English football authorities have renewed appeals for fans to behave responsibly after Thursday’s Euro 2016 match against Wales, in the wake of chaotic scenes in Lille which saw dozens of arrests and 16 people taken to hospital.
Police said they had arrested 36 people on Wednesday in the northern French city, where thousands of England and Wales supporters are based before the game in the smaller city of Lens, about 25 miles away. The arrests followed occasional skirmishes involving a small number of fans and some police, during which officers used teargas to disperse the crowds.
The centre of Lille was again blanketed with squads of CRS riot police on Thursday morning, as large numbers of fans made their way to the train station to head to Lens or drank in bars before watching the game, beginning at 3pm local time (2pm BST), on television.
Martin Glenn, the chief executive of the Football Association, said he was awaiting a report into the disturbances, but said it appeared that “the atmosphere seemed to change overnight” in Lille.
He appealed to English fans not to create further problems for French authorities, who were also concentrating on terrorist incidents such as the murder on Monday of a French policeman and his partner, who were stabbed to death in front of their infant son near to Paris.
“I think the message to all English fans, Welsh fans too, [is] the French are trying to deal with a real security threat,” Glenn told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Behave responsibly, come and enjoy the game but just have a think about the wider position. Show some consideration and respect.”
Uefa, which has threatened to eject Russia and England from the tournament if their fans persistently misbehave, released only a brief statement in which is said it “regrets the skirmishes which occurred in Lille last night”. It added: “Police forces made several arrests and were quick to restore order and keep the situation under control.”
The trouble in Lille during Wednesday was generally isolated, if occasionally chaotic, involving around a couple of hundred predominantly English fans, many of whom had been drinking heavily for much of the day.
It began in the early afternoon when a large group of supporters, mainly young men, moved from outside a bar next to Lille’s station to one by a side street, where they kept up a repertoire of initially good-natured songs and chants.
However, as Russian supporters began to arrive in the area following their team’s 1-2 loss to Slovakia, more of the chants became directed at them, a legacy of clashes between England and Russia fans after their game in Marseille on Saturday, and allegations that organised groups of Russian troublemakers targeted some English.
Amid chants of “Fuck off Russia!”, with pointed fingers at Russian supporters, a melee began following the bang of a firework, when it appeared that a small group of Russian fans charged. This prompted a period of chaos, with fans and police chasing each other around the small back streets of Lille’s old town, and teargas was used.
Later, during the evening and into the night, police several times charged or used gas against crowds of singing fans, again predominantly English. This time, however, there appeared to be no fighting to prompt the police action, just a desire to disperse the crowds, who seemed good-natured if rowdy, sometimes also including French supporters.
At one point police tried to marshal a hundred or so people towards the official fan zone area, where a big screen was showing Wednesday night’s France v Albania game, only to then escort them back to the station. “There’s no strategy. They seem to have no strategy,” one English police liaison officer with the fans could be heard saying into a phone.
Some fans said they felt they had been unfairly targeted during the evening. Speaking at about 11.30pm, following one police charge to disperse fans, a supporter from Burnley who gave his name as Luke said: “The English a
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