically available to the FA at present with the onus very much on West Ham, as the host club, to show they took all possible measures in advance, in terms of stewarding and policing inside the stadium, to prevent the trouble that flared. The possibility of the Premier League club facing a ground closure, of either part or all of Upton Park, or even being jettisoned from this season's Carling Cup remains, though far more likely is a heavy fine and a warning as to their supporters' future conduct given the extensive measures put in place by West Ham to pre-empt any trouble.

The club had convened an emergency meeting of its safety advisory group as soon as the draw for the second round had flung together these two sides– with their inflammatory rivalry – earlier this month, with West Ham having conformed fully and willingly with everything they were advised to do as part of that process.

Some 500 police were on duty on Tuesday night, including three times the normal number of mounted officers, and, while police had to use batons to quell unrest among home supporters, physical confrontations between rival fans within the stadium were kept to a minimum.

Only three arrests were made for encroachment on the pitch and, while many more home fans sprinted on to the turf in the three pitch invasions, the club are confident they will be able to identify offenders via their closed circuit television footage and will ban those found guilty for life. The FA will back those measures and has already gathered reports from its own crowd control officer, who was at the match, as well as both clubs' safety officers. "We have to make sure that the individuals concerned face such tough actions that they cannot go to football again," said the FA's director of communications, Adrian Bevington.

The West Ham hierarchy spent yesterday in meetings assessing CCTV footage and collecting witness statements to kick-start their inquiries into the incidents. "Everyone at the club is shocked and appalled at what happened and we will leave no stone unturned in identifying the perpetrators, rooting them out and then taking the proper action from both the police point of view and the club's," said the West Ham chief executive, Scott Duxbury.

Millwall hinted at disappointment with the police for limiting the number of tickets available to away supporters to 2,300, the implication being that more fans therefore travelled to the game without tickets. "Any Millwall supporter identified as being involved in criminal activity relating to the events of 25 August will receive an indefinite ban from the club," said a spokesman. "We trust that all aspects of planning and preparation for this match will be thoroughly investigated."

While missiles were thrown in the arena, from both sets of supporters, and home fans invaded the pitch, there remains a deeper sense of shock at the violence that occurred in the streets around the stadium. A 44-year-old remained in a stable condition in hospital last night after being stabbed in the chest on Priory Road, while 13 arrests have been made at present. The Metropolitan Police continue to study their own CCTV footage to pinpoint other troublemakers.

West Ham denounced the scenes outside the stadium as "mindless", though the 2018 World Cup bid team, who will find out in December 2010 whether they have been successful, are confident their prospects for hosting the tournament have not been severely damaged. "The scenes from Upton Park were a regrettable but isolated example of a culture that the football community has worked tirelessly to eradicate from our game," said a spokesman.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/aug/26/west-ham-millwall-violence-punishments


Guardian/Dominic Fifield
FA to focus West Ham inquiry on racist chants directed at players

• Fans found guilty of racism to be banned for life
• Millwall condemns alleged abuse from both sets of fans

The Football Association's inquiry into the violent scenes that marred last night's Carling Cup tie between West Ham and Millwall at the Boleyn Ground will address the alleged racist chants directed at players from both sides during the furious match, with the game's governing authority to maintain their policy of zero tolerance by seeking to have any fan found guilty of the offence banned for life.

The England striker Carlton Cole admitted in the aftermath that he was aware of the monkey chants aimed at him by the Millwall fans in the Sir Trevor Brooking stand just prior to his substitution. The forward had retrieved the ball from behind the byline when sections of the support appeared to barrack him, with Cole subsequently seeming to make an offensive gesture at the travelling support as he departed the pitch.

"Yeah, I heard it but it's football, you know," said Cole. "I don't care. I know I'm not a monkey. I might be as strong as a gorilla but I'm not a monkey. That's life, isn't it. You've just got to carry on and get on with it and we got the result – that was the main point. The fans got what they deserved. As you get bigger in football, you're going to get taunts. I look at someone like Frank Lampard as an example. He gets abuse everywhere, but he still gets his head down and carries on. That makes him a bigger and better person. It's about mental toughness."

Both clubs were united in their condemnation of racial abuse, with allegations that the visitors' own substitute, Jason Price, was subjected to similar taunts from the home fans upon his introduction into the fray. "Millwall Football Club condemns racist abuse by supporters of both sides on Tuesday night," insisted the League One club in a statement. "There is no place for racism in society and both Millwall and West Ham work tirelessly in our respective communities to tackle this problem."

A West Ham spokesman added: "We take any sort of racist chanting seriously. If found guilty, we will treat that with the utmost severity."

Cole described the fractious occasion as "a unique experience" but, while both sets of players were oblivious to the violence that had occurred outside the Boleyn Ground prior to kick-off and throughout the game, the Millwall forward Neil Harris echoed the sentiments of his manager, Kenny Jackett, in criticising the West Ham fans for encroaching on the playing area three times towards the end of the game. Fans sprinted on to the turf to taunt the away support following Junior Stanislas' two goals, and again at the final whistle despite appeals over the public address system for fans to remain in the stands.

Millwall's players grouped on the touchline after the second pitch invasion, at which point it appeared the game might even be abandoned. "It was extremely hostile and volatile, but what happens on the terraces is not our concern," said Harris. "All my concern was for my team-mates. At one stage it wasn't very pleasant. I've played in these games before and know what it is all about – big local derbies and red-hot atmospheres. They are terrific games to play in and that is why you play football. It means so much to the supporters of both clubs, but sometimes they get a little bit overzealous.

"Anything can happen when they [the supporters] are on the pitch, but most of the time fans are on the pitch to celebrate a goal, not to attack players. We've had it at Millwall when fans come on to celebrate and everyone makes a big hoo-ha about it. I'm sure if it was our fans on the pitch people would be very keen to report that."
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/aug/26/west-ham-millwall-racist-abuse

[QPR Report]

David Conn/The Guardian

Huge strides have been made in battle against violence but sporadic outbreaks remain inevitable

Dormant hooligans can still be roused into action by incendiary fixtures such as West Ham v Millwall

David Conn blog

A West Ham United fan confronts the stewards during the Carling Cup second round match against Millwall at Upton Park. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

English football has suffered many blights in its 146-year journey from amateur upper-class pastime to global entertainment industry, and along with fans fighting, one of the most persistent has been a tendency to generalise about it. So in the 1970s and 1980s, the game was characterised as a war zone plagued by hooliganism, while since its rehabilitation in the early 1990s football matches have been portrayed as completely cleansed of that menace – as fun, wholesome events to which all parents should feel confident about taking their kids.

There is a hard core of truth in both portrayals, but neither is the full story, as regular football fans, the football authorities, police and the government all agree. The 1970s and 1980s were indeed savaged all too often by fighting, which ultimately shamed the game's history with the horror of Heysel, but it did not happen all the time and in truth, it was always a minority who did any actual fighting. They dominated the experience at too many matches partly because policing was less well-organised than today, partly because thousands of fans around them seemed to glory in it, even if they did not become seriously involved.

Hooliganism within and outside grounds has dramatically declined since the early 1990s, and people do generally feel safe, barely considering the threat of violence at matches. That becalming has played a major part in people flocking back to football in huge numbers not seen since the mid-1960s, along with modernised grounds, the media's more positive portrayal of the game, and the advent of huge new money in the Premier League which has paid for many of the world's stars to play here.

It is, though, not the whole truth to paint modern football as a shiny, happy carnival of multi-ethnic family fun in which hooliganism is a distant memory. While violence like last night's is, thankfully, extremely rare now at matches, there are still small groups of men who engage occasionally in the bizarre, dismal ritual of arranging fights away from grounds to avoid today's more intense policing.

Many lads who considered themselves "handy" back in the day are still supporters, and although they have expanded into middle age and generally "retired", they can still be roused into action in extreme circumstances like an incendiary meeting between West Ham and Millwall. Some fans of a certain late-30s to mid-50s vintage do not seem even to realise how nasty the old fighting songs sound when rolled out regularly and tediously in football grounds today.

Football hooliganism fell away for many reasons. There was a palpable feeling in the late 1980s, after so many people had died at grounds, that it had all gone too far, and many fans improved their behaviour. The police arrested some of the "top boys" at many clubs, the new all-seater stadiums dispersed groups to fixed seats and incorporated CCTV which can identify troublemakers.

More broadly, the culture changed. Football was celebrated, not vilified, in the media, and fans reclaimed its joys. The game has also become a more packaged, "leisure" experience, with fans shopping in megastores before games or watching big screens, not being left to make their own entertainment. Tickets are also more expensive, eye-wateringly so at some Premier League clubs, which has priced out much of the younger generation, some of whom might be more inclined to fight.

Official figures buttress the experience of diminished violence at football. In 1988-89 there were 6,185 football-related arrests in England's four professional divisions; in 2007-08, among crowds vastly larger, there were 3,616. Inside and outside grounds there were an average 1.21 arrests at a match, representing 0.01% of all supporters, and less than a 10th of the arrests were for violent offences. The police have largely reduced their presence and quietly withdrawn from many matches – 41% of matches in 2007-08 were police-free.

The Home Office is convinced that banning orders, introduced after the running battles seen at the European Championship in 2000, have been particularly effective. The most recent figures, for the 2007-08 season, show that 3,172 banning orders were in place.

"We don't subscribe to the idea that hooligans are not genuine fans, because that isn't true," a Home Office source explained. "These people do not want to be banned from the football experience, which is an important part of their lives. The exclusion of those who do cause trouble helps to stop people around them, who might become involved, crossing that line."

In the wake of last night's violence, the football authorities, police, government and the Football Supporters' Federation have all been emphasising the general reduction in hooliganism over the last 20 years. They are also realistic enough to accept there remains a risk of it happening, which does not come much higher than a midweek, floodlit cup tie between West Ham and Millwall.
David Conn Posted by David Conn Wednesday 26 August 2009 22.00 BST guardian.co.uk
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2009/aug/26/west-ham-millwall-hooliganism-history-violence

[QPR Report]

Guardian - Cass Pennant
Everyone knew West Ham game was going to kick off

As soon as this game was drawn everyone would have given that knowing wink saying: 'Hello, this is going to be a long night'

A certain element smiled when West Ham and Millwall were drawn together, while the rest of football held its head in its hands. When those two teams meet it goes beyond football and the game should not be punching itself on the nose over what happened.

The violence certainly wouldn't have been pre-planned. As soon as this game was drawn everyone would have given that knowing wink saying: "Hello, this is going to be a long night."

Take it from a former member of one of the so-called most organised firms in history, the InterCity Firm, the trouble of the 70s and 80s was never as organised as people thought. It was more a case of like-minded souls thinking the same way.

Today it is very much underground and those who meet via websites and mobile phones really are a small minority. The arrests from these groups are no more than you get at pop concerts, carnivals or any event where crowds gather. It really is under the control of the football authorities, unlike in the 70s and 80s when we, the firms, ran the show. We did what we wanted and were always one step ahead of the authorities.

After Heysel and the Taylor Report the football thug has never enjoyed the same power. Only complacency can give them the maximum effect, as it did on Tuesday night. The violence that happens today is on such a small scale that it has to be organised and it doesn't affect normal football fans on the whole. Violence in the 70s and 80s did not have to be organised because it was the culture and it did affect the game. Now, older and wiser, I can see that we did come close to killing the game.

Anyone who knows the score knows this rivalry goes beyond Millwall football club and West Ham United football club – it is east London versus south London. To back this up you just need to look at the gates.

The biggest crowds any club will draw are their local rivals. But if you look at the history of the "big one" between West Ham and Millwall, the gates have always been low because normal fans know what this game is about and kids, wives and girlfriends will stay away, allowing a lot of young males to take their places. The crowd at the Boleyn Ground on Tuesday night was not what I see as a season-ticket holder – it was as if a section of the East End took its club back.

How different a rivalry it is can be explained in 48 hours. Tottenham is a high-risk game, but their fans were given their full allocation of tickets, pubs could open, traders carried on as normal and the game on Sunday passed off almost without incident. On Tuesday night Millwall's allocation was halved and pubs and shops were boarded up.

What happened was a result of that draw. These teams and their supporters cannot meet and the only way you can solve that and keep the integrity of the competition is to ban away fans.

The police were there in numbers, but it was a very strange atmosphere. Experienced riot police who have seen it all before would normally be more aggressive and act in a no-nonsense fashion. The hate that these two groups of supporters generate was not met with the zero-tolerance that they would normally put into a football game. That special policing was not felt and it was almost like the 70s when that thin blue line was stuck in the middle, doing its best to keep fans apart rather than taking them on and stopping them.

There was a lack of aggression and I'm wondering if the tactics were affected by what happened at the G20 protests and perhaps their hands were tied behind their back somewhat. The police rely on CCTV so much – they can arrest hundreds after the fact and they allow the riots to develop. Either they knew they didn't have the numbers to tackle head-on a crowd hell-bent on trouble, or their tactics have changed and they now allow people to riot and commit the most serious crime possible, then arrest them afterwards on the strength of CCTV footage.

It seemed to me they allowed the riot to develop, to the risk of residents and traders, and it will be interesting to see if they do their policing via CCTV. It's years since the Millwall-Birmingham riots and they are still arresting people on the back of video evidence. I think Tuesday night will keep Crimewatch busy for the next three years.

Author and publisher Cass Pennant is a former member of the InterCity Firm. Perry Boys Abroad, by Ian Hough, has been released by Pennant Publishing
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/aug/27/west-ham-millwall-cass-pennant

[QPR Report]

The Independent/ James Lawton

: The yobs may go to ground but they will not go away

A scourge has returned to a sport now built on riches unthinkable to most fans – but the solutions must come from outside the game

Police monitor events outside Upton Park after violence erupted between West Ham and Millwall fans on Tuesday

* Photos enlarge

The worst of it is the terrible inevitability, the way the pictures of riot and brutality could have been plucked from almost any time and any place over the last 50 years of English football.

There was also the fact that the drink and the hatred and frustration with overwhelmingly bleak lives is always going to spill over into something destructive.

What has to be disregarded most stringently is the pain caused by political preaching; calls for a new attack on the "tiny minority" who spoil it for the rest of us.
Related articles

* How a midweek tie turned into a 'scene from hell'
* Cole leads condemnation of game's night of shame
* A rivalry that dates back to the heyday of British shipbuilding

Tiny minority, did you say? Let's get something straight right away. If it is true the incidence of the kind of violence that we saw in and around Upton Park on Tuesday when Millwall came to visit has declined sharply from its high scum mark of the Eighties, the reality is that football is as vulnerable to Britain's ever more rampant yob culture as it has ever been.

The worst miscreants may lay low for a little while, but you know they haven't gone way, not while their thuggish cult is cultivated for days like Millwall versus West Ham.

Why would they go away? Have their lives been blessed with new horizons, new opportunities, new examples, has anyone convinced them that there is more to life than binge drinking and all its consequences?

Is their breeding ground any less malignantly fertile? Is their mood sweetened by reading that the superstars of Chelsea blew a reported £100,000 on one nightclub spree while their own chances of earning enough to produce a deposit on some box of a house retreat ever further into fantasy?

Football, naturally, is required to cringe and agonise over the latest return of the hooligan beast but once again it is palpably the victim of a society being stripped of the most basic standards of behaviour.

Back in the Eighties Margaret Thatcher was lecturing football even as she was announcing there was no such thing as society. Certainly she was right in the sense that there was not a whole one, where the most culturally and economically disadvantaged received encouragement to behave as though they had an investment in anything but a drink-sodden, dysfunctional way of life. No, there are no easy remedies now beyond the valid calls for permanent bans for anyone caught behaving unlawfully within a ground – and the most strenuous sentencing for those outside who have plainly come along to spread danger and chaos in the streets. However, this would be a lot easier done if so many clubs didn't blench at the exorbitant charges levied on a police presence and there was anywhere to put the street thugs after they were sent down.

Or if young people were a little more likely to pick up values from a teacher operating on a pupil ratio which makes it some achievement if he remembers all their names.

If you love football enough to attend the live action the price is almost inevitable revulsion at the language and demeanour of so many inside the stadiums.

Outside, one of the most pervasive rituals is public urination. In the old days that was judged an indecent act. Now it is a commonplace, often not remarked upon for fear of instant retribution and rarely, if ever, prosecuted.

Football, the national sport, has been exposed to such behaviour for the best part of half a century now and what is so depressing is that the central problem is as apparent as ever. Strong action may suppress the worst examples of the problem but plainly it cannot remove it. Now, as unemployment figures rise, as the youth of the country increasingly find themselves in a great kraal of futility, who can wonder that the peace football enjoyed once again looks so at risk?

Maybe one of the saddest aspects of this week's events was the mournful, almost disbelieving reaction of the West Ham manager Gianfranco Zola. The little man from Sardinia, for so long a representative of so much that is best about football, said, "I'm sure there will be inquiries and they will try to look at the situation. I was completely shocked. Certainly it is not good for football. What can I say? I'm a sport man. I love the game. I love to go on the pitch and try to make it exciting for the supporters and enjoyable for everyone to watch."

He was echoing the words Bill Nicholson, the late manager of Tottenham, uttered 35 years ago when his club's fans rioted in Rotterdam and 200 finished up in hospital. The scenes hastened the great manager's exit from the game. Trouble had been stirring throughout the day as fans ranged drunkenly across the city, knocking over café tables, and when it erupted inside the stadium, Nicholson went on the public address system and declared, "I'm ashamed to be an Englishman."

It sounds almost quaint now, that outrage from the former Durham Light Infantry fitness instructor, but you know quite how many times it has been expressed by his countrymen down all the years since then, when cities like Marseilles and Brussels, Rome and Dusseldorf have been turned into places of siege by visiting English supporters. In Marseilles, after the old harbour had been turned into a battleground, a Frenchman spat at the feet of an Englishman. "You people are disgusting," he was told.

It would be less than fair not to acknowledge the efforts of English football to shed itself of a curse that has so often been applied from beyond its own borders. Naturally, the 2018 World Cup campaign has been quick to speak of an isolated problem and the FA are surely right to call for tough sentencing and the enforcement of life bans for those guilty of crimes in the grounds.

Also understandable is the reluctance of the football authorities to acknowledge that ultimately the solution is beyond their means. Safety and decency on the terraces and the environs of the grounds is dependent not so much on a stronger, more disciplined English game but a stronger, more disciplined England.

Let's hope this is remembered by every politician from the Prime Minister down. What happened in West Ham this week, after all, was not a sign of an imperilled sport but an unravelling nation.

www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/james-lawton-the-yobs-may-go-to-ground-but-they-will-not-go-away-1777626.html

[QPR Report]

Independent - Cole leads condemnation of game's night of shame

West Ham striker criticises racist chanting during Carling Cup tie as both police and FA underline determination to punish the thugs

By Sam Wallace, Football Correspondent

West Ham United's Carlton Cole tries to get away from Hammers supporters during last night's ugly Carling Cup tie against Millwall at Upton Park

Carlton Cole led the way last night in condemning the racist Millwall fans who showered him with monkey chants during Tuesday's violence-strewn Carling Cup tie with Millwall. The West Ham striker told them: "I might be as strong as a gorilla but I'm not a monkey" as English football prepared to tackle the offenders from a shameful night.

The Football Association said that it would seek lifelong bans for those West Ham fans who were part of three separate pitch invasions during the match. The organisation's governance department launched a wide-ranging investigation into the game that saw pitched battles in the streets outside the Boleyn Ground before kick-off and a man stabbed outside the ground.

While it was the West Ham fans who were responsible for the pitch invasions within the stadium, Millwall can also expect sanctions for the behaviour of their supporters. The League One club apologised for the racist chants aimed at Cole and they also face allegations that their fans sang offensive songs about the West Ham player Calum Davenport, who was stabbed last week, and Jack Collison, whose father died in a motorcycle accident at the weekend.
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* How a midweek tie turned into a 'scene from hell'
* A rivalry that dates back to the heyday of British shipbuilding
* James Lawton: The yobs may go to ground but they will not go away

The FA's director of governance Darren Bailey will take evidence from both clubs as well as the Metropolitan Police before the governing body decides upon any sanctions. However, it is understood that neither the FA or the Football League – who run the Carling Cup – envisage West Ham being thrown out the competition.

Cole, who gestured back at the Millwall fans abusing him, said that he "didn't care" about the abuse. "I heard it but it's football," he said. "I don't care. I know I'm not a monkey. I might be as strong as a gorilla but I'm not a monkey. You've just got to carry on and get on with it and we got the result. That was the main point, the [Millwall] fans got what they deserved."

There was a rush from all sides to condemn the behaviour of supporters

from the FA, Football League, government, 2018 World Cup bid committee and both clubs. However, there was also a feeling in the game that the antipathy between the two east London's clubs' sets of fans combined with the rarity with which they play each other and a history of fan violence at either club added up to a set of conditions that, although regrettable, were rare in English football.

The FA will have to work with the Metropolitan Police who are seeking criminal charges for the 13 people arrested and those later identified as troublemakers. Under Home Office rules, the FA will seek lifetime bans for fans who were responsible for violence. "We have to make sure that the individuals concerned face such tough actions that they can't go to football again," said FA spokesman Adrian Bevington.

In the latest Home Office statistics on football hooliganism – for the 12 months up to October 2008 – West Ham were only the ninth worst offenders in the Premier League with 94 arrests for that period. Millwall were second worst in League One behind Leeds United with 78 arrests. Comparing statistics between clubs is problematic because of the vast difference in attendances.

Video footage taken of the incident on Green Street outside The Queens pub, next to Upton Park tube station, shows mounted police trying to keep rival factions apart. The police look woefully under-manned when confronted with the number of supporters posturing at one another. The FA investigation will also examine whether there were enough police officers at the game to cope with the potential for violence.

The reaction of West Ham supporters on fan forums was mixed. Some condemned the violence while others revelled in a return to the days of the club's notorious "inter-city firm" – a group of supporters who travelled the country developing a reputation for violence. Much of which has been recorded in tedious, self-aggrandising hooligan memoirs.

"I'm embarrassed, ashamed and gutted to see what I've come home to on the news tonight, and the worse thing is we can't blame Millwall," said one blogger on the WestHamOnline. net forum.

Another added: "This is aimed at those who still think that fighting in and around our matches is a good thing, who think that defending West Ham's honour is right and proper. Well it ain't. I thought this ridiculous behaviour went out of fashion in the Eighties."

However there were many who regarded it as a welcome return to those days. One blogger on the same forum wrote: "It was the best atmosphere at a home game for F***ing years, the place was buzzing. All these self-righteous pricks are just post-Euro 96 happy-clappy mugs who love the sterilised Premier League."

www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/cole-leads-condemnation-of-games-night-of-shame-1777628.html

[QPR Report]

The Times

West Ham and Millwall face heavy fines but avoid threat of expulsion
West Ham's Carlton Cole reacts to fans during a pitch invasion after a penalty goal against Millwall

(Stephen Hird/Reuters)

Close encounter: Cole, who said that he was racially abused, is confronted by supporters during one of the pitch invasions at Upton Park on Tuesday
Oliver Kay Football Correspondent, Gary Jacob

* 4 Comments

Recommend? (2)

West Ham United will not be expelled from the Carling Cup as punishment for the violent clashes that marred their victory over Millwall.

The club do, however, face the threat of a heavy fine and even being forced to play a tie behind closed doors if they cannot prove they made adequate security arrangements for Tuesday’s second-round match at home to Millwall.

The Barclays Premier League club held an emergency meeting yesterday and have begun their own investigation into the shocking events of Tuesday, when rival supporters clashed outside and inside Upton Park before, during and after their 3-1 victory. Thirteen arrests were made on the night and a 44-year-old man was stabbed in the chest.

West Ham officials are scrutinising eyewitness accounts and video footage, including CCTV pictures and mobile-phone footage uploaded on to the internet, and have promised lifelong banning orders for anyone found responsible for the disturbances, including three separate pitch invasions.
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But, with the FA launching its own investigation, which is likely to lead to both clubs being charged with failing to control their supporters, West Ham are also under pressure to prove they made adequate security arrangements for a fixture that has a history of crowd trouble.

“It was a serious incident and that’s why all the football authorities have reacted with condemnation and determination to get to the bottom of the incident and to make sure those responsible are brought to book for it,” Andy Williamson, the Football League’s chief operating officer, said. “We have to bring together the facts. West Ham, for example, have to demonstrate that they took all reasonable precautions and took the appropriate security advice.”

West Ham have received the backing of the Metropolitan Police. “Police worked closely with West Ham United, British Transport Police and the local authority to minimise disorder,” Chief Superintendent Steve Wisbey said. “It would appear that a small number of supporters were intent on causing a confrontation.”

More than 500 police were on duty and three times the usual number of mounted officers. West Ham were praised by the police force for their stewards’ work in preventing Millwall fans spilling on to the pitch. While there has been criticism that the stewards did not deal more forcefully with home supporters who invaded the pitch, stewards are advised not to trap fans in confined spaces and to allow them on to the pitch if necessary.

As the investigations began, West Ham and Millwall pointed the finger of blame at each other, with both clubs accusing rival fans of making racist chants at black players.

In addition to his club’s claim that hundreds of seats were ripped out by Millwall supporters in the second half, Carlton Cole, the West Ham forward, said that he had been the victim of racist abuse, specifically monkey chants. “I heard it but it’s football,” Cole said. “I don’t care. I might be as strong as a gorilla but I’m not a monkey.”

Millwall counter-claimed that Jason Price, their forward, was similarly abused, referring in a statement to “racist abuse by supporters of both sides”. The Coca-Cola League One club were unhappy that the Metropolitan Police restricted their ticket allocation for the match to 2,300. Under Carling Cup rules, the away club are entitled to 15 per cent of the total allocation, which at Upton Park equates to just over 5,000 seats.

Both clubs agreed to reduce that allocation to 3,000, in view of the potential for trouble, but when that figure was reduced farther on police advice last week, Millwall complained to the Football League and to West Ham, arguing that some fans would travel without tickets, which could heighten the threat of a disturbance.

The FA is determined to get to the bottom of the trouble, conscious that the ugly scenes, beamed around the world, might raise fears of a renewed outbreak of “the English disease” of hooliganism at a time when the country is eager to project its football in a positive light while bidding to host the 2018 World Cup finals.

Ugly reminders

The scourge of crowd trouble has never been completely eradicated from the English game. Incidents at Premier League grounds have been few and far between in recent years, however.

August 22, 2009 Punches, bottles and coins are thrown outside the South Stand of the Riverside Stadium after Middlesbrough’s 2-0 victory over Doncaster Rovers, which had been designated a “police-free” match.

January 24, 2009 An FA Cup fourth-round tie between Hull City and Millwall is disrupted by violence inside and outside the KC Stadium. Eight Millwall supporters are given fines or banning orders and more than 30 are still being sought by police, while 11 Hull fans have been imprisoned.

October 25, 2008 Sunderland’s home victory over Newcastle United is marred by unrest, with Shay Given confronted by a supporter on the pitch, Joey Barton pelted with bottles and coins, and fans fighting at the final whistle. Twenty-nine arrests are made and mounted police officers are struck by fireworks.

May 14, 2008 About 500 people require hospital treatment after the Uefa Cup final between Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg at the City of Manchester Stadium. Forty-six are arrested, a Zenit fan is stabbed and police are attacked, with one requiring surgery.

Words by George Caulki www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/west_ham/article6811560.ece

[QPR Report]

When Saturday Comes (WSC)

Men behaving badly
Image Wednesday 26 August ~

Following crowd trouble at last night's League Cup game, West Ham and Millwall are in the news today. In WSC 89 (July 1994) Millwall fan Lance Bellers reflected on the aftermath of violence during a play-off semi-final against Derby

At any big game involving Millwall, two things are certain – one, that Millwall will lose, and two, that there will be disgraceful scenes which will appear all over the next day's press.

The play-off semi against Derby followed this familiar pattern. Words that spring to mind include "appalling", "reckless" and "deeply disappointing", and the fans weren't much better either. The wheeling out of Millwall's stock list of misdemeanours has taken on comic proportions as news editors take lumps out of previous versions to make way for the latest entry.

The point is, most fans have to tolerate poor performances by their team at the critical moment, but few have to put up with all the extra nonsense that accompanies my team's D-Days. It's all so predictable and depressing that you really have to start asking yourself at exactly what point would you decide you've had enough and call it a day? This season has included the usual amount of those incidents that start to make you really wonder. For example: the eternal racism ("We're glad we sold the N-Word," sung by a few and aimed at Chris Armstrong); the father leading his seven-year-old boy by the hand after the Youth Cup final at Arsenal and singing at the top of his voice, "North London is full of shit, shit and more shit"; and two stories from a friend, who told of having to run for his life after visiting the New Den and also of someone he knew suffering a double headbutt after the Forest game, even though he actually supports Ipswich.

Millwall supporters must also rank amongst the only fans in the country who have cost their own side a penalty with a pitch invasion! Even though there were 30 or so people on the pitch at the opposite end, the referee still awarded Millwall a spotkick against Derby which was subsequently nullified at the restart 13 minutes later.

This goes some way to explaining the problems that blight Millwall – a lot of people just see big games as a prime opportunity to gain an extra dose of notoriety. To be fair, there were plenty of people roaring at the troublemakers to leave the pitch and I'm sure that there are thousands of Millwall supporters who are sick to the back teeth with the eternal problems at the club. The press were unusually even-handed in their analysis (with the odd exception), focusing as much on the new stadium and positive community attitude as on the pitch invasions and post-match destruction. Which really puts paid to the siege mentality that the fans have built up over the years – the media will really root for Millwall these days given half a chance.

So what exactly would it take to kick the football habit? Millwall's severe lack of form at the beginning of this season certainly had me thinking hard. After all, without a half-decent side to follow, what else did I have to entice me there? Of course, the real answer is that I probably will never give up going altogether. Football still supplies sufficient excitement, uncertainty and comradeship to prevent me from really ending it all. Am I alone in this? I suspect not.

www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3813/38/

[QPR Report]

The Times - Football should not beat itself up over violence
Patrick Barclay, Chief Football Commentator

Say what you like about football; at least the blood is real. And concern about last night’s riots at Upton Park will be authentic too, not just in the corridors of the FA’s new Wembley headquarters but in Downing Street, for the Government are firmly behind England’s bid for the 2018 (or, if that fails, 2022) World Cup.

When Gordon Brown envisaged a ‘’great decade of sport’’, he had in mind wholesome Olympic Games and dramatic World Cups, not the tiresome and time-warped activities of bottle-hurling and bare-knuckle fighting that made a return appearance before, during and after the Carling Cup match between West Ham United and Millwall.

There is, however, no need to panic yet. Not until a tendency to violence and pitch invasion spreads from the London boroughs interested in this tainted rivalry to the rest of a country in which football hooliganism has become small-scale and under control -at a very considerable public expense deemed worthwhile after the opprobrium heaped on England by the incidents of the 1980s, including the 39 deaths of mainly Italian supporters before a European Cup final between Juventus and Liverpool.

Last night’s events had the look of an isolated recurrence. A lot of things went wrong: the draw, for instance, paired these clubs rightly ignoring the darker episodes of their history, which featured a riot at a testimonial (for Harry Cripps), a death of a Millwall fan under a train and serious disturbances a little over five years ago when mounted police were required on the New Den pitch.

The Carling Cup factor also contributed in that it opened the turnstiles for non-regular fans, many of whom looked as if they had been watching too many of those mind-numbing movies about hooligan gangs that somehow endure, buoyed by nitwit critics who would not know the difference between a real hooligan and a diseased potato (to be fair, it is not always easy to tell, even if you have been around football a fair while).

So, while there will inevitably be calls to punish both clubs, and especially West Ham because they were the hosts, it seems inappropriate. We all, including the FA, seem to have been taken by surprise by the severity of the incidents. It is time to learn and not recriminate. Punishment should be a matter for the police, who have a vast array of photographic and video evidence, and judiciary, backed up by the football authorities with life-banning orders, which should be automatic.

While hooliganism is small, it can be crushed. And should be. But there is no need for football to beat itself up.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/patrick_barclay/article6810857.ece