WE CAN’T TAKE OUR EYE OFF THE BALL

FOOTBALL has come a long way since the dark days of the 80s, when pitched battles outside stadiums were commonplace.

Home Office statistics released last month show that both football arrests and new banning orders have decreased for the third year running.

Yet we should not simply dismiss the behaviour of Stoke fans who vandalised Vale Park on Tuesday night as a solitary abhorrence.

Hooligans smashed windows, destroyed urinals and attempted to set fire to a toilet block during a Checkatrade Trophy clash between Port Vale and Stoke Under-21s. Another man was filmed jumping on a car.

For all the sanitisation and gentrification of the Premier League era, football has always retained this ugly underbelly; a small but sinister cadre of violent knuckleheads waiting to erupt like flying ants on a hot day.

Who see the 70s and 80s not as a bleak chapter in football history but as halcyon days in need of a reboot.

All they need is an opportunity – often Cup games with unusual ticketing arrangements – and it all kicks off. The riots that preceded West Ham’s League Cup tie with Millwall in 2009 are a classic example, as is the Lions’ FA Cup semi-final against Wigan in 2014.

Yes, they are relatively few. But it is the duty of everyone in football to ensure their number does not grow through complacency.

Anybody who shops the Stoke fans involved is not a traitor. They are protecting the game from men who sully it.