Mass violence mars London derby

I'm loathe to bring this to everyone's attention, but if not me somebody else will.

West Ham and Millwall is a fixture that is guaranteed to bring out the hoolies. I just wonder if this could have been policed better.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8221451.stm

A man has been stabbed in the chest during "large-scale trouble" involving hundreds of fans at West Ham's Carling Cup match against Millwall.

Fights broke out at 1800 BST and were still raging five hours later. A 44-year-old man is stable after being stabbed in Priory Road at 2025 BST.

Inside Upton Park stadium West Ham fans invaded the pitch three times.

One pub reportedly had its windows broken by bricks during running battles across several streets up to half a mile from the stadium.

didnt realize it was popular with the current crop of asswipes.

but if it was going to happen again, this fixture was a good bet for it.

they've hated each-other for a century, ain't nothing stopping that. i'm just glad Elijah Wood was ok!

This fixture must have been marked down as guaranteed trouble, so what was the policing like?

I hate to say this, but West Ham v Millwall does really require very heavy policing to make things reasonably safe.

That said, I'm fed up with some of the hysterical, ignorant rubbish that's been printed in the UK press about this by people who probably don't even know what side of the Thames the 2 sides play on.

Football cleaned up it's act in the 1990's, with all seater stadiums and so on.

it's just a small minority, unfortunately they get all the headlines.

Hey, if trouble ever breaks out at a Dolphin game, you've got Venus and Serena Williams on your side.

:rofl: