The Oil Drum

As I have driven through "fans" celebrating England winning as they swarmed all over the streets and seen the results to the shops the morning afterwards in my home town, I am afraid I don't believe you. To say all English fans behave like this is not true, but for a significant minority it is. England has a short history of drinking to excess and violent behaviour. You only have to read reports from the 17th century onwards and see Hoggarth's Gin Lane to realise the English are only carrying on its traditions. Drunk for 1d and dead drunk for 2d used to be the on signs outside grog shops as whole families marched into them to get their money's worth.

What has not been reported in the local press is behaviour near the main post office. Old age pensioners draw their money out; someone watches them leave the Post Office and then mugs the old lady in an underpass or down a side street where nobody is around. This is only very local knowledge to the police and surrounding shops and shop workers. Not many people know about this. Also there is the amount of thievery going on in stealing purses and wallets. The thief then goes into one of several clothes shops and puts the emptied purse/wallet into a coat for sale. Shop assistants find about 5 purses/wallets per week per shop as people buy the coat and discover the purse/wallet at the payout counter. This is only known to shop workers, the general public knows very little about it. I only know because I talk a lot to a couple of shop assistants about our football teams. So I would say media reporting of crime is greatly under reported. Murders obviously make big news and are fairly rare, but general crime is extremely common in England.