Just a little warning to those who are currently in Madrid. England play Spain at football midweek, and the game is at the Bernebeu stadium. May be wise to avoid the city centre and areas in Chamberi approaching the stadium. The apologists for English football fans always say the majority of fans are not looking for trouble. The problem is a herd instinct often takes over and the minority of trouble-makers will drag others into their drama.
Incidentally I'm English, and I enjoy watching football. But nowadays I avoid football fans when possible! Here's hoping for a trouble-free match on Wednesday, and lots of goals for Owen!

I do not wish to appear the 'apologist' but as someone who was for many many years a Leeds and England fan travelling to matches home and away, I can honestly say that it is true that 99.999999% of supporters are well behaved folk who enjoy travelling to new places to watch their team. There is a very very small minority of idiots who latch on to football and commit crimes supposedly in the name of the team. Unfortunately, these idiots follow all teams so there may well be trouble inside the ground if some of the 'ultras' of both sides are seated close together, however outside, I am not so sure. The UK police have a very strict hooligan ban and will I hope be confiscating passports as we speak. Personally, I wouldn't visit Barcelona this weekend because of the big game. As a current season ticket holder for Atleti I saw trouble when we played Barca here in Madrid and can only imagine it will be worse when they play the madridistas.

Keeper and Filbert – you are right about the UK minority, and it’s a shame.

I’ve been to a couple of matches in Spain (Sevilla v Sunderland and some other one) and the atmosphere was great and not at all threatening (ok I know these weren’t high profile matches!).

However, last year I took my children to stay in Hull (a random out of the hat choice, and in the NE of England for those of you who don’t know!).

We stayed in the same hotel as the Leeds United team, which was really exciting – I got to see the top of Alan Smiths lovely blond hair from my balcony, and see the team all jogging about in their smart training gear. They themselves seemed well behaved.

There was no major trouble before, during or after the match, BUT it seemed that the Police were very prepared. The town was full of armoured vehicles and mounted Police, as well as loads of them on foot. MacDonalds had removed all their chairs and put all the tables to one side, other places had closed down for the afternoon and evening for fear of being wrecked … The city was deserted and we had Pizza Hut to ourselves! It was quite creepy and frightening

Just as an observation - when I have been to Madrid, the only people I have seen drunk and behaving badly were British

Hopefully the match in Madrid will pass without trouble

Jo

Sorry filbert, but I'm with the Keeper on this one too and if I am labeled an apologist then so be it, but IMHO it is a small minority and always has been, even in the seventies when violence at football was at a peak. I went everywhere with Sunderland and in most towns there was always a bunch of idiots who were hell bent on causing bother, but they numbered dozens in crowds of 50,000. If any trouble broke out I and thousands others simply got out of the way, not joined in with the rest of the "herd".

These days I keep in touch through websites and message boards and I get the impression that while the troublemakers are still around they are not intent on causing the true supporter any harm, merely posturing and bragging to other so called "firms" of "fans" and when they do actually meet up it's handbags at ten paces and afterwards the bragging starts again.

Unfortunately whenever England do play away these days their supporters are seen as fair game by hooligans from whichever country they are playing in and try to provoke trouble in mnay instances. This is due a lot of the time to scaremongering which makes everyone with an English accent an ultra in the eyes of the host country. Of course I don't think the English will ever live down their reputation gained by the behaviour of the few, but the travelling supporters are now almost all members of the official travel club and I feel sorry for them when this reputation goes before them and they are tarred with the same brush.

I regret so much not going to Portugal this summer for a couple of weeks to see Euro 2004. I was put off by the thought of violence because England were there and missed out on a fabulous experience by all accounts, with the only aggravation coming early on in Albufeira on the Algarve one night by a few clowns who were not even connected with the football.

Nowadays my live footie is watching Malaga play every other week with the odd away trip thrown in, such as Barcelona away next month . We have been to Madrid and visited the grounds of Sevilla and Betis on quite a few occasions. Sad to say it is an intimidating experience if you are a Malaga supporter at Sevilla because of the local rivalry and vice versa so it happens here too, plus in Holland, Belgium, Germany etc and if I've also seen violence on TV during or after sports such as basketball and so on in North America too.

Sorry for the long-winded rant, but until we start appreciating that all English fans are not thugs and animals who move act and perform as a herd as you put it then we will always have this reputation and every game will have an underlying atmosphere of nervous anticipation of the threat that trouble could break out at any time. Until we do I and many others will continue to be put off going to internationals and miss out as I said before.

I hope I'm not wrong, but I bet there is no serious trouble either before, during or after the match tonight. Of course, there will be the usual falling down drunken behaviour of the English, because as has been pointed out by Quintos233 90% of us are alcoholic psycopaths

Here's hoping for a good match, good behaviour and a good result, like 4-0 to the English again

You mean this game?

Copyright: Jo-Anne

Yes Anchovy, but it was a lot busier where I was ... it looks really boring on that photo - ohhh, yes I remember why now, that's where the sum total of the Sunderland supporters were.

ps I didn't check the box which asked if I found the picture offensive

And I apologise if my post seemed like I was saying how bad football trouble is in the UK with my post above .. I think that was an extreme situation in Hull - there was also a Rugby League derby the same day. I'm surrounded by football here in Yorkshire, and I've not witnessed any trouble personally.

Infact, it still seems to be mostly families that attend the football at Huddersfield Town, although they must be rich families, as it's not a cheap outing these days

Jo

I actually agree with this statement, but unfortunately there often seem English fans who rise to the bait too easily. Scotland used to have a reputation (and their fans still get provoked as many people from other countries do not realise there is a difference between Scotland and England) but their fans have managed to avoid being provoked when Scotland play abroad. What is it that Scotland fans possess that English fans don't?

I´ve got a feeling that at some time the true Scots supporters decided enough was enough and started policing the unruly element themselves. They are a fearsome bunch up north - I remember watching Braveheart and giving thanks that I lived in the north east of England a good few years after Mel and Mob were around!

Check old posts I made last year about the time 60,000 or more of them invaded Sevilla for the UEFA cup final. I bet there wasn't a glass broken during the week they drank the city dry! I hate to say it, but at times like that I wished I was a bit like Rod Stewart, you know, a pretend Scotsman!

Sadly I can't see the English doing that though and until a solution is found - and the British aouthorities are slowly working on that as Keeper say by issuing banning orders - we will always have that niggling element among the travelling support. Hopefully that will diminish until once again we don't have to go on the defensive when it comes to a discussion like this.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, TVEi (Televisión Española Internacional) is showing the Spain versions England match in the Santiago Bernabeu stadium (the Real Madrid stadium). But right now, the two are playing at a small stadium in Alcalá de Henares and I'm watching it (not live, I don't suppose, as it's 11pm there now) on TVEi now. Anyone (in the USA) want me to tape it for them?

So take it easy in Madrid this week!

Saludos, MadridMan

MM, the match you saw was the Spain v England under 21s. It has caused a bit of a storm here due to some of the abuse coming from some sections of the crowd.

Hopefully the game tonight will pass with more football news (A Rooney hat-trick would be good!) and less "scandal"

I remember one match last year at the Nou Camp between Barcelona and a team I can't remember when the game started at midnight!! If I recall I think all the spectators found a meal on their seat supplied by Barça in case they got hungry as it was so late!!