While all eyes were fixed on Moscow last night, the Russians braced for a traditional British hooligan rampage, trouble actually flared up closer to home on Fulham Broadway. Disgruntled Chelsea fans gathered there after their team crashed out of the Champions' League final on penalties, and with a crushing inevitability clashes with police broke out soon afterwards.
Around 400 fans surged into the street after Anelka missed the final penalty of the game, blocking traffic and behaving aggressively; a hard-core of 200 refused to move on and ended up pelting police with missiles and abuse. A total of 12 arrests were made before order was restored.
While rioting hooligans is an old thorn in the side of English football, the FA will be relieved that it happened on London's streets rather than in Moscow – where further fan trouble could have dealt a serious blow to their 2018 world cup bid and to the UK's standing in European football. And perhaps the Russian police trick of imprisoning fans in buses for several hours is one that could be rolled out over here next season...
Image shows previous Chelsea fans/police confrontation, and is taken from Salimfadhley's Flickrstream under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
