Day of shame as ugly abuse mars matches
Players and official targeted
BRITISH football suffered more ‘disgraceful’ crowd behaviour in a spate of incidents involving missile-throwing, vandalism and obscene abuse of players.
There were flares thrown at Millwall and racism in the Scottish Premiership, while an official at Crewe was forced to leave, complaining of dizziness after being struck by an object thrown from the stands.
The Football League will look into the day of shame, while clubs at the centre of the disturbances have vowed to act if culprits are identified.
Only last week there was trouble at Premier League grounds with Aston Villa stars Matty Cash and Lucas Digne floored by a bottle thrown at them by Everton fans. Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger also had a number of missiles thrown at him in their 2-0 win over Tottenham.
But on a day when the EFL had a chance to shine with the Premier League on a break there were yet more ugly scenes at a number of grounds.
The worst incident was in the League One game between Crewe and Rotherham where assistant referee Paul Stonier was hit on the head by an object thrown from Rotherham fans.
The official later had to leave the pitch feeling unwell, with an enraged Rotherham boss Paul Warne storming: ‘It is completely unacceptable. I apologised to the officials. The culprit should be punished.’
Flares were thrown on to the pitch by West Brom fans in their Championship loss at Millwall with play held up three times, with visiting supporters reported to have ripped out seats.
News of the trouble at The Den prompted a swift response from Sky TV’s Jeff Stelling, who raged: ‘Just stop it! If you can’t tolerate your side losing, you’re not a football fan. Don’t go to games. You’re idiots. We can’t afford to go back to the old days, can we?’
Meanwhile, at Wycombe’s League One game against MK Dons, Wanderers boss Gareth Ainsworth went on to the pitch to protest to the referee about the abuse that was hurled at Adebayo Akinfenwa as the substitute warmed up in front of MK Dons’ fans.
‘Ade is a great guy and for him to have to listen and put up with that is disgraceful,’ said Ainsworth.
‘No player deserves to receive the abuse Ade did today and there were children in the crowd and this just isn’t right.’
Embarrassed MK Dons officials were even forced to issue a midmatch tweet to their fans ordering them to shut up.
‘We can only offer our apologies to Adebayo,’ said Don’s boss Liam Manning. ‘That kind of thing doesn’t represent me, the players or the staff.’
Loutish behaviour wasn’t restricted to England, either, with Ross County’s Grenada international Regan Charles-Cook left feeling ‘extremely hurt’ after being subjected to racist abuse following his side’s 3-3 draw with Rangers.
The latest wave of disorder continues a growing trend in the game with arrests at football matches across the top five English leagues at their highest level for years.