Dressed all in black and hiding their faces beneath balaclavas, the huddle of young men with their fists raised and arms crossed look more like gangsters than football fans.
Next to this frightening photo, posted on Facebook, is a caption that seems incoherent: ‘Manchester United vs FC Twente, 40×40 fair fight, win Manchester United, Twente run.’
For modern hooligans, though, the meaning is clear.
This is just one example of the football ‘fight clubs’ that have exploded across Europe in recent years, with bare-knuckle brawls between rival fans planned in advance and sickeningly glorified on social media.
This picture was posted on Facebook with the caption: ‘Manchester United vs FC Twente, 40×40 fair fight, win Manchester United, Twente run’
These fights take place away from football stadiums, often in deserted areas such as forests or wasteland where there is a slim chance of police finding out.
Details of time, date and location – and even rules about what, if any, weapons can be used – are agreed by hooligan leaders on encrypted messaging apps.
Afterwards pictures of the opposing ‘teams’ with details of how many were on each side and ‘match reports’ of who won are posted on social media pages with names such as Hooligans TV and Hooligans.CZ.
For years, this sort of fight culture has been popular in Poland, the Netherlands, France and Scandinavia. But there had been little to suggest it was happening much in England – until this season.
On Wednesday, ten Manchester United fans were arrested in a series of dawn raids following a fight with supporters of the Dutch team Twente before the clubs’ European match in September.
The brawl took place in Salford, in an area of wasteland around four miles from Old Trafford.
Photographs showed dozens of alleged fighters gathering before the game. While many posts claimed it had been a ‘fair fight’, another, apparently from a Twente fan, claimed that the English ‘side’ was larger than the number agreed.
The fight then erupted again when Dutch supporters were allegedly followed to a nearby pub and terrified staff members called the police.
An expert told the Mail that pre-arranged fights between football fans are common in Eastern and southern Europe – but rare in this country. Pictured: An Arsenal Tula fan in Russia
Specialist officers launched an investigation, scouring CCTV from the venue. That led to ten ‘high-risk’ supporters, aged between 20 and 64, being arrested around Greater Manchester.
A police spokesman said it was part of a crackdown before the famous Manchester derby on Sunday, adding: ‘This is another strong reminder that violence of any sort, whether it is linked to football or not, will not be tolerated.’
But it raises the troubling question: Is football hooliganism – so rife in the UK in the 1980s – now surging again?
Geoff Pearson, a professor of law at the University of Manchester and one of the UK’s foremost authorities on the subject, told the Mail that pre-arranged fights between football fans are common in Eastern and southern Europe – but rare in this country.
One previous example he noted in England involved Brentford and Millwall fans, who arranged a fight in west London in August 2018. The brawl, which took place before a match between the teams, was captured on camera and uploaded to YouTube, with the fighters’ faces visible in the footage.
Six Brentford fans were later charged with affray over their part in the fight and sentenced to community service and suspended jail terms at Isleworth Crown Court.
The most severe punishment was given to a 28-year-old from Pinner, who acted as the ‘referee’ – stopping the fight when someone was knocked down so that the participants could ‘reset’. He was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, and 200 hours of unpaid work.
The Millwall group were fully clothed while the Brentford group were shirtless – no doubt to allow participants to easily identify their opponents, the court heard.
Police storm a property this week as ten Manchester United fans were arrested following September’s fight with the Dutch supporters
Hooligans from rival teams often communicate via WhatsApp and Telegram
In the six years since, these sorts of fights have become more organised.
Dr Pearson said hooligans from rival teams often communicate via WhatsApp and Telegram, where their messages can’t be seen by the police, and likely use such platforms to arrange the fights.
While it seems idiotic to post footage of the fights on social media, Dr Pearson said those who engage in these clashes are driven by boosting their online reputations through gaining ‘hits’ on their posts.
In the Netherlands, hooliganism has surged since February 2022 when the end of Covid restrictions allowed crowds to return to football matches.
Dutch criminologist Tom van Ham, who researched planned hooligan fights while completing his PhD at Leiden University, has outlined arrangements for such fights: Footsoldiers involved in the brawls might not get the details until the last minute while the leaders of the hooligan ‘firms’ sometimes use disguised references such as ‘going to a birthday party’ to organise them.
To lower the risk of detection and apprehension by police, the location is often somewhere remote.
In an article in the European Journal of Criminology in 2020, Dr van Ham said: ‘Survey and interview data indicate that clear terms are set in advance about the number of people (per group) that will participate and the use of weapons. Our data suggests that the use of weapons is generally not accepted and that other “rules of engagement” are used (for example, when someone is lying on the ground they are to be left alone).’
Fans of Twente, from the city of Enschede, are not known to have any particular history of rivalry with Manchester United.
But it was at that club that United’s former manager Erik ten Hag began his playing career. He had two further stints at the club before retiring, and then became a coach at Twente’s academy at the start of his route to becoming a manager.
As Manchester United is a ‘global name’, Dr Pearson said this could also explain the appeal of a brawl to the fans of clubs such as Twente since it would get them more ‘hits’.
Although this may go some way to explaining why this particular fight exploded, the troubling question remains: Is the dark stain of violent hooliganism spreading across English football once again?
