Bleeding heads, terrified children and a local business vandalised. The scene was grimly familiar.
I saw riot police chasing England fans away from a bar they’d just attacked filled with Serbian fans. Often with this type of football violence it can be difficult to tell who was in the right or wrong.
But the eyewitness I spoke to was in no doubt. “Your guys did this” he told me “the Serbians were only defending their people.
He was a father taken refuge in the bar with his son. It had been a traumatising day for the nine-year-old, excited to see his favourite player Alexander Mitrovic the violence now meant he didn’t want to go to his first-ever football match.
It was hard not to feel responsible for the young lad's broken heart. He’d been waiting for the game to start when England fans had attacked flinging bottles at the Serbs.
Several times they had attacked only to flee when the riot police came storming in.
I saw the results - men with heavily bleeding heads and panicking Serbians desperately running inside. English police collecting evidence on their phones.
They were the type of stories we hoped would not unfold.
But predictably instead of talking about a carnival of football, it’s a terrifying mob that dominates.
