Exclusive: Terror on trains and in malls as football thugs change tactics

South Yorkshire Police assistant chief constable Andy Holt, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) lead on football, says hooligans are increasingly sparking violence in public areas such as transport interchanges, motorway service stations and shopping precincts.

Mr Holt, who led a delegation of specialist British officers at this summer’s European championships, today warns that without an overhaul of the way games are policed there could be an increase in public disorder in the future.

While violence inside grounds remains a problem, highlighted by the scenes at Hillsborough on Friday when a Leeds United fan assaulted Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper Chris Kirkland, thuggery away from the grounds is now a “huge concern”, he said.

Mr Holt’s comments come after Leeds United’s recent successful High Court action when it was ruled the club should not have to pay West Yorkshire Police to control fans away from the immediate footprint of Elland Road, despite much of the violence now taking place further afield.

Figures obtained by the Yorkshire Post under Freedom of Information laws have revealed there were nearly two football-related incidents a week on the region’s rail network over the past year, including hooligans assaulting a police officer, a female member of train staff and other passengers.

“The trend of violence is moving away from grounds themselves,” said Mr Holt.

“The problem now is it has tended to disperse towards places like transport interchanges.

“In South Yorkshire, violence on the supertram and in and around trains remains a concern for us.

“Risk groups, if they can, tend to organise their violence away from areas where there is CCTV and where they are likely to come across opposition fans.

“We see lots of examples of rival fans using Twitter and Facebook to engineer a situation where they can meet.

“The figures of the last few years have remained fairly static, although most of that violence and disorder is not at football games.

“It is a huge concern. I would condemn violence in any shape or form wherever it happens, but when you get violence occurring in and around a football game then there are measures in place to try to contain that.

“Where you have violence that takes place within a public transport network or a shopping precinct, there is then interaction with families out shopping.

“That becomes really difficult and trying to predict where that will happen is also more tricky.”

Mr Holt added: “It is still largely the case that they tend to target rival risk groups, but you don’t want to be involved in this is if you are out shopping on a Saturday morning.”

The strain now being put on police resources was evident in a recent match between Sheffield Wednesday and Millwall, where South Yorkshire officers were forced to escort opposition supporters 70 miles away into Nottinghamshire on a train to assist British Transport Police colleagues.

Meanwhile, the South Yorkshire Police Federation says it has received numerous complaints of officers having had weekend leave cancelled over the past few weeks in order to attend matches.

“Football-related violence and disorder is significantly down from the heyday of the 1970s and 1980s, but it is still a problem we have to contend with,” Mr Holt said.

“There needs to be a public debate, to be honest. In times of austerity when the public finances are being stretched and public services, along with lots of other services, are having to make budget cuts, what part of football policing should be funded by the public purse and what part should be by the clubs?

“My view is football supporters in the main are law-abiding but there is still a consistent number who call themselves fans and are risk supporters who have a disproportionate demand on the police.

“If we have to fund them entirely out of the public purse, it means we will be using police resources from elsewhere.

“If we don’t work out a way of better funding the policing of football matches I can see that, given the budget pressures on police forces, there will be fewer officers at football and it could mean an increase in the level of football violence.”

Police investigating the violence at the Yorkshire derby on Friday were questioning a 21-year-old man on suspicion of assault last night. He was arrested in Cheltenham shortly before 1pm yesterday.