Inside the rise of the ultras: Highly- trained in combat and fuelled by cocaine mixed with alcohol – while social media videos fuel their brutal violence. The new breed of football hooligan threatening Euro 2024

In football, like politics, a week can be a long time. ‘Me realising I am going to Milan on Sunday,’ read the caption on a photo posted by grinning Newcastle United supporter Eddie McKay as he raised a bottle of beer to the camera.

Fast-forward seven days and in his next Facebook update, the 58-year-old told how he was in hospital — having been stabbed three times with a machete in the Italian city.

‘Me, my son and a friend were attacked going to our hotel,’ he wrote. ‘It was an unprovoked attack. Thankfully my son and his friend were ok.’

Gruesome photographs taken in the aftermath of the assault show how lucky they were.

Lying on the pavement covered in blood, Mr McKay could be seen receiving treatment from paramedics as they tried to stem the wounds to his back and arms.

He is bare-chested — his Newcastle shirt having been cut from his body by his attackers.

The trio had travelled to Italy to see his team play their first Champions League match for 20 years against AC Milan in the famous San Siro stadium.

But the night before the game, as they walked back to their hotel, they were attacked by a group of eight men wearing balaclavas.

The grandfather, who has had two knee replacements, was hit on the head with a police-style baton and, after he fell over, was stabbed repeatedly by the machete-wielding gang.

‘They must have been waiting for people to come,’ said Mr McKay. ‘I think I was attacked more because I had a black and white shirt on.’

And so instead of watching the match last September, Mr McKay flew home to be seen by doctors at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary.

While he is now said to have made a good recovery, he is just one of a growing list of British football fans injured while following their teams on the Continent. Because while hooliganism was once known as the ‘English Disease’, it is across Europe that the cancer of organised, football-related violence is once again spreading.

From Italy to Poland, Greece to Serbia, the rise of the so- called ‘Ultras’ — renowned for their fanatical support — has seen rival fans clash in increasingly violent attacks.

So powerless are the authorities in the face of these well-organised groups that the gangs openly post footage of their fights on social media. Unlike the beer-bellied middle-aged hooligans of old, many train in gyms, practising martial arts and shunning alcohol on match days.

S trict rules govern fights — fists, rocks and knives can be used, but guns are not allowed. Against this background, there are inevitably growing fears that this summer’s Euro 2024 tournament, which will be held in Germany and which England are joint favourites to win, could be marred by violence.

Last month the Home Office announced that more than 1,600 English and Welsh football hooligans will be required to surrender their passports so they cannot travel to the Euros. Any who fail to do so or subsequently attempt to travel there face prosecution and up to six months in jail.

‘Violence, abuse and disorder have no place in the game we love,’ said Chris Philp, the policing minister. ‘We will have zero tolerance for those who disrupt this event.’

But experts fear the biggest risk is not posed by the English fans — but to them. Dr Geoff Pearson is a professor of law at the University of Manchester and one of the UK’s foremost authorities on football hooliganism after observing fans, thugs and policing for over three decades.

The rise of the so- called ‘Ultras’ — renowned for their fanatical support — has seen rival fans clash in increasingly violent attacks

‘Unfortunately, England fans are seen as legitimate targets,’ says Dr Pearson. ‘When they have been drinking all day, stone-cold sober hooligans turn up and attack them and they are easy pickings.

‘Local police forces often just aren’t good enough in terms of protecting visiting fans. They see them as a threat rather than being under threat.’

A nd while Dr Pearson believes German police have the skills and experience to effectively manage any violence at the Euros, he remains fearful that fans following Premiership teams abroad will continue to be targeted as Mr McKay was.

‘I think it is only a matter of time before fans are killed in numbers attending one of these UEFA club matches, either as a result of attacks or, more likely, some sort of stadium disaster through poor safety,’ he warned.

It would, of course, be wrong to say the scourge of football hooliganism that so marred the domestic game in the 1970s and 1980s has disappeared completely.

In January, a Black Country derby FA Cup tie between West Brom and Wolves had to be suspended for nearly 40 minutes after fighting broke out between rival supporters.

West Brom defender Kyle Bartley intervened to remove his daughter from the stand where the trouble flared as his teammates anxiously messaged family members.

There were unconfirmed reports that players’ families had been spat at.

The following month a mass brawl between Millwall and Southampton fans at Waterloo Station saw hooded men leaping over ticket barriers to get involved in the punch-up as other travellers fled in fear.

Indeed, the 2,264 football-related arrests recorded in England and Wales during the 2022-23 season represent the highest figure for nine years.

And there were 682 new football ‘banning orders’ issued last season, up 32 per cent on the 2021-22 campaign — and the highest number since 960 in 2010-11. Football banning orders are issued by courts for violence, pitch invasions and booze- related behaviour.

Experts are hopeful the figures will prove to be a ‘blip’, a reaction to the ending of Covid restrictions. The belief is that some older, respected fans did not return to stadiums after the lockdowns were lifted, making violent and uncontrollable younger supporters more dominant in supporters’ groups.

Recreational drug use has also soared among young people in recent years, resulting in a rise in football fans mixing cocaine and alcohol. Possessing Class A drugs is now among the list of offences that can trigger a ban.

Thankfully, improved stadium security, stewarding, policing, intelligence and CCTV have all combined to keep a lid on violence at the majority of UK matches.

Which means that English supporters are now most at risk when their clubs compete in European tournaments, especially when they follow their teams away.

In particular, fans have suffered repeated vicious knife attacks by gangs of balaclava-clad Ultras in Italy, especially Rome.

The latest victim to end up in hospital was Brighton fan Jack Stephenson, 28, who was stabbed three times in the leg last month when set upon by a gang as he walked back to his hotel. (It is unclear whether his attackers were Ultras or plain muggers.)

Aware of the risks, he and his friends had been careful not to wear club shirts and had a ‘story’ ready if confronted.

‘I’m a big ginger bloke so I was just going to say I was here to watch Scotland in the rugby, not the football,’ he told the Mail. Unfortunately, there was no time for small-talk when a group of six, dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, struck quickly and brutally from behind.

‘They got me first, I suppose because I’m the biggest,’ said Mr Stephenson. ‘Someone punched me from behind and bust my lip open. It’s all a bit of a blur from there. I think I may have passed out. I remember being on the floor and seeing my friend coming towards me to help.’

Only when the group staggered into a nearby restaurant did Mr Stephenson become aware of the extent of his injuries — three stab wounds requiring ten stitches.

Photos of the aftermath of the attack were uploaded onto a Facebook site called Hooligans TV. The page has 622,000 followers and, alongside a disclaimer saying it ‘does not promote violence’, features photos and videos from across Europe. These include supporters posing with banners they have ‘captured’ from rival clubs — the flags are displayed upside down as a mark of disrespect.

Another picture shows eight men, fists raised, preparing to meet for a pre-arranged fight, followed by a ‘match’ report: ‘Paris Saint-Germain vs FC Copenhagen, 8 x 8, FC Copenhagen wins’.

The attack on Mr Stephenson is not the only trouble Brighton have had during what has been the club’s first European campaign. Brighton fans were also inadvertently exposed to tear gas used by Greek police to disperse AEK Athens supporters.

‘We drew Marseille, Ajax, AEK Athens and Roma — four teams of enormous European pedigree in capital cities or second cities and exactly what we dreamed of,’ Nigel Summers, chair of Brighton & Hove Albion Supporters Club, told the Mail.

‘Unfortunately, quite often you get people wanting trouble who attach themselves to football because that is where they find it. English fans are just regarded as hooligans and policed as such with riot shields and crash helmets, not how they are policed in this country at all.’ And he added: ‘At Roma, things were being thrown at our fans — coins and lighters. If that happened at our Amex Stadium, they have got CCTV and would have them out of the ground straight away. But in Rome, they were allowed to do what they wanted.’

A recent investigation by Sky News lifted the lid on the surprisingly high profiles of a number of leading Italian Ultras, including Marco Ferdico, the head of a diehard group of supporters which follows Inter Milan home and away. The 38-year-old has tattoos of Al Pacino on either side of his neck — one depicting Scarface.

‘This is our city,’ he told the reporter. ‘We don’t like you and we don’t want to see you if you come.’

His deputy, who he refers to as his ‘minister of war’, is currently banned from all football stadiums for 18 years for fighting and deliberately breaking the leg of an opposition fan.

There are now more than 6,300 people in Italy who are restricted by a banning order — a number that is rising rapidly. Some 40 per cent of those orders were issued in 2023 alone, a substantial increase on the number given out in the previous year.

Nino Ciccarelli, another notorious Inter Milan ultra, told the Mail: ‘The English were the first to do what we do so there is some respect for that.

‘But since the Juventus fans were killed in Brussels in 1985 [during the Heysel Stadium disaster when 39 people died at a game between Liverpool and Juventus] there is a lot of hatred towards them.’ Ciccarelli, whose book Without a Heart, The Hooligan’s Milan, has just been published, added: ‘There are always fights when they come, we try and get into fights with them.’

Elsewhere, attempts to curb football-related violence have centred on playing matches behind closed doors.

A West Ham fan fends off several hooded AZ Alkmaar attackers last May in the Netherlands

Earlier this season, Greece banned fans from top-flight football matches for two months following a series of violent incidents and a riot believed to have been organised by fans. In Turkey, all football matches were suspended last December after a referee was punched to the ground on the pitch by the president of one of the clubs involved.

Dutch and Polish fans have also been involved in serious disorder, with Ultras from Poland now considered to be among the most violent in the world.

The most violent disturbance at a game in recent years in the UK was arguably the one at Villa Park in Birmingham last November, when fans from Polish side Legia Warsaw threw flares at police and attacked their horses.

Home fans in the Holte End had missiles including ketchup bottles launched at them from outside the ground.

Damian Barratt, assistant chief constable of West Midlands Police, later observed: ‘The disorder we encountered was the most severe that a lot of us have ever seen.’

Dr Pearson said such violence was linked to foreign fans coming to matches in the UK and thinking they would be able to behave in ways they can get away with in their own country.

‘Fans from around Europe are travelling much more than they used to,’ he said.

‘I know that is a concern for the British police when they are managing matches.’

Tens of thousands of England fans will travel to Germany this summer to follow Gareth Southgate’s side in the Euros, where they will play group games against Serbia, Denmark and Slovenia. The last European tournament to be held in one country — France in 2016 — was marred by violence.

Russian hooligans attacked English fans with chairs and metal bars in Marseille with Andrew Bache, 55, beaten into a coma and left paralysed.

But Russia is not taking part in Euro 2024 after an international ban was imposed on the national team. And Dr Pearson says he does not expect major trouble at the tournament — thanks to the efficiency of German police.

He said: ‘There will be groups, particularly from Eastern Europe, that will travel with the intention of violence. But German football policing is some of the best in Europe.’

For the sake of true supporters, one can only hope that the contests fought by England this summer are confined to Germany’s football pitches — and not the bars, streets and cafes surrounding them.

• Additional reporting TIM STEWART