of 2’500 football banning orders by the time Euro 2004
begins. The current total stands somewhere near 2’000 so
they will be looking for an extra 500 ‘hooligans’ in the
next few months. As we well know, only targets matter and
bans can be handed out for the most trivial of reasons. Not
that banning someone for being slightly drunk before a match
will have any consequence come June when thousands on
‘unknown to police’ and drunk Englishmen riot in Portugal
but it’ll make for some good sound-bites in the run up to
the tournament. Don’t become a statistic and don’t give them
any excuse.