POLICE: SOME ENGLAND FANS BEHAVIOUR ‘APPALLING’
THE behaviour of some England fans has been described as “appalling” by British police chiefs after 90 were arrested before and after the friendly international against the Netherlands in Amsterdam on Friday. Video footage on social media showed some fans throwing bottles at police and bicycles into Amsterdam’s historic canals before the match in the Amsterdam Arena. The Dutch national anthem was also booed by a minority of England fans, an act described as “unacceptable” by England manager Gareth Southgate. “The behaviour of a large number of England supporters was appalling,” said deputy chief constable Mark Roberts, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) head for football policing. “Any attempts to downplay it are wide of the mark. The sad fact is that the drunken mob’s behaviour reinforces the negative stereotype of England supporters, and will impact on the treatment all fans can expect when they follow the team abroad.” There were more than 100 arrests over two days, the largest number of arrests of England fans for a single game in several years, according to Roberts. “Unfortunately it follows a worrying trend observed at recent fixtures,” he said.
THERE WERE times, Gareth Southgate admitted, when his heart was in dangerously close proximity to his mouth. As England’s back five repeatedly tried to work the ball out of defence on Friday against the Netherlands there were moments when a single heavy touch, a single misjudged flick, a single lapse in judgement, would have spelt disaster.
“They have absolute belief in their ability,” Southgate marvelled afterwards.
“They will concede possession sometimes, for sure. But I enjoyed watching them play out there.”
This, in short, is increasingly how modern football is played these days: with flair, with ambition, with possession, with risk, even in defence.
There is still plenty of tinkering to be done between now and England’s opening game in Volgograd on June 18, but on this point, Southgate has already set out his stall. This England will be bold on the ball, even if it occasionally leads to calamity.
And in a way, we should hardly have been surprised about this.
One of the more maligned concepts to have emerged from the FA’s nuclear bunker at St George’s Park in the last few years is that of “England DNA”: a style of play that is meant to run through the England side at all levels.
To watch KyleWalker and John Stones knock it about on Friday is to wonder: are they actually onto something here?
Southgate, for all the grumbles about his lack of elite experience and spotless FA yes-man credentials, is actually key to how all this is supposed to work.
He is perhaps the first England manager since Glenn Hoddle to come into the job without a rigid, calcified idea of how he wants to play the game, without a doctrine to impose.
It was interesting to hear Southgate using the word “enjoyment” during his press conference on Friday night, given that for generations of England sides past, enjoyment has been an almost entirely alien concept. What’s changed here? Why are we suddenly allowing England players to have fun all of a sudden? How has this happened without someone putting a stop to it?
Look, let’s not get carried away here. England are still a good rather than a great side. A tally of three goals in five games suggests there are problems, big problems, to be solved further up the pitch.
Though the Italy game tomorrow will allow Southgate another opportunity to experiment, time is essentially running out. But in this display against the admittedly limited Dutch, England offered something more than simple victory or mere competence.
There was a plan. There was a blueprint. There was an identity. You might almost – at the extreme risk of ridicule – call it DNA. – The Independent