Hooligans rear their ugly heads once more

THE week now ending hasn't been perhaps the best advertisement for soccer as a prospective temporary tenant at Croke Park.

Although it has to be said that only those with a self-serving agenda for maintaining Rule 42 would use the events in Milan and, two nights later, RTÉ's screening of a documentary on the Heysel disaster, to bolster their argument against opening those gates.

Nevertheless, that soccer as a global phenomenon has yet to eradicate what was once called 'The English Disease' remains incontestable. The focus is now on Italy, where Tuesday's incendiary scenes in the San Siro were followed the next night by sighs of relief that the Juventus-Liverpool fixture in Turin was marred only - only! - by some isolated incidents in the streets and the odd skirmish in the stands.