But that afternoon a new dynamic came into play in the form of a couple of hundred terrifying Russian hooligans.

If the English “hooliganism” could be described as passive – taking up a static position and inviting trouble – the Russian form was active – going out and making it. They roamed the streets looking for stragglers to beat up. Over the course of the afternoon videos proliferated of Russians kicking and stamping on heads.

This is perhaps what English hooliganism would look like if the most violent English hooligans had not been weeded out by banning orders. The Russians were representing a flourishing hooligan culture on which the Russian authorities either cannot or will not crack down.

Of particular note were the photos of musclebound Russians posing proudly in the Old Port displaying their captured English flags, much as their grandfathers once piled the Nazi divisional standards before Stalin at the victory parades in Red Square. At full-time in the Velodrome the Russians first chased the English out of their section, then clambered up over the seats to rip down the flags their frightened foes had left behind. The Russians probably did not even realise how farcical this trophy-hunt really was.

The captured pieces of cloth did not represent the pride of some feared English “firm”. They’re usually a little memento of a trip taken by four or five friends, who were probably just hoping someone back home noticed their banner hanging up in the stadium and paused the TV to take a picture.

The Russians were at war with the myth of the English hooligan, an archetype established in the 1970s and 80s and since largely vanished from the earth, or at least barred from travelling abroad. The same goes, more or less, for the riot police and the local toughs, and maybe even for the English press and public, embarrassed that people are talking again about the English Disease.

The fans following England now continue to find plenty of obnoxious ways to behave, but they are the inheritors of a reputation they no longer deserve. History is a nightmare from which the England fans are trying to awake.

или с турцией в европе помоему нет ни одной страны с кем мы в норм отношениях