After last week’s horrific flares thrown during the Real game, this weekend saw South Melbourne and Preston Lions play a match and the fans went nuts. The violence wasn’t as bad as the Real game, but it could have been.
This time the violence happened after the match was concluded at the Bob Jane Stadium. Both sets of fans took the pitch and and threw bottles and flares at each other:
It seems that the incident had to do with ethnicity. The Greek and Macedonian couldn’t get along.
The clubs played a preseason match that ended in violence, which prompted Manny Galanos, the chairman of the Football Federation of Victoria, to ask for additional security for this match. His request was denied.
From the onset violence was occurring:
More than 9000 fans turned up and the kickoff was delayed by 15 minutes as a string of flares was thrown on to the pitch.
In the future the clubs will play in empty stadiums.