Why is football violence increasing? A talkSPORT & The Times investigation

there's been a dramatic increase in

violence and disorder for football

grounds around the country this season

almost a 50 percent increase in arrests

so we're here today nottingham forest

game against leicester city and fair cup

to see for ourselves with the police

what the problems are

today's game is uh nottingham forest

versus leicester city

attendance is a sell-out both groups are

aware of the other group's presence

today and i'm looking forward to

them being out we're standing here in

2022 and we're still talking about firms

that are called the baby squad and the

forest executive crew and yeah these

these groups still exist yes they do

very often they'll have just one day a

year that they'll come out which they'll

refer to as their flag date and they'll

have a reunion more than anything but

one of the things we are seeing is it

not right is a kind of a growth of

younger people getting involved in this

country it's all the teenagers children

the youngest band that we've had in

nottinghamshire is a lad from mansfield

who

was on a ban at 13 years of age

one of the things that came out in the

statistics but also in the report into

what happened at the european

championship final was the amount of

drug abuse amount of class age rather

than use cocaine abuse

that seems to have a connection with

football violence are you seeing that

yeah yesterday we had

quite a substantial amount of cocaine

recovered particularly in one instance

that shows that it is rife amongst the

groups you've got a 13 year old 14 year

old lad who knocks about with 40 50 year

old men uh and you do have concerns when

you speak to parents and they don't know

who these adults are but we have had one

instance certainly that would have

proven that the young person was

carrying um cocaine

for the group that they were with

because they know that they'll perhaps

not get searched on the way in however

then

that individual was 15 but it's just a

small minority that are taking drugs and

it's fueling the disorder

speaking to some general commuters

they told me that the behavior of the

fans on there was horrendous their their

experience of being on a train with them

was horrendous that is turned into

effectively like a pub so it's weather

spoons in a confined area the train

services do actually try and put on

special trains for the fans but they

know that you can't drink on those

services so they get the the

run-of-the-mill service that's correct

yes the officers have just said that

there is

there's fighting in a

pub quite near here

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yeah let's go let's go

well everybody out when we go up to the

lights for us

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oh

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so the plan is to get hold of me while

we get more resources

and push the the forest group out of the

way well a lot of these guys are known

to the police officers there's a lot of

these are none of my colleague dave

these are the ones that will actively

seek different disorders given the

opportunity yeah so now we're going to

try and prevent that even further but

we've got a minute we don't know how

they got into the city but fighting

actually broke out outside the puppet

yeah there was handheld fighting outside

the pub with forest fire and missiles

being thrown yeah leicester

so yeah we're here we've got a bit of a

bottleneck here so we've got forest fans

and they're trying to contain down there

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it's pretty much a pattern of what's

been going on across the country

week in week out in a minute where the

police have put themselves in the way of

groups trying to fight each other and

we've had a knockout duster discarded at

the scene as well so clearly they've

come with weapons pre-planned um with

intent

to fight and this is definitely an

escalation you're seeing since the

summer and the last season since the

season started um

incidence of disorder

across the country is not just

associated with one or two teams it's

every team across the country

is the motivation for you

to basically try and protect the

majority of people we're seeing here and

make sure that they still want to keep

coming to football that that the

minority don't ruin it for the majority

yes so we want to isolate the minority

which is what we've done today by the

different tactics that we've used on

both sets of supporters and so people

can come and enjoy

their match day event

football can only react what it can do

is it can ask the police to work with

them on sentencing guidelines yeah

so that people are dealt with in this

most strident fashion

he's been arrested in custody now

um and as you say it just highlights the

the impressive number of incidents in

and inside and outside the stadiums all

over the country

this is a mindless minority that

that are ruining football to some degree

um

you're one of the dedicated full-time

football police officers for the country

how do you move forward how are you

going to try and what steps can be taken

to try and get a handle on this

it needs everyone working together in

his premier league the efl the fa the

police the football clubs uh we've seen

today how well what was worked together

with the

stewards from forest and leicester

british transport police we've had

leicestershire officers here as well as

nottingham officers

um

but it needs help from

the government as well we need tougher

sentences

football banning orders for the right

offences the gentleman who went on the

pitch today

will be seeking the maximum banning

order for him

which

does act as a deterrent when others do

work

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you