English fans win kudos for good behaviour

Jul 2, 2006, 16:46 GMT

Gelsenkirchen - English fans earned praise from World Cup organizers on Sunday after the last supporters left Gelsenkirchen following their team's quarter-final elimination by Portugal.

More than 80,000 English supporters descended on the town for Saturday's event, which passed of peacefully despite 180 fans being held for minor offences.

'The English fans showed they are world champions in celebrating,' said Organizing committee spokesman Gerd Graus. 'It was great to see this.'

'We have to thank all the fans who were here, even the England supporters,' said Gelsenkirchen police spokesman Uwe Klein. 'It was generally a very friendly event.'

He said around 140 English fans and 40 Germans were picked up by police during and after Saturday afternoon's game for a variety of offences, ranging from assault to theft.

All but a handful were free by Sunday morning.

Police reported no major incidents in the town, where more than 100,000 foreign fans, among them 80,000 from England and 15,000 from Portugal, watched the game at the stadium and in public viewing areas.

Many left after the match, which Portugal won in a penalty shootout after neither team had scored at the end of extra time.

German police had to close the Gelsenkirchen train station for a time owing to to the crush of fans trying to leave the city Saturday evening. 'But everything went peacefully,' a police spokesman said.

Police said several thousand fans spent the night at camping sites and most had left the town by Sunday afternoon.

German police had stepped up border controls and made spot checks on motorways in order to weed out troublemakers from the vast majority of peaceful supporters.

Some 4,000 known English hooligans were prevented from leaving Britain by having their passports withdrawn for the duration of the World Cup.

England's other World Cup matches in Stuttgart, Cologne, Frankfurt and Nuremberg passed off with relatively little fan violence, despite fears ahead of the competition their supporters might cause major trouble.

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who has overall responsibility for World Cup security, praised fans' behaviour during the first three weeks of the tournament.

'German supporters and those from abroad deserve a lot of praise for the peaceful and friendly way way they have enjoyed the World Cup despite speculation to the contrary,' he said.