FC Cologne supporters pack Highbury Fields

• LAST week’s unacceptable scenes of thousands of FC Cologne fans causing havoc in Islington must not be repeated.

It’s rumoured 20,000 Cologne fans travelled for only 3,000 away tickets. It’s a long time since we’ve had this kind of challenge at a match and there were some real problems as a result.

While the vast majority of Cologne fans were good humoured and just interested in enjoying themselves, there was some behaviour that was utterly unacceptable.

Residents had gardens urinated in, a few were insulted and harassed, there was some violence around the stadium and the Highbury/Holloway area looked a state.

I’m very grateful indeed to all the council staff who worked so hard to clean the borough up that night and in the morning. The fact that Highbury Fields was clear by 9am the following morning was a great piece of work.

I’m also very grateful to police and Arsenal staff working around the stadium who did an exceptional job in very difficult circumstances.

However, Islington Council did not receive notification of the number of away fans travelling, or the potential scale of the problems they might cause.

There is an important question to be asked about why the central Met Police team, whose job it is to gather intelligence on travelling football fans, either didn’t spot this match as high risk or didn’t pass this information on.

We have experience in Islington of dealing with major football matches. There were similar issues when Dortmund played Arsenal a few years ago, but these were flagged in advance and an intensive policing operation was put in place. This doesn’t seem to have been the case last week.

The council will convene the interested parties to learn lessons and push the Met to ensure intelligence on travelling European fans is gathered and acted on.

Arsenal are a fundamental part of Islington. We are very proud to have one of the country’s best football clubs. But we will keep working to ensure residents and fans are kept safe.

As a boy, I witnessed a football disaster at Hillsborough and will never compromise on the safety of those attending football matches.

CLLR RICHARD WATTS
Leader, Islington Council