FA confident England supporters will behave when they travel to Scotland
Tuesday 9 September 2014 23:21, UK
The Football Association is confident England supporters will be on their best behaviour when they travel to Scotland in November.
Club England managing director Adrian Bevington expects a repeat of the FA’s 150th anniversary match at Wembley last year, when England’s 3-2 victory over Scotland passed off without any disturbances.
The FA has been consulting with the Scottish authorities about security measures and only fans registered with the England Supporters Travel Club will be able to buy tickets as they will not go on general sale.
Nationalist sentiment is running high north of Hadrian's Wall, so both governing bodies are taking extra steps to make sure there is no violence in and around the game.
"We are working closely with our colleagues at the Scottish FA and are taking all usual security precautions," Bevington said.
"We were pleased that the Wembley fixture in August 2013 passed peacefully with over 20,000 Scotland fans adding to the occasion and atmosphere of respectful rivalry.
"Over the last decade we have been proud of our official travelling support and the improvement in behaviour, which has resulted in no arrests at any of the last four major tournaments."
Although billed as a friendly, there will be little bonhomie between both sides, according to England manager Roy Hodgson.
And Hodgson recalls the experience of taking Neuchatel Xamax to Glasgow in the 1991 UEFA Cup, when he was impressed by the atmosphere at Celtic Park.
"We'd won the first leg 5-1 and the second leg should have been a dead rubber, but it wasn't," said the England manager, who lost the game in Glasgow 1-0.
"It wasn't a dead rubber for those Celtic fans because 60,000 of them turned up and made our lives a misery for that 90 minutes.
"So this game is going to be a very, very spiky game, it's going to be a game that's feisty; we're going to be in an atmosphere which many of these players won't have been in before.
“I'm looking forward to that game because it will be another massive test for us, so different from playing Estonia away or Slovenia at home.
"I know our Premier League arenas are sold out and that the atmospheres are very good but Celtic Park when Scotland are playing England, that's something a little bit special."
