Shanghai Star. 2002-06-27

England fans dressed as goalkeeper David Seaman pose for a photograph with a Japanese girl before England faced Nigeria in a World Cup finals match in Osaka June 12.

"We always hear quickly enough and loudly enough when fans do not behave. So let's make plenty of noise this time that their behaviour has been perfect"Lennart Johansson,Chairman of FIFA's World Cup organizing committee

TOKYO - England are not going to win the World Cup but the good behaviour of their army of fans marks a welcome victory in the battle against football hooliganism, a senior British policeman said on Saturday.

Ron Hogg, who headed a large squad of British police sent to Japan for the finals, said it was vital to make further headway in the run-up to the European Championship in Portugal in 2004 and the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

"This is a significant step forward in helping to change the image of England fans, but we must build on it," said Hogg, the assistant chief constable of the Durham police force in northern England.

"The test will be when we have no trouble during a major tournament in Europe, and I don't anticipate that will be an easy task in any way, shape or form."

Hogg was looking back on the lessons to be learned from policing as many as 8,500 England fans who came to Japan to support the national team, knocked out 2-1 by Brazil in the quarter-final at Shizuoka on Friday.

Graphic footage of England supporters on the rampage during the 2000 European Championship in Belgium and the 1998 World Cup in France had led many Japanese to fear the worst.

Lurid media reports fanned the anxieties of a very orderly society whose national pastimes include flower-arranging and the tea ceremony, not drunken brawling.

For his part, Hogg always insisted the finals were a low-risk event for the police and he was proved right. Only 14 England fans were arrested over the month, mainly for petty crimes. There were two isolated incidents of assault but no group rowdiness.

"It's been an unqualified success from the fan point of view," Hogg said. "Their behaviour has been quite superb."

Kinder, gentler

World soccer's governing body FIFA also congratulated the fans for their "perfect" behaviour.

"We always hear quickly enough and loudly enough when fans do not behave. So let's make plenty of noise this time that their behaviour has been perfect," Lennart Johansson, the chairman of FIFA's World Cup organizing committee, said on Saturday.

Legislation passed in Britain two years ago forced 1,050 known troublemakers to surrender their passports for the duration of the finals.

Hogg said the police hoped a critical mass of 1,500-2,000 could eventually be monitored and stopped from going abroad as the flow of intelligence between clubs and police bears fruit.

But hooliganism has put down deep roots in English football and one fan, Lee Murray of Canterbury in southern England, said it was naive to assume the calm in Japan was anything but a lull.

English hooligans had decided in advance not to come to Japan because there were no Japanese hooligans to fight, he said.

"Everything that's gone well here will be reversed in Germany," Murray, 31, added. "It'll be chaos. It's done football a lot of good holding the tournament out here, but in Germany it'll go pear-shaped."

Kevin Miles of England's Football Supporters' Association agreed that it would be tougher to keep troublemakers away from tournaments closer to home.

More over, circumstances in Japan had been unique, not least in the warm support that local soccer fans had lent to rival teams, particularly England.

"One swallow doesn't make a summer," Miles said. "But I prefer to be optimistic."

Denying that the police were naive, Hogg acknowledged that the sheer expense of travelling to Japan and the absence of a domestic hooligan group had worked to the police's advantage.

But he said the good behaviour of fans who came to Japan was also a growing reflection of efforts made by clubs to attract families to football and keep hooligans out of their grounds.

"We cannot be complacent. I realize that we have a tremendous amount of work to do," Hogg said.

"I'm going to make sure we keep spoiling their fun because they've spoiled other people's fun for far too long."

(Agencies via Xinhua)