Fans fight their own international

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 10

Fans fight their own international

NZPA-Reuter Stockholm Rival groups of fans armed with with razors, metal bars, and slingshots clashed during a friendly international soccer match between England and Sweden at Stockholm yesterday and there were ugly scenes afterwards outside the stadium. A police spokesman said an English supporter had been stabbed — apparently in the thigh — and was undergoing surgery at Karolinska hospital. The Swedish news. agency, TT, said the fan had been chased through the streets outside the stadium by a gang of Swedish youths. After knocking him down the youths had repeatedly clubbed him until some passers-by intervened. There were conflicting reports about how many people had been arrested. The police originally said charges would be pressed against 10 English fans and 10 Swedes, but later lowered that to five Britons and three Swedes in the stadium incidents. The worst fighting was behind the stands at Rasunda stadium be-, tween 40 Swedish skinheads and a group of English fans. Most of the

15,000-strong crowd watching the game, which Sweden won 1-0, did not realise anything had gone wrong. Rasunda is the home of Sweden’s most extreme football fans — a violent but shadowy group calling itself “The Black Army” — and hundreds of police with dogs, riot squads and mounted patrols had been deployed to prevent trouble. The police said they had confiscated razors, knives, and illegal sprays after the fight between the skinheads and the Britons. Trouble began even before the match had started. A group of 20 English fans staged a noisy protest outside the Argentinian Embassy, throwing planks, meta! tubes, and clubs, and breaking several windows in the building. English clubs have been barred from playing on the European continent since the Heysel stadium riot in Brussels last year, in which 39 fans were fatally injured at a European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus, of Italy. England and Sweden had taken special precautions to prevent any trouble yesterday.