Forty-odd years ago a friend, a Liverpool supporter, somewhat unwisely took his girlfriend to Elland Road for a Leeds match against Liverpool. Amid some uproar over the referee, she was hit just above the eye by a sharpened coin chucked by a Leeds fan. The relationship didn’t last, unsurprisingly, but she still has the scar above her right eye. That was in 1982. Four decades on, Leeds fans are still at it — bunging missiles at the opposition. This time at Man U players, who won 4-2 at the weekend.
If Leeds fans had lobbed the odd headless cockerel onto the pitch, as I believe sometimes happens in hotter–tempered countries, as a proper culturally rooted expression of contempt for Manchester Utd and all they stand for, you couldn’t really object. But this other stuff — coins, lighters, bottles — is pure hooliganism.
A nastiness seems once more to be simmering below the surface of English football
It has never been a place to linger, Elland Road, but now it’s not looking much like a place to enter in the first place.
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