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Sure this was an arranged meet, it happened 6 hours later "hooligans out for a fight" why do people live near the grounds if they have such a problem. The police can only do so much to control the violence.

- Bianca, England

I have for several years now complained about the crowds of indimidating football fans coming into Fulham.

On one occasion it lead me to have a panic attack and when I asked a police man to help me across the road through the heavy crowd he just shrugged off my concerns and refused to help.

I hope that this will finally bring the problem to the attention of council and police officials in Fulham.

- Jane Mcmillan, Fulham, London

My guess is that Sophie will eventually marry Giles and move to Kensington but with a place in Oxfordshire at weekends where she won't have to put up with Chelsea fans any more.

- Persemillion, Essex

A fight 6-7 hours after a game has ended is not football related, it may be hooligan related but I don't see how you can attribute it directly to the game.

Clare when Eric Cantona attacked a member of the public, he ended up with community service a massive fine and a 9 month ban from football.

When a rugby player does it he gets to play the second half. Rugby teams smash up hotels with regular monotony but thats high jinks. I don't think you holier than thou attitude works.

- Se, London England.

As stated by others, if you don't like football/football fans then don't move into an area with a huge great football stadium in the middle of it (and a smaller one up the road).
For information, Chelsea FC pay for matchday policing. I'm sure business rate paid by the club more than covers the clean up required once a fortnight after a matchday.
Violent behaviour such as that reported is to be deplored, but if the last such was a year ago [Sophie], then I suggest that it is the exception rather than the rule.

- Cecilia, Fulham

Chelsea FC pay for the policing for the matches. I think everyone conveniently forgets the money that the supporters bring to the bars, restaurants, hotels of the area. The other thing is that how long have most residents lived in the vicinity? Not as long as Chelsea FC has been there. Most of you knew you were moving into an area with a football club in its heart - and all you have done since is bitch and moan about it. Most football supporters behave perfectly and it is a disgrace that we are treated as second class citizens in every regard.

- Chelsea Girl, Fulham

I don’t believe that it is a matter of football at all... it's the flagrant disregard that the supporters/hooligans have for others. I was at the White Horse yesterday and there were so many non-football supporters and children football supporters there, don’t know what happened to all of them.

I think that we would find out what’s more important to these idiots, the football or getting drunk, if they imposed life time bans from Football matches for ALL people who are involved in this blatant stupidity.

These complete idiots bring themselves, their teams, their team's fans and this entire country into disrepute.

- Adam, Fulham

I loved to read Sophie's remarks. So Chelsea supporters were drinking a few pints at their local celebrating a great comeback when they were attacked by a group of rival supporters from West London and she says Chelsea fans are a disgrace?
Can we stop the envy towards Chelsea? Get your own rich patron!

- Vasco, Sutton

Does Hammersmith & Fulham Council get extra funding to pay for the policing? (esp as Fulham and Chelsea FC are less than a mile apart).

I disagree that the games should be banned. Although I am not keen on the fans every other weekend - there are very few incidents in and around Chelsea and Fulham related to the football and if there are they are almost always fan related and therefore if you're not a fan then you're not involved.

I do agree that there is a lot of debris that is left behind and think rich clubs like Chelsea FC should pay to make sure the streets are cleaned afterwards.

- Anon, Chelsea

Some people would call this football hooliganism. As it was Chelsea and Spurs fans involved, I would describe it as 'self-regulated pest control'.

- Dion Georgiou, North London

People like Sophie make me laugh. I have lived in Fulham all my life and have seen the area taken over by yuppies... my heart sinks when I see the Rugby supporters throwing up and urinating in the streets around Fulham Broadway but I wouldn't expect the powers that be who run rugby to be able to stop it, so to suggest Abramovich could do something to stop a gang of thugs who are hell bent on having a tear up is just plain silly.
Violent drunkeness isn't just football's problem, all day drinking doesn't help either.
Maybe the pubs should be compelled not to serve alcohol.

- Michelle, Fulham

IR, why remain anonymous? Have the courage to shout and not whisper! That is the only way to put and end to what is heppening to London!

- Peter Georgiou, London

I am not condoning the violence, and it is not restricted to Chelsea alone. However, maybe the Police should spend more time sorting out real issues and less time chasing the motorist?

If people have an issue with living close to a football ground, then why live there? This does not strike me as a general concern for the violence that is populating our streets, but a personal comment against CFC. Let's get real, sweeping the dust under the carpet is not the issue, and nor is moving CFC. The issue is over an increasing inability to manage the streets!

- Peter Georgiou, London

This is not the first trouble to Chelsea fans have caused. There were riot police to deal with trouble against the Celtic fans last year in Fulham Broadway.
My heart sinks when I see lots of blue shirts around, as I know that I have a night of chanting obscenities, police sirens and vomit (and much worse!) on my doorstep the following day. Getting home is a frightening and threatening experience. All my neighbours loathe football in general because of these thug's behaviours, and yet our taxes pay for the policing. Surely Abromovich could spare a bit of cash to help control these revolting scum of the earth

- Sophie, Fulham, London

What caroline doesn't seem to have grasped is that the violence occurred outside of the ground ie. police officers at the game wouldn't have seen this... disgusting scenes and obviously as can be seen from the comments damages football.

- John, London

Sad fact is that the majority of these 'men' were not even there to watch football. These are planned fights that happen to co-incide with key football fixtures. Banning football is not the answer. The more that clubs and police can do to identify hooligans, hand out and uphold bans, and continue to be steadfast in the message that this will not be tolerated by us average fans, the better. Football is more and more a family event and I do not think that the majority of us fans should miss out due to these few animals.

- Anon, London

I witnessed part of the incident. From what I saw it was absolute chaos, scores of drunk people fighting each other with sticks, baseball bats and glass bottles (which were being thrown at people at random).

There was at least 10 police vans with what looked like well over 40 plus police officers getting involved (as well as lots of amblances) and lets not forget knives were used which led, according to this article at least 10 people being stabbed.


- Asf, Fulham

From my friend - a serving police officer who was working at this game... "small bit of trouble at the end. All under control in minutes".

- Caroline Barclay, Richmond

Ban football, let's be honest, as a nation we're pretty poor at it.

- Trevor Roll, London

It clearly is a health and safety risk to the residents of Fulham to have Chelsea playing. Hammersmith and Fulham Council should realise their duty of care to the residents, and ban future games.

- Ir, Fulham

There are simply only a few spectators that ruin the games for everyone else. If they were to stop, everything would be fine. I thought we were past the days of the pointless fighting and obscene behaviour? I hope it doesn't return.

- Bloo Q Kazoo, London

I think it's nonsense, hooliganism is not back. I came out of the game when it ended and everything was fine. I don't think this fight, hours later, can be directly attirbuted to the game itself. These were just thugs out looking for a fight.

- Dimitar, London

The most hilarious thing about all of this is that the British are notorious for being football hooligans. For some reason they are unable to seperate the game and the need to be foolishly and excessively drunk and violent. It's actually quite sad because 'the game' is quite remarkably 'beautiful'.

- Queen Beena, Wembley

What the article fails to mention is that this happened at around 8.30 Sunday night. The game finished six hours earlier!

- Mark, South-East London

Why is it only football that attracts this kind of mob violence? Rugby is a much more aggressive sport yet we never have riots there. Could you imagine Golf fans storming the club house? Darts fans trashing the pub because they got a triple 1?

- Claire B, Hammersmith

I blame the police for this incident, there ad been rumours about this fight in some circles for weeks and I can only imagine that it was lack of acion through complacency on the part of the coppers tha no arrests were made. Hooliganis are always going to be attracted to a sport like football and as such we should always be active in stamping it out. Shame on everyone involved.

- Jj, London

Hooligans are an absolute disgrace to the teams they support. They should be throughly ashamed of their actions and to actually STAB people because they wear a different coloured shirt?! These people are sociopathic and need locking up... if only there were jail spaces to put them in.

- Tony, London

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