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EURO 2016

LILLE

England fans in fresh clashes with riot police in Lille

French riot police were involved in clashes with England fans in Lille late on Wednesday night, after earlier clashes between Russian fans and their English counterparts.

England fans in fresh clashes with riot police in Lille
Photo: AFP

There were tense scenes in Lille on Wednesday as French riot police were involved in a stand off with England fans.

Police were seen charging at groups of England fans in apparent effort to clear the streets. That brought an angry response from a number of fans who threw bottles at officers.

At around midnight there remained large groups of fans on the streets along with a huge number of riot police and press. 

It appeared the police were losing patience with the England fans that remained on the streets, many of whom were drunk and intent on carrying on chanting.

Earlier England and Russian fans chased each other through the streets of Lille on Wednesday as the two sets of supporters were involved in more violence.

Videos posted on social media showed large groups of England fans apparently chasing their Russian counterparts as French riot police tried to keep up.

Earlier there were reports that a group of Russian fans had charged at England and Wales supporters who had massed in the city ahead of their match on Thursday.

French police fired tear gas and charged England supporters during the trouble which left at least one injured.

Reporters in the city have stressed however that only a few hundred fans were involved compared to several thousands gathered in the city.

Separately fans were also involved in a brawl on a train heading for Lille where England supporters have gathered ahead of their key match against Wales on Thursday.

Fighting broke out near the main station in Lille, north east France, while a car was seriously damaged.

An AFP reporter saw one fan being treated on the ground. Paramedics appeared to be performing a cardiac massage though the nationality of the injured fan was unclear.

French authorities had drafted in thousands of reinforcements to try and avoid the kind of trouble that broke in Marseille last Saturday.

A separate brawl broke out between England and Wales fans on a train travelling from Calais to Lille. About 15 men were involved, a French security official told AFP.

“There was a fight between England and Wales fans. It was quite violent,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

Several arrests were made when the train arrived in Lille on Wednesday evening with a British undercover police officer who was onboard helping French authorities to identify the aggressors, the official said.

Wednesday saw hundreds of England fans drinking in the city's bars.

While there was anti-Russian chanting, the atmosphere was largely good natured and there was little trouble.

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FOOTBALL

Fireworks and ‘ultra’ pitch invasions as Union win first top-flight Berlin derby

Fireworks brought play to a halt and tempers threatened to boil over as FC Union defeated city rivals Hertha Berlin 1-0 on Saturday in their first Bundesliga derby since German reunification.

Fireworks and 'ultra' pitch invasions as Union win first top-flight Berlin derby
Photo: picture alliance/dpa

A 90th-minute penalty, converted by home striker Sebastian Polter, sealed the hosts' third league win this season on an emotional night at Union's sold-out Alten Foersterei stadium. 

However, the referee had to march both teams off for six minutes at the start of the second-half after fireworks launched from the terraces landed on the pitch.

After the final whistle, a group of Union 'Ultras' — masked hardcore fans — invaded the pitch seemingly intent on confronting their Hertha rivals, before Union players persuaded them to return to the stands.

“It's a city derby and there was a lot of emotion,” said match-winner Polter.

“We, as players, wanted to make sure the (image of the) club wasn't harmed and we had a responsibility to prevent our fans from doing anything stupid.”

Nevertheless, hosts Union now enjoy bragging rights after an historic night for football in Germany's capital.

“To put it simply, it's the most important game of the season, definitely, more important than the (Bundesliga) championship, I would say,” Union fan Kenny Schwarz told AFP outside the stadium.

Next Saturday will mark 30 years since the Berlin Wall came down. Hertha had originally wanted to host the derby on the anniversary, an idea Union rejected.

'Not a friendship'

“I'm only 22,” laughed Schwarz. “I got all the coverage — that Hertha wanted to play on November 9 — but that doesn't mean much today.”

Just 26 kilometres (16 miles) separates Berlin's top clubs, but the Iron Curtain that divided communist East Germany from capitalist West Germany from 1961 kept the two clubs at a much greater distance until the Wall came down in 1989.

This was only the fifth competitive meeting between the clubs, following Union's promotion to the Bundesliga in May, having previously only met in Germany's second tier.

Among older fans too, the sporting rivalry replaced any nostalgic thoughts. At 48, Nicole Burckhardt experienced the fall of the Wall as a teenager.

“At my age”, she said, “I believe that history plays no part, for me it's all about football”.

Fellow Union fan Andreas Rudolf, 56, agreed the derby's background pales compared with bragging rights now secured.

“That was a long time ago, but we are two different clubs, one is blue, one is red” and both clubs wanted “to be number one today”.

“It's definitely not a friendship, but perhaps there's no hostility either, that has to do with” the past, but “we don't like them – the Blues.”

Union now leads the mini series with two wins with two draws, to a single Hertha victory, in competitive games.

Hertha hosted Union in a friendly at the Olympic Stadium in January 1990 — just days after the Wall fell — when both sets of fans united on the terraces to sing about Germany's imminent reunification – a unique moment some fans will never forget.

“It used to be that Hertha and Union were friends, which is important to us,” said 71-year-old Hertha fan Helmut Klopftleich, a former East German who fled to west Berlin in 1984.

“We lived in East Berlin at the time of the Wall, but ran away to the west, and moved from Union to Hertha.

“Today, we are real Hertha (fans)… and have been since 1984.”

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