Wire have long attracted a certain scum element. Not sure why. A friend of mine who supports them says the same thing, but feels they are mostly footy yobs who turn up when the club is doing well ... which with Wembley just around the corner would probably be around now.
It's very difficult, though, to forgive a club whose supporters once beat up a bunch of kids in wheelchairs - which happened at the Regal Trophy Final at Huddersfield in 1995. That's the most trouble before, during and after a game that I've ever seen, and it was all from Warrington fans. They also a wrecked a pub. We'd just parked up close to the kick off, when a copper, very red-faced, came up to us and said: 'Don't go that way, lads. The Warrington fans are acting like total d##kheads!'
One of the problems with the Catalan, of course, especially when they're at home, is that they don't respond well to the stress of close matches (or to their players being sent off). I've been there when we've had people shouting at us and fists shaken in our faces ... so they are not without fault, though I've never known any actual violence from them.
How provocative they were being yesterday, I don't know, but all you really saw on the TV was Warrington fans trying to climb into a Catalan family enclosure. In terms of public order offences, that rates very highly indeed. It's almost a mortal sin. Whatever the French did, I suspect (or at least hope) that Warrington are in line for an exemplary punishment - and it won't work if it's just the one or two fans who got caught. It needs to be the WHOLE club.
