F365 Opinion

Good old English humour. "Did Harry pick it up?" asked a friend when told of the coin that narrowly missed Harry Redknapp at Villa Park, instead leaving assistant referee Phil Sharp with a cut to the head. Even writing this I thought to myself what an unfortunately appropriate surname Mr Sharp has. We're not very nice people.

There's a big difference between those of us who aren't very nice, though, and the "cowards and morons," condemned by Redknapp after the game. And yet they are there; going to matches, sitting next to us, cheering on their - our - team.

The man (for want of a better word) who threw the coin at Villa Park probably has perfectly pleasant conversations with the people around him. I wonder what they thought when he threw the coin, or when they saw the linesman go down clutching his head? Did they confront him? Probably not. Villa have insisted they will study CCTV to find the culprit and ban him for life. They shouldn't need to - there must have been plenty of witnesses.

A few weeks ago an F365 reader complained of hearing racist comments at a London club, and how disgusted he was. Had he confronted the man responsible? Did he report him to the stewards? Apparently not. It's easier to say these things at a keyboard than when faced with six feet of thug, of course, but that's because we're not confident the 40,000 decent human beings in the stadium would back us up. People don't want to get involved.

The incident at Villa Park came on the same day as crowd trouble at Arsenal and Millwall. More interestingly, it came in the same week that England said they would not play Spain in Madrid after the disgraceful racist abuse endured by players on the nation's last visit to the Bernabeu.

I'm fully in support of that decision (not that I imagine the FA are too worried about my opinion). Some journalists have argued that, given our own history, we shouldn't be lecturing anyone about behaviour, but that misses the point; everyone should condemn these things, whatever their background.

To put things in perspective, Sunday's edition of The Observer lists eight or nine separate incidents of serious - by which I mean noticeable by the international press, because it's always serious - racist abuse at Spanish matches. That leaves out the bottle-throwing at places like Real Betis. Elsewhere, men have died in Italy, and the authorities want to ban away fans. People have lost fingers dealing with firebombs in France.

We tend to look at it all and think how far we've come in this country. And we have, and we should be proud of it; we have every right to make a stand against football's problems when we find them. But while that includes international statements and condemnations in support of basic human decency, it also includes telling your neighbour when he crosses the line.

We've got our house, by and large, in order. Now every single one of us has a responsibility to keep it that way.

Adam Fraser