Hooray. Mainstream media is looking at an AP news story and happily parroting its storyline as "look, it's another story about Columbus fans, they must be hooligans-in-training." (I honestly would have expected FanHouse to do some actual READING about the incident and seeing if there was more to the story. Nope, you're just like everybody else. Thanks.)

Here, read this and educate yourself:
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/blog.php?b=1680

It's probably too late for Columbus' reputation - idiots have decided that we're the "Millwall of MLS" or some rot, and I'm stuck with that now every time I pull on my Crew shirt - but when management and security decide that flying party favors are a bigger threat than drunken yobs coming into the supporters' section to knock heads...I'm sorry, that's the kind of ignorance that BREEDS hooliganism.

This isn't a disaster for MLS - yet. It's a wake-up call. The real disaster comes if MLS loses its own most loyal customers because the league is so convinced they're threats rather than loyal customers.

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Right. I should be fair and balanced when dealing with people from OHIO. As if Ufford's wrong about you or something. The only redeeming thing about your whole state is Cedar Point.

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Dr Chuck Pearson,

Until the Crew organization realizes that a security firms are aware that presence is required before actions happen, and that fans of away clubs need accommodations to ensure separation and safety, and until the majority of the most vocal and known Crew make efforts to decry -- not necessarily dissociate -- themselves from the obscene actions Columbus fans have been painted with, then you will continue to see any incidents involving said fans painted in a negative fashion by a vast majority of parties.

Are all Ohioans, residents of Columbus, Crew fans, supporters' group members more interested in causing trouble with Toronto FC fans, West Ham fans, etc? Are they all silently condoning the use of a racial epithet against an opposing player? I would think not.

However, watching the responses that have come out of Columbus regarding these incidents, reading the letter to Greg Lalas, the comments at Soccer Insider and SBI, and even Mr. Archer, it's very possible for casual fans to make that sort of generalization about the Nordecke, about Columbus.

If you personally would like to see the attitudes among the American soccer populace about your club's fans and organization change, then I would recommend a few courses of action:

1) Put pressure on your organization to have a sensible plan for security. Work with the organization to have a plan in place that would allow security to prevent entrance of non-supporter group ticket-holders into that section. Allow the same security measures to be placed in the Away supporters' section, watching for a "mass exodus" like the one described in Mr. Archer's blog.

2) Have the supporters' groups organize visual statements decrying the activities of what appears to me to be a very small minority.

3) When defending your club, please attempt to speak firmly, but cordially, offering the appearance of openness to future dialogs. Verbal dialog that appears "hostile" does not often result in cordial responses, especially on the internet. In the present, those "hostile" statements appear more attack-minded than reasoned in nature, often (maybe incorrectly) readers to believe that Crew fans are defending certain unfortunate situation.

4) At all times, especially when dealing with your Front Office, be respectful of the parties before you.

Regards.

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Don't mind Dave, he's a Steelers fan.

I'm sure the vast majority of Crew fans are good, upstanding folk, just like the majority of West Ham fans are the same. The bad apples will always get the press, though, and the Crew's worst seem to outdo the rest of MLS.

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i would love for these ICF guys to mosey on down to our version of football and see what kind of "trouble" they could get into. Maybe a Raiders game or even a Steelers game. No offense to the fans but an MLS game is not necessarily the prime place to look for a fight

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Ha! I'm impressed, B.A., that you'd think I have anything to do with the Columbus supporters' groups. I last stood in a Columbus supporters' section in 1999. (I live in the Georgia mountains now.)

From everything I understand second-hand, though, the Columbus supporters have followed the steps you outline, pretty much to the letter. Maybe the supporters' groups could be more public condemning the violence, but you'd be counting on the same media that believes the supporters' groups actually WANTS the violence to help disseminate the message anyway. (Certainly, based on his response to me, David Warner doesn't think they'd do anything good and newsworthy.)

The absolute frustrating this is that the security situation in Columbus right now is what the Crew organization believed was AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE to the altercations that had occurred in the past. That security failed to intercept a drunken group of West Ham supporters looking for a fight until they were in the midst of Columbus Crew supporters. Again, I'm not there, but just based on the little bit of reading I'm able to do beyond the idiotic AP summaries it looks like the problem goes far deeper than Columbus supporters.

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west hams firm are called the inter city firm, not inner city. it relates to the trains the hooligans used during the seventies and eighties to travel to away games. Just thought i'd clear that up for u.
Cheers. JML English Red Sox Nation!

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Antonello: Thanks for catching that. It's fixed now.

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Previously the Inter City Firm, but more recently it's I Chuck Fruit. West Ham are a very poor excuse for a hooligan firm and you get more atmosphere going to church on a sunday than at Upton Park.

Living on a long past reputation.

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Since you tossed my name into the hat, I feel free to respond to a few of your fabrications, half truths and displays of ignorance.

First, every time someone like you puts and "s" on the end of "racial epithet" and tosses "Crew fans" into the sentence, it is a construct which is patently a lie, and I'm wlling to bet that you know this.

One person was heard saying ONE thing ONE time. Now I understand that those of limited intellectual capacity are unable to process anything beyond group responsibility, but surely in this case you are intentioanally creating a false impression.

And if you are truly naive enough to believe that that same word has not been said in every stadium in every sport in the country (and most of the world) on a more or less weekly basis, then you're simply out of touch.

If on the other hand you DO recognize that fact (ask any black athlete) then you are being disingenuous.

Which is it? Ignorant fool or liar?

As for including bottles, again I've seen the occasional plastic bottle thrown in every venue in America from time to time. I'nm sure one was thrown once or twice at Crew Stadium, as it's no exception.

But again, to purposely single out CCS as if it is a particular local phenomenon is, frankly, nothing short of preposterous and again, I believe you know this.

As for "the fight" itself, which amounted to just about nothing (there are clips on YouTube, feel free) let me ask you:

Pick a sports team. Any team in any sport, down through college and on into high school.

Put their fans at a game. Then have a group of opposing fans march the length of the stadium, march ten rows into the middle of said fans, then have them pour beer on some people and start swinging their fists.

What do you suppose will happen?

More to the point, why do you think the response in Crew Stadium was different from what it would be in any other stadium on Earth?

Try to make a coherent response.

Your willful ignorance of the tremendous amount of time and effort that ALL the Crew supporters groups have put into finding ways to show their opposition to the racial comment (from ONE guy, ONCE) belies your contention that they have ignored it and don't care.

I would contend that it is YOU who don't care to know the actual facts, and I'm not wasting my time explaining it to you since you clearly don't want to know.

Stadium security IS a problem, but I would contend that 30 Steelers fans could make it into the Dawg Pouind any day of the week, and nobody would say NFL security is lax.

Ditto Georgia.Georgia Tech, Giants/Cowboys, whatever event you'd like to name. Massive police presence is neither desirable nor practical.

Your advice that there needs to be a "security plan" is so amateurish it's embarrassing. Are you saying that you don't honestly think there IS NO security plan in place to deal with disturbances? Really? Are you that ignorant in real life?

I would only refer you to the actual event. Very, very little contact occurred between fan groups before 10 or 15 security people intervened and separated them.

I think it should have been handled better and I've said so publicly.

But your contention that it wasn't handled at all is simply laughable, and demonstrates, again, a willful lack of actual knowledge.

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I read your comments and sorry but I do have to have a giggle! I'm from East London and a west ham of sort, used to go to the the matches in the 80's when the ICF was in it's hey day and watch the older lot in the south bank have their little skirmishes in the chicken run! The ICF are a thing of the past and only a few sad old gits meet up and have little scraps.... The American fans you speak of are not real West Ham fans but more like some of the Americans that claim to be Irish because their great , great, great, great grand father came from Ireland and are just trying to live the dream! They bring disgrace on themselves and their country and most of all decent law abiding "happy hammers "!!!!

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Dear David J. Warner and dear American "soccer" fans, here is a reader from Italy who wants to let you know that the glorious West Ham firm it's called ICF, as you, Mr. Warner, wrote, but it stands for Inter City Firm, not Inner City Firm. The Inter City is the type of train these fans used to follow their teams in the other British cities because it was easier using trains to not be notice by the cops.
Ciao e per favore chiamatelo football!

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A) You flatter yourselves thinking that you are the "Milwall of the MLS"

B) Nothing went wrong in Toronto last night

C) Columbus sucks!

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