Not even the rolling information service that is twitter kept my attention over the weekend, as I tweeted on my phone and didn't read down the timeline in too much detail. Mentions of some kind of disputation filtered through, but I just saw the word Tottenham and assumed it related to good old fashioned football hooliganism. It wasn't until I saw the news and read the papers on Monday that I realised what was happening.
Given that the summer is usually the media's silly season, there has been a hell of a lot of news just lately. The reviews of the year in the end of year round ups are going to be twice as long to accommodate it all.
There were reports of a hullabaloo in Birmingham, and this has given the police forces in other cities something of a head start. Nottingham was quiet on last night, aside from some sort of fracas in the St Annes area.
This evening my dad texted to say that something was kicking off in Hyson Green, and that I should bring my camera.
We managed to walk from Hyson Green to town via the forest, as far as the train station and back, and there wasn't a whiff of violence to be seen anywhere. Several shops were taking precautions by boarding up the windows around six o'clock, and Yates was closed.
There was a heavy police presence around the railway station, and towards the football grounds, as Nottingham Forest and Notts County were playing against each other. The police overdid it a bit, as there were quite open scenes of rival supporters walking to the ground together. Why the train station needed such a security measure is beyond me as there are no travelling supporters when both teams live in the same city.
