Brawling thugs do the League of Ireland a disservice

THERE is something truly pathetic about two groups of grown men meeting up for a pre-arranged fight. It is even worse when it is supposedly done in the name of sport.

Yet that is what happened in broad daylight last Friday evening when up to 50 hooligans gathered at a location near Dublin city centre for a vicious confrontation. The brawl took place before a match

between Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians. It doesn’t sound like a pretty sight. A number of men were taken to hospital with serious head injuries and another individual is understood to have been stabbed during the incident.

Part of me thinks that if these specimens of pondlife want to beat the bejaysus out of each other, then maybe we should just leave them to it. But the far bigger issue here is that innocent members of the public could have been injured or worse.

At least one account of the fight said that ‘terrified’ local residents couldn’t leave their homes. One elderly man remarked that he had ‘never experienced anything like this’ previously. It is a blessing that the only collateral damage was some gardens and plants.

Though it is many years since I was last at a League of Ireland game, I’m fully aware that the vast majority of supporters are only interested in the action on the pitch. But the rivalry between Rovers and Bohs has a nasty undercurrent among certain so-called fans on both sides.

The saddest thing of all is that this incident gives those who are already sniffy about the League of Ireland yet another excuse to look down their noses at it.

Everything possible should be done to identify those involved last Friday and have them banned from every football ground in the country.

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