MIKE KEEGAN spends three days with followers and police in Germany

On the back of a surge in anti-social behaviour at grounds in the UK and the fact that this Euros would be the first accessible major tournament for a generation, some wondered if England’s campaign would be marred by crowd trouble and a return to the dark days of the hooligan past. 

Mail Sport’s Mike Keegan spent three days with fans and police and found, while offensive songs continue to dominate the playlist, there is little evidence to suggest large-scale disorder will rear its ugly face.

Dusseldorf, Friday night. 

A big party in what they call the world’s longest bar. It is the opening of Germany’s Euros and down every street in the Alstadt, the old town are of the city with no fewer than 260 watering holes, there are smiles. 

German couples in their white shirts and painted flags on cheeks stroll hand in hand to the two fan parks on the banks of the Rhine. Amid the sea of white are flashes of tartan with staggering numbers of Scots – not among the lucky few who managed to grab a ticket for that evening’s kick-off in Munich – here to sample the atmosphere.

Elsewhere are the shirts of Italy, of France, of Spain. There is not a hint of malice. This is a celebration of football and of all that is good about the sport.

Except around the corner, outside the aptly named St George’s Hotel, it is not. In front of an Irish pub an exclusively-male group of around 300, many with tops off and waving bar stools in the air, belt out songs about the ‘RAF from England’ shooting down German bombers, about not surrendering (to the IRA) and about Scotland getting ‘battered, everywhere they go’. England are in town.

In quick time, street-facing television screens show Germany race into a 2-0 lead and the group’s attention turns to another Irish bar around 100 yards down the road which is packed with those from north of the border. 

Local police, switched onto the situation, form a low-key barrier between the two groups. At the end of the road plain-clothed members of the UK Football Police Unit, move in. They have been here before. A quiet word is had with those who are getting a little carried away. 

The message is clear: this time it is us – carry on and it will be the Germans who will take you to a cash point and demand an immediate payment for your actions. It is a smooth and impressive operation. 

While the pavement is littered with broken glass, at the end of the night the only wounds inflicted on the Scotland supporters have come from their own team, overwhelmed 5-1 by their rampant hosts. 

There are no arrests and no reports of trouble, although the vast majority of those due to follow Gareth Southgate’s side – with an expected 100 recently off banning orders – are not expected here until the following night.

On Saturday, the number has swelled significantly but the script stays the same as, sadly, do the songs. This time, ‘Ten German Bombers plays on repeat with the addition of an inflatable Spitfire. 

Most of those singing it would have done well to have had a great grandparent in the war. Some of the locals have twigged to the words. One group of young Germans start singing it themselves, laughing as they do so. Couples, out for the evening, turn the corner, assess the scene and turn around.

Keeping their distance at a pizza parlour, a group of Middlesbrough supporters, members of England’s travel club and veterans of major tournaments abroad, shake their heads. 

It takes a special kind of person to come to someone else’s country and sing songs about a war with it. The Boro fans are part of the large majority who put up with this side effect of following their country. ‘Idiots,’ says one. ‘They need to grow up.’ They have seen this before.

What nobody has seen, however, is the presence of the 500 Serbian hooligans Gelsenkirchen’s outspoken police chief Peter Both had declared were coming to cause trouble. 

Both’s words, which put the fear of God into many for whom memories of marauding, burly Russians in Marseille eight years ago remain clear, appeared to be based on little evidence. They certainly surprised UK officers, who had seen no intelligence whatsoever to back them. 

Indeed, a subsequent Mail Sport query to the Gelsenkirchen press office prompted an admission that they were ‘preparing for the possibility’ they ‘currently have no information that would confirm this’.

On a number of occasions police enter the crowd to nip potential issues in the bud. There are a series of minor flashpoints – at one point a bottle is thrown at a hotel window – but officers quickly intervene. At the end of the night again there are no arrests. ‘Our German colleagues kept things very well contained,’ said PC Stuart Dickerson, who is one of the UK’s officers out here assisting with the operation.

Some had wondered if this would be the tournament to buck the trend of a downturn in the downturn of arrests seen in Russia and in Qatar. Whether the accessibility of Germany, coupled with a rise in instances of disorder in the UK, would see a return to the dark days of the past. Early indications are that this will not be the case.

On Sunday morning it was the short trip for many to nearby Gelsenkirchen and England’s ‘high risk’ match with Serbia, the only game in the tournament subject to alcohol restrictions at which only low strength, 2.8 per cent beer was to be served.

At the station a familiar face. Dame Tracey Crouch, fresh from 14 years as an MP (during which time she was Minister for Sport) is handing out leaflets along with the Football Supporters’ Association, who are on the ground to assist England fans Crouch felt the measure, against which the FSA had argued, could backfire. 

‘There could well be consequences,’ she warns. ‘What you might see is a last-minute rush towards the stadium with people staying here to drink higher-strength beer. Treating them like children is probably not the best thing to be doing.’ Amid the chaos that followed, they were to be prophetic words.

Crouch adds: ‘It’s a very different atmosphere than 25 to 30 years ago. I think it’s unfair that today’s cohort of England fans are being considered in the same bracket. The vast majority behave themselves.’

In the squares and bars it was more of the same, with the occasional stray Scotland fan taking pelters. However, violence did flare at a steakhouse being used by Serbs. 

Tables and bottles were thrown and eight arrests made after England fans tried to enter. One England supporter and seven Serbs are now facing criminal charges while several were left wounded. It was, thankfully, an isolated incident.

Then came the travel chaos. Despite warnings, Gelsenkirchen’s transport system was simply not fit for purpose. Those encouraged to go to fan parks were left with a race against time to make kick-off. Following the game, at which only one altercation between two England fans was reported, thousands were left stranded into the early hours.

The FSA were left to lament UEFA, while praising the restraint of the England supporters present. Should England return here for the last-16, it is to be hoped lessons will have been learned.

This was only game one and the FA think as many as 500,000 England fans could head to Germany for the duration of the tournament. It is early days. The spitfires and the ‘German bombers’ are an appalling look and there is acknowledgement at the FA that, for all the positives around England at the moment, the songs remain a seemingly indelible-stain. There remains work to be done – but this is a far cry from the dark days of the old England away day.