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| July 03, 2006 | Monday | Jumadi-ul-Sani 6, 1427 |
Disillusioned fans leave with heads high
GELSENKIRCHEN, July 2: Once viewed as an invading army of potential trouble-makers, England fans leave the World Cup in Germany with their new reputation for fun-loving, boisterous support fully intact and praised by organisers.
Some 315,000 England fans were present in the venue cities for each of the team's five games, making them the second-largest group of supporters behind the host nation.
“There have been tens and tens of thousands of England fans here, and before the World Cup they said they had changed. There would be no trouble and they were coming to party.
“They proved themselves right, they are the world champions of partying,” Gerd Graus, spokesman for the German organising committee, said on Sunday. “They created a great atmosphere, they have a fan culture unique in the world.
Although several hundred English fans were detained by police for mostly drunken and aggressive behaviour, there was no serious hooliganism at the tournament.
“Of course, among so many thousands of people there are bound to be a few arrests, but statisically speaking, the number of arrests are irrelevant. We all know what has happened in the past, but now we congratulate them,” said Graus.
“After Euro 2004, many people said it was a one off and it will never happen again and how Germany is going to be the real test but I think our fans have been absolutely superb,” said Stephen Thomas, head of a British police team in Germany.
The praise follows decades of condemnation for England fans who have a long history of soccer-related violence.
They caused mayhem at the World Cup in France in 1998 and Euro 2000 in the Netherlands and Belgium when hooligans clashed with police on the streets.
But there was no trouble in 2002 in South Korea and Japan and again two years later in Portugal when more and more families started to follow the national side.
“Since 2000, we were all determined never to see those scenes again, when we had the reputation as being the hooligans of Europe,” Assistant Chief Constable Thomas said. “I think we've finally laid that to rest by what we've seen here in Germany.”
More than 80,000 England supporters clad in red and white descended on the industrial city of Gelsenkirchen to watch their side's quarter-final loss.—Reuters
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