AZ thugs are cowards — West Ham players had no choice but to protect their families

Jarrod Bowen is full time in West Ham's family section. Credit: Getty Images/Angelo Blankespoo

It's only minutes before we're back on the air for BT Sport at AZ Alkmaar stadium on Thursday night, but I was looking for my friends in the crowd and there were black, masked home fans all around me and balaclavas, and struck.

I described these men as pathetic when we went live, and they are. These AZ Alkmaar fans — ultras, whatever these grown men call themselves — are pathetic. They went straight to the part of the court where the families of the players were, as well as friends and some of my colleagues in BT Sport. West Ham's away support was elsewhere.

Attacking families that included children and women is what cowards do. The said AZ Alkmaar fans behaved like cowards — aggressive, cruel cowards. They were stopped by the reaction of several West Ham fans, who defended their part of the stadium as if it were a medieval fort. The players had no choice but to jump in order to protect their friends and families. I would have done exactly the same in their place — anyone would have done.

You can usually gauge the level of trouble in a stadium by the reaction of the players and when I looked after the game I saw that it was worse than usual. When the players ran to protect their families, I realized that this must be bad. I had three friends there that I knew from school — all West Ham fans for whom I bought tickets. There was a colleague of mine who I work with at BT Sport. I needed to make sure they were safe.

My friends stood up for themselves and those around them, as I expected, but I was a little worried. I got a thumbs up emoji from them while we were on the air.

The violence was directed at West Ham fans ahead of last season's semi-finals in Frankfurt. What is it about UEFA that allows this violence to return to the European game? AZ Alkmaar must take responsibility for their fans and UEFA must punish them. Large groups of thugs should not be able to move freely around the stadium in search of opposing fans. Surely the club knows about these behaviors? Why was there nothing to stop it?

This is just the latest example of poor crowd control and failure to anticipate problems. We saw it at the Champions League final in Paris last year when Liverpool fans were attacked by the police and then by local criminals outside the stadium. Now he is inside the stadium. Does UEFA require players to protect their fans?

English football is far from perfect, as demonstrated by the incident with Eddie Howe and a Leeds United fan this month. However, UEFA now needs to impose sanctions on AZ Alkmaar. AZ Alkmaar, in turn, needs to gain some control over the violent elements of their fanbase. As far as the West Ham players are concerned, I hope that no allegations are dealt with by UEFA in this regard. They did what they had to do.