by Darren Douglas

Created on: September 18, 2009   Last Updated: September 25, 2009

When West Ham and Millwall met in the League Cup on August 25th, the violence that erupted in and around Upton Park was like a reminder of a bygone era. In the modern game such incidents are few and far between, at least in the UK, where the reaction was unanimous in condemning those involved.

It wasn't all that long ago things were a lot different, at least with English football. The 1970's was a strange period for English football in general. Whilst the national team toiled and failed to reach both the 1974 and 1978 World Cup, the country's club sides eventually built up a contrasting dominance of the European Cup.

Whilst English clubs have reached the last 5 Champions League Finals, it still has nothing to compare with the incredible streak that started in the 1976-77 season. That term, Liverpool became the first English club and second British club (after Celtic) to claim the biggest honour in club football. This started a sequence that would see the European Cup stay on English soil for the next 6 seasons, until Hamburg won it in 1982-83.

Despite this success at club level, the image of football fans was somewhat more in keeping with the depressing nature of the national team and the economic downturn in Britain. Bins not being collected for weeks seemed to be reflected by the upturn in violence that occurred amongst rival fans on a Saturday afternoon. In short, football hooliganism was almost viewed as an extension of the wider problem with society.

These issues did not start in the 1970's of course, whenever there has been football there has always been some minority element who were there to find trouble. What the 1970's brought was an increasingly organised militia associated with many clubs, more often or not known as firms. Famous ones include the Headhunters of Chelsea and the Leeds Service Crew.

It was in the midst of this in 1973, that crowd segregation and fencing was introduced at some grounds. The frequency of football related violence was on the rise and as a result the sport had become something almost exclusively watched live by young males. The Thatcher government that dealt with the exacerbating problem, predictably reacted with promises of stiff measures, such as an ill-fated ID card scheme for all football fans.

It couldn't last though, English football was heading towards it's public relations nadir. Of all the places to occur it was to be at yet another English club's European Cup final appearance, on 29th May 1985. The Heysel Disaster at

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