What's the worst crowd trouble you ever saw at a football match?

World cup, Marseille 1998. Never seen anything like it.

mine were in 70s as well-my team watford played millwall iwas only 15 couldnt believe darts going eveywhere in peoples heads etc-and then later old men as they were to me then 40s and 50s fighting with bottles everywhere--but my worst was luton v watford in cup some years later mental-battles everywhere

On a personal note in the carpark after the juventus liverpool euro cup final was a very scary time especially with no booked transport

That trouble in Copenhagen lasted for days. Turks running around with machete's and knives, groups of hooligans from Leeds and Sweden there as well. 100,00 plus Turks live in Copenhagen, plus the 15k odd Galatasaray brought with them, made it a dangerous few days. Never seen so many hooligans/people who had just had enough and went for it.

Spurs V chelsea ..1975 i think at white hart lane...only time my dad took me to a match ..all kicked off before the game....i was 14....my dad ( god rest his soul ) got scared and took me home before kick off...

Happy days.

around the 1976 league cup final newcastle and man city fans fought alongside each other against london all comers

sunderland v spurs 1978 , roker end went up, chelsea v sunderland 1985, sunderland's 3rd  goal  scored with a police horse in 18 yard box. marseille 1998 for events all weekend.

don`t laugh but accrington stanley vs fleetwood town 1991

an f.a trophy quarter final,i don`t know if police intelligence had the week off but blackburn,burnley,preston and blackpool fans all decided this was the match of the weekend and all headed to east lancashire for what looked a tasty tie
when you have four hated rivals in a then non league ground where you can change ends at half time it`s only a matter of time before it goes nuclear!!!
it was so bad at one stage my mates and i decided to get ourselves nicked before we got battered,i think the two coppers who arrested us were glad to be out of it as well

Crystal Palace vs Birmingham City - the relegation party. Legendary.

Hello, hello, we are the City Boys,
hello, hello, you'll tell us by our noise,
we don't care what V***a say,
were going in fancy dress,
were all going to Palace!

By the middle of April that season Blues had been relegated for the first time in their history to the Third division. The club was at it's lowest ebb, St Andrews was in dire need of investment, many of the players were YTS apprentices, crowds at home had sunk to below the 5,000 mark and the club had no money. The Coombes family that had run the club for years decided to call it a day and ownership of the club transferred to the Kumar brothers.

For weeks the above song had been sung at St Andrews and at away trips such as Portman Road (where again we lost), to join in the Blues relegation party, however no one expected it to catch the imagination of so many Blues supporters. The day itself will be remembered with both joys and sorrows too... A police documentary about the day saw the police wondering why 150 Blues 'fans' were on the car park of the Crystal Palace leisure centre at 11am in the morning. It also showed the police being told that around 2,500 Blues fans were expected for the game. In the event around 9,000 Blues fans turned up for the game and those that had met up earlier at the leisure centre were determined to mark Birmingham City's relegation to the third division in an unsavoury way.

Before the game kicked off the, the scenes around and in the ground were truly amazing. On a bright sunshine day, every fancy dress costume that you could imagine was on display. Butchers, Rambos, Pirates, Supermen, Red Indians, Giant Pandas, other fury animals, Cavaliers, Hitlers, Andy Pandy's, Blues Brothers, put it this way you name it, they were there. What was even more amazing was the amount of people that were in fancy dress it must have been around 75% of the Blues crowd. It was a truly carnival atmosphere.

Blues fans were housed in part of the open terracing at one end of the ground and some seating at one side of the ground next to the terracing. The fans were packed into that terracing like sardines and it was verging on being dangerous. As kick off approached a lot of barracking was heard between the Blues fans in the seated area and the Palace fans around them. As soon as the game kicked off the trouble began. The 'fans' in the seated area now attacked the Palace fans around them, another group were busily smashing down a door that connected the terracing to this seated stand and another group ran onto the pitch and up the touchline to attack the Palace fans from the pitch. It was like watching a military plan going into operation, I am sure to this day that this was planned. At this point Palace scored, which prompted more Blues 'fans' to go on the pitch. The connecting door was now gone and more 'fans' streamed into the Palace end. The teams were withdrawn from the field for their own safety. The genuine Blues 'fans' chanted 'You're the s**t of Birmingham' at the troublemakers. The trouble continued for sometime and the game was held up for around 20 minutes, whilst peace was restored. A no-mans land was created in the seated stand (that had terracing to the front) and a number of Blues fans left the terracing for the comparative space of this stand.

Now I'm not condoning violence, but I believe looking back that these 'fans' did the rest of us a favour. The terracing was so dangerously crowded you may have ended up with another Hillsborough on our hands. Only by creating space in the side stand, by Palace fans moving to the other end, to get away from the trouble gave the Blues fans an overspill area, that relieved the crush on the terracing. Also I have to say that some of the fighting was comical to watch. You had pirates on the pitch fighting, Father Xmas reigning blows and then I remember someone saying 'The Gorilla's had it' as a blow was delivered to a guy in a gorilla costume, whilst a Hitler was directing the chaos. The game eventually re-started in a subdued atmosphere and thankfully there did not appear to be any further outbursts of violence. (Eventhough I heard since from Millwall supporters that some of them were leaving The Den, during their game to go down to Selhurst Park). Blues eventually lost (again) 4-1 with Simon Sturridge grabbing a consolation goal.

I had arranged to meet a Palace fan after the game in the Palace supporters club but I was too ashamed to turn up. So I made my way back to Thornton Heath station, to get the train back to Victoria. I remember standing on the platform and looking around and there was one Palace fan sitting down, trying to keep a low profile, amongst the hoards of Blues supporters. Unfortunately for him another fancy dress Blues 'fan' dressed as a Vicar was making his way down the platform, blessing Blues fans as he went. When he arrived in front of the Palace fan, he paused and then stamped his foot in front of him. The Palace fan almost jumped three feet in fright, to which Vicar commented 'You seem to have a nervous disposition son' the Vicar then forgave the Palace fan for sins and did another blessing and left him be. On arriving at Victoria, I have never seen so many police in all my life. The platform was lined with Police and dogs and there were so many Police standing in the concourse that you could not walk in a straight line in the end I was glad to get away a return to the normal world.

morpteh mackem 28 Feb 13 20:29 Joined: 05 Jan 04 | Topic/replies: 16,609 | Blogger: morpteh mackem's blog
sunderland v spurs 1978 , roker end went up, chelsea v sunderland 1985, sunderland's 3rd  goal  scored with a police horse in 18 yard box. marseille 1998 for events all weekend.

if that would have been against liverpool the feckin horse probably would have headed it in. pre-beach ball obviously

Liverpool v Man Utd semi final 1985 goodison park, running battles , darts , golf balls with nails in getting thrown into the crowd

Football? Crowd Trouble? Handbags at 10 paces.

You want crowd unrest - some girl chucked a SHOE at that t*t from One Direction's MAN EGGS the other day, and scored a direct hit, knacker central.

Felled him, right there on stage. Not only was this shocking violence that would shame Milwall, she must have a more accurate throwing arm than Barney Van Dartsveld to find that Justin Beeper wannabes Microjewels.

Middlesbro v Everton 4th Round Cup Replay, early 1988. Boro/ Everton was madness in those days for some reason, think they'd been wellied everywhere round Goodison in the 1st game and decided to get their own back in the 1st replay. 2nd Replay was at Goodison and it went off again.

England at Charleroi 2000.  England fans have scum everywhere they go.  It was nice when the Gardai kicked eff out of them at Lansdowne and the Japanese giving them a tonking in Shinjuku station 2002.

"I remember someone saying 'The Gorilla's had it' as a blow was delivered to a guy in a gorilla costume, whilst a Hitler was directing the chaos. The game eventually re-started in a subdued atmosphere and thankfully there did not appear to be any further outbursts of violence."

Captain Christy, that was priceless!
Laughed for a week.

Looked it up on youtube and proper riot ain't it?

Lots of folk say the worst ever inside an English ground was Blues v Leeds, but when you see it on youtube, it's just a lot of people running all over the pitch, no fighting as such, but I suppose the trouble was outside afterwards. I believe a young fan was killed and that's a tragedy. Reminds me why it had to stop.

roma v Liverpool
from flares fired at reds fans inside the ground to what happened afterwards, street battles everywhere, people not really knowing which way to turn, stabbings, etc.
millwall are nothing like the same nowadays, mostly little burberry kids acting tought pretending to emulate their peers, on saying that the meanest looking fans ever to visit anfield were millwall, tho a long while ago, even the insane psychopaths sitting in the stand were appalled by some even more insane fans nearby!

I had a shop in the 80's. This old bloke who was then in his 90's used to tell me about the pre and post match battles Donny, Scunny and Rotherham supporters used to have in the 1920's. They used to carry clubs, knives allsorts.
Didn't even get in the papers in those days.