Search icon

Sport

16th Jun 2016

This video of French and English fans getting along is much more like it

How it should be

Matt Tate

It seems a bit strange to be celebrating two European nations choosing not to launch glass bottles at each other’s faces.

But given the all-too-frequent ugly scenes at Euro 2016 – many of which have involved England fans – it is quite uplifting to see people getting along.

As reports throughout the tournament so far have been informing us, a lot of England supporters have been finding themselves in violent situations that they didn’t go looking for, but the negative headlines won’t go away.

That’s why it’s important we remind ourselves that the vast majority of fans have no interest in pointless street fighting, and are just there for a good time.

A video uploaded to Twitter by sports photographer Tom Jenkins last night showed a large group of England fans mixing harmoniously with the French fans, who were celebrating their 2-0 victory over Albania.

Unfortunately it wasn’t all good news coming out of Lille overnight. French police arrested 36 people after more clashes between rival football fans.

The trouble began after Russia’s Group B match with Slovakia and continued late into the night. However, according to The Independent, British police said at midnight that none of the arrests made on Wednesday evening had been of English fans. There is still no confirmation as to who exactly the police apprehended after that point.