WHY do they do it? Why, in heaven’s name, do grown-up men hurl missiles at buses carrying football teams?
Women fans don’t — at least I’ve never identified one in the 30-plus years I have been involved in football.
Simply, the term bottle-throwers puts the ‘men’ into mentally defective.
West Ham had experience of their like eight years ago when a few took aim at Manchester United’s coach on the day we vacated our ageing Boleyn ground for the London Stadium.
A mob in Marseilles pelted no fewer than seven Lyon buses, one of them carrying the away players and staff.
This was hatred, which has no place at a football match. Thankfully no deaths but there were serious injuries to Lyon manager Fabio Grosso, a 2006 World Cup winner, and his No 2, Raffaele Longo.
Grosso’s face was a bloody mask after being hit by glass from one of a volley of beer bottles and rocks that splintered windows, projecting shards of glass through the coach. Later, he had 13 stitches near his eye.
There is a history of violence between the two Olympiques, first name of both clubs, but never with such a result.
Grosso and Longo, also hit on the forehead, were taken to hospital along with five police, injured as they arrested nine men.
The match was postponed but the Marseilles club will decide a fitting punishment for the missile madmen. After that, it’s police business.
Both club chairmen asked for the postponement and Lyon said, not surprisingly, their players had been deeply affected.
They had travelled for football, not warfare.
At West Ham, we handed life bans to offenders. On an occasion to celebrate our 112 years at the Boleyn, it was our disgrace that we also had to apologise to United.
The term ‘angels with dirty faces’ was used to describe our fans, after the film of that name.
They’ll never be angels because, like most fans, they enjoy a verbal bash at rivals. But most are well-behaved.
That behaviour has continued to improve at London Stadium, no doubt as a result of world-class CCTV, professional stewarding and the fact that 35,000 supporters are with families, which creates a fantastic and uplifting atmosphere.
So, no longer are we tarred with a bad reputation, and I love what we stand for in the game — community as well as an academy of football.
Every professional club has troublemakers. It’s football’s biggest problem.
No director wants to take the delight, spirit and competitiveness out of football.
And we realise that success is transitional. Manchester City are a great side but perhaps won’t always be.
Like a massive majority of fans, we also abhor chants that deride the terrible events that undermine the joy of the game.
Manchester United and Liverpool have suffered the deepest of grief and have risen far above it, yet pathetic creatures still think it’s smart to chant wounding doggerel at opposing terraces.
Horrible, of course. But of all the ridiculous and shocking offences, can any be worse or more futile than chucking heavy things at a team or supporters’ bus?
Players are generally far too stable to be much affected by it although having to take refuge in the aisle on your face to avoid glass splinters can’t be much fun.
And then we should remember the day in Pakistan when a bomb thrown at Sri Lanka’s cricket team’s bus killed eight people.
We should all consider this a warning.
