sport news The recent scenes seen at football grounds across the land is the re-emergence ... trends now
It is to be hoped the Football League’s threat to reduce capacities in response to the rise in lawlessness in our stadiums will give the mindless minority pause for thought. There are, of course, no guarantees.
Here, if it helps, is a picture of what life was like for everybody not so long ago.
Football, the country’s national sport, continued to function during large parts of the Covid-19 pandemic that caused us all varying degrees of suffering as recently as last year. But it looked and felt very different. Nobody who was fortunate enough to be allowed inside a Premier League ground during lockdown football will ever forget what it was like. Empty, hollow, barren.
The brutal assault on Billy Sharp harked back to the old days of violence at football in this country
We in the media were the lucky ones. For us, at least, it was a valid reason to leave the sofa and close the front door behind us. It wasn’t what we wanted and it wasn’t the game we love. But it was something, a glimpse of life beyond the threshold.
For everyone else, lockdown football was exactly that. Football viewed only through the prism of the television or listened to, ever more remotely, on the radio. It was no kind of sporting life, all that.
But people forget, don’t they? It was only a year ago that fans were allowed back in to Wembley for the FA Cup final between Leicester and Chelsea. The attendance was capped at 20,000 but it felt like many thousands more.
The brutality of the assault should leave people in no doubt over what Tuesday night's pitch invasion entailed
That day felt like a reawakening for our sport. It felt like the first day of spring.
Yet here we are, 12 months on, reflecting on a rise in hooliganism inside our football grounds. For that is how pitch invasions involving flares and assaults on stewards and footballers should be categorised. It is not high spirits or celebration or unbridled joy. All of that can be experienced in the stands. No, this is hooliganism.
Anyone in any doubt should watch the video of Sheffield United’s Billy Sharp as he is laid out by a headbutt after Nottingham Forest’s play-off win at the City Ground on Tuesday night. Watch in slow motion if you like. See how the strong neck of an athlete snaps back suddenly and violently as his assailant strikes from his blind side. See how quickly his body drops to the floor. Yes, that’s hooliganism in its rawest form.
The Football League have threatened empty stadia should the problems persist
There was only one attacker and he has been identified and will now be dealt with. But there were thousands on the field at full time in Nottingham. Our man would not have done what he did without the cover of the mob.
Each one of them
