Why we shouldn't have been surprised...and nor should UEFA

Take the ingredients: England; the unfortunate reputation of some England fans; the port city of Marseille; the history of England supporters in Marseille; a fixture with Russia; the advanced intelligence that Russian 'ultras' were heading for Marseille in search of 'action'; a local community of disaffected youth relishing the prospect of a scrap. Add to the mix all-day drinking, a tired, jaded and nervous police force with a penchant for tear-gassing first, asking questions later. 

It hasn't exactly been a shock to see the sickening violence in the Mediterranean sunshine over this last weekend. The trouble is, those organising Euro 2016 shouldn't have been shocked, either. Moreover, they should have been better prepared for it. UEFA are probably doing the right thing in threatening the Russian and English football associations with ejection from the tournament if the disgraceful scenes in Marseille are repeated - what else can they do? - but then what did UEFA do to prevent them? Stopping football fans fighting is no easier than preventing any spontaneous bar brawl, but it could have been mitigated if the recipe's ingredients had been examined before the sun started to cook them into a bloody stew. The memory of 1998 should have been the first red flag when scheduling an England fixture in Marseille. But, then, threats from local youths, spoiling for a fight over their social situation and, potentially, global events, should have been another red flag. 

However, before we look for excuses, there's no escaping the fact that England fans, drinking from first thing in the morning, dressed in identikit combos of shorts and trainers, stripped to the waist and, by mid-afternoon increasingly belligerent, will have made themselves targets - either for the police (understandably jumpy given the apparent terror threat against Euro 2016) or for any locals wanting to 'defend' their turf. 

It shouldn't have to be this way, of course. The build-up to any football match should be enjoyed with a pint or two, even better with a blast of warm sun. But with England fans arriving in Marseille on Thursday for Saturday night's game, the potential for trouble was always there. What doesn't make sense is why bars around the Vieux Port were open and serving beer at 9am - exactly 12 hours before kickoff.

The drunken, casual xenophobia that accompanied some of the England fans on Thursday and Friday (the usual "no surrender to the IRA" songs, the ISIS goading and "ironic" World War Two references), however, pale into insignificance with Saturday's arrival in the port area by Russian thugs. By all accounts, it was like a military operation and it became clear they weren't just drunken yobs of a different hue. Some wore gum guards and MMA gloves. Some wore England shirts to blend in and confuse. Some had improvised weapons, including reports of a hatchet. Some England fans even noted that they were physically different, as if the special forces of hooligans had been unleashed. Clearly, this was no impromptu violence. This was as premeditated as it was possible to be. Which begs the question, why weren't the authorities better prepared to prevent it? A group of thugs that large doesn't organise itself without some intelligence spilling out.

Even more disturbing were the scenes in the Stade Vélodrome: after suicide bombers targeted the Stade de France last November, it is baffling as to how a flare gun was allowed into the England-Russia game, how a firework went off (chillingly echoing the sound of suicide vests being detonated seven months ago) and how a thin line of just 20 matchday stewards separated Russian and England fans given what had been going on in the town that day. The sight, though, of clearly motivated thugs charging at English fans - including women, children and the elderly - at the end of the 1-1 draw will and should set off alarm bells at both UEFA and FIFA headquarters.

Euro 2012 in Poland & Ukraine was marred by violent incidents involving Russian fans, with the Russian Football Union threatened then with severe sanctions by UEFA, on top of fines for specific acts of what amounted to outright nationalism. These events should have put the Russian Football Union under severe probation. Most of all, the staging of FIFA's 2018 World Cup in Russia must now be placed under the severest scrutiny. If extremist Russian hooligans can bring the sort of terror to Marseille as we saw last night, imagine what they would do on home soil?

I'm not, though, taking sides. English football hooliganism has never, truly, gone away. Thankfully, trouble at home and abroad has been severely mitigated by effective policing and planning. What has happened - and it would be naive to assume that it no longer does - takes place largely out of view and therefore unreported. Domestic games are now, thankfully, dry affairs, family entertainment-orientated, even (you do become impervious to the fruitier language). The days when I remember elements of the West Ham ICF appearing, threateningly, in the old family section at Stamford Bridge are long behind us.

But, whether it is just being reported more or is actually happening, there have been more incidents of old-style trouble at football matches in the UK in recent months. Which should have been another red flag to the prospect of Marseille repeating the chaos of 1998 and Charleroi in 2000. Perhaps, then, we've been lulled into a sense of false security, even if we should have been simply enjoying a behavioural change. The headlines in 1998 were justifiably despairing. The English club ban following Heysel had served to demonise football to some extent in England, but by 1998, eight years after the ban had been lifted, it was hoped that lessons had been learned.

In 2006 I went to several World Cup games in Germany, including all of England's, and couldn't have enjoyed a better experience. There was drinking, there was sunshine, there was singing (including the inevitable references to events between 1939 and 1945...), and there was, of course, the ever-present threat of trouble from agents provocateurs. But there was also supreme German organisation, and no sense of foreboding emanating from policing. It appeared that the combination of stringent law enforcement, intelligence gathering on known troublemakers and an appreciation by yobs that getting caught abroad will result in jail sentences was finally paying off. Now, one has to wonder whether the guard has been let down.

As has always been the case, those mixed up in the Marseille madness will be the minority. Most of the fans from both England and Russia will have been there for the football, the camaraderie and the banter, even if they are, to put it politely, "boisterous". Football fans enjoying a beer while discussing team selections will not attract media attention. Brawling, beer bottle-throwing, bloodied - or worse - fans, facing down notoriously heavy-handed riot police with their tear gas and water cannon, will. That shouldn't just be a stain on the reputations of the nations involved, but on those responsible for organising Euro 2016. Which is why if England and Russia are kicked out of the competition, UEFA will have to face some very severe questions indeed, because Germany and other host nations have demonstrated that you can stage a football tournament and not have it descend into violence.