During the Sheffield Wednesday V Leeds United match last Friday a Leeds fan ran on to the pitch and hit the Wednesday goal keeper in the face before scuttling back into the crowd to escape the consequences.
Afterwards, Dave Jones, Wednesday's manager, said Leeds fans should be banned from all away matches. Maybe that's the only thing people like that will understand. The problem is it is always the innocent fans who suffer. The guilty ones couldn't care less what damage they do or who gets hurt.
So here we go again. Remember the attack on Celtic manager Neil Lennon? Remember all the racist behaviour across Europe, including from a minority of our own fans? Remember the crowd riot at a West Ham V Millwall match? How many more of these 'incidents' will the game suffer before we find ourselves back with gang cowards and even murders in the name of football? How much more hate can we take, be it of clubs, of players or of anybody who makes a useful scapegoat?
Let's not kid ourselves it was ever completely eliminated from the game. It has always been there just below the surface. We all know there are lunatics who will always hate those they envy or victimise.
Next week is this season's first derby match. Is it too much to ask that we do away with the evil that now disfigures these fixtures? Given the report from the Independent Review Panel is it too much to hope we won't hear any of the sick "Murderers" and "Always the victim" vile songs? When some of our fans behave that way who are we to say we are better than anybody else? Forget Liverpool fans, they are responsible for themselves, just as we are for our own behaviour.
Or is the game about to return to the Bad Old Days of the 1970s and the 1980s?
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