Given what happened over the weekend, scenes like this don’t bode well for the night ahead.
These English and Welsh supporters are not believed to have acted violently, they have not thrown any bottles or patio furniture or fireworks. But given what happened on the streets of Marseille over the weekend, chanting like this will not help diffuse any tensions with Russian supporters.
https://twitter.com/harryfear/status/743129926505730048
As the initial tweet shows, that’s not to say that Russian fans hadn’t already goaded them, but it’s difficult to say that chants of “Fuck off Russia, we’re England and Wales,” are anything but provocative.
England and Wales supporters have gathered in Lille ahead of their teams’ meeting in nearby Lens on Thursday afternoon. Russian supporters were also in Lille for their second Euro 2016 clash against Slovakia, earlier on Wednesday afternoon.
Although reports throughout the day had claimed that there had been no trouble and a good atmosphere amongst supporters, it seems tensions have started to rise in the hours since Russia lost 2-1 to Slovakia.
Some reports claim there has been fighting between the Russians and Slovakians, and video such as this appears to show England fans encouraging riot police to use tear-gas.
“Let off the teargas”, “French f***ers” – England fans chant during standoff with #Lille police. #EURO2016 pic.twitter.com/kNn9N2ld0E
— Harry Fear (@harryfear) June 15, 2016
Stan Collymore, also in the city in a journalistic capacity, earlier broadcast police grounding a Russian supporter that had thrown a bottle in the direction of English and Welsh fans.
