Russian Eyewitnesses: How prepared and sober Russian casuals attacked drunken English fans

"The first serious fight in Marseille happened on the night of June 9 to 10. And it started right in front of my eyes.

"About 200 Englishmen had occupied an Irish pub on the front of the Old Port and started chanting. Most of them were completely drunk.

"Suddenly they started throwing bottles at police. Then the crowd burst forward but just seconds later it was beaten back when the police started to throw flash grenades and tear gas. The fight did not calm down. It resumed with new force. Fans threw themselves at the police but were again pushed back with gas.

How the story looked in Novaya Gazeta

"I didn't see any serious injuries but several Englishmen had bashed heads.

"But all of this was just a warm-up ahead of the battle that took place on the day of the Russia England match.

"The disturbances started at around 4pm in the same Old Port and lasted several hours. It is hard to say what caused the conflict. Thousands of Englishmen were spread out in bars on the front, drinking beer and singing songs.

"And then once again from their side bottles went flying, people scattered and a whole melee formed. Wherever you turned there were fights. Police once again used tear gas, the whole port became choked with horrible white smoke, which dripped from your nose, mouth and eyes.

"Some Englishmen later told me that the fight began when they were jumped by local fans. But I did not see that. It seemed to me it flared up spontaneously.

"For several hours the whole square turned in to a real hell. Bottles were flying from all sides. Here the English mostly fought with the police. These fights were more like artillery duels. Fans threw bottles and anything else that came to hand and the police responded with gas and flash grenades.

"When things calmed down on the square I went in to a side street. Here there were real fist fights. English fans were brawling with locals. Before my eyes two crowds, two grounds (who looked like professional fighters) and started hammering each other, with street chairs and tables flying.

"This went on for about an hour until, suddenly, a shout cut through the square: "Russians, forward!""

"Right in to the middle of the square there ran a group of about 10-15 Russian fans in black t-shirt with white writing ran straight in to a much larger group of English. The fans clashed briefly and then ran in to the side streets. I stayed on the square when suddenly they jumped out right next to me, having, it seems, run around the square via the side streets. Right in front of me a Russian fan crashed in to an English one. The Russian turned out to be a far better trained fight and knocked the the Englishman out in two blows. The police again launched gas and it became impossible to breathe."

Elsewhere in Russia, the daily tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda went in to far more details about the small and highly organised Russian hooligans described above operated.

Russians, the paper said, did not take part in clashes before Saturday. That was most English fans falling out with locals, including ethnic North Africans who objected to the way the British had "occupied" their main public space.

Komsomolskaya Pravda described troublmakers as "active fans", the slang used to distinguish them those who just go to enjoy the football.

An active fan, it reported, was experienced in street fighting, physically fit and, crucially, did not drink before what euphemistically such people refer to as "actions". He wears unmarked t-shirts, a casual in British terms.

Here are some abridged eyewitness accounts of the events of Saturday from the paper's special correspondent, Andrei Vdovin.

"There was noise and fun. Footballs flew about above the crowd,. Police officers willingly posed for pictures. But somewhere above the Old Port, in side streets there gathered active fans. Meanwhile, the British were buying up cases of beer in local shops. Empty bottles piled up on tables and under tables. Within just a few hours all that would be left of them were potentially deadly shards.

There followed, said Vdovin, some preliminary skirmishes in the side streets above the Old Port. Police, he said, were getting nervous as the drinking continued with some 10,000 Britons packed in to a small area and occasional Russia strips appearing. Vdovin's report suggest Russian sober "active fans", casuals, cynically waited till their targets were completely drunk to attack.

He reported:

"It all starts when the British crowd is heated up to beyond tolerance. Some feel sick. Some are smiling. But beer and hot sun had done their thing. The reactions of those left in the square have slowed down. Now appears the obshchak [slang for a combined forces of Russian fans from different clubs]. Different estimates suggest they numbered between 70 and 250. But all agree that the active group were made up of about 25. They with ferocious blows ran in to the crowd.
"Those who were left on the ground were kicked with superfluous violence. It is clear from videos taken that they got not just fighters but ordinary British fans. That is one of the biggest complaints in fan groups about the action."

Russian attacks, said Vdovin, quickly retreated up in to the town from the port where fights continued before they merged in to a single march to the stadium. It was then that pictures appeared on line of Russians with trophy English banners.

French experts, meanwhile, distinguished between Russian organised hooligans and "ad hoc" English ones, hooligans, they said, "of circumstance".

Vdovin continues that the real mistake of Russian fans was to invade the section where English supporters were watching the game on Saturday evening. That, he said, was what had attracted the ire of Uefa, which is now threatening to expel the country and England from the competition.