Welsh Soccer Fan Beaten To Death Outside Wembley Stadium
From the Daily Mail:
He suffered head injuries in the fracas which triggered a fatal heart attack – and he died in hospital later.
Six men were arrested – none of them England fans – and are helping police with their inquiries today.
A Cardiff City fan who was at the match said: ‘We were all supporting Wales and should have been united in that.
‘But there was some jeering and nonsense before the game and two sets of fans clashed outside Wembley.
Dye apparently had a history of getting into it at football games.
He had commented regularly on Cardiff City FC football websites and there were suggestions that he had links with hooligans.
He wrote in 2009 about a series of fights he had been involved in during the 1980s at the height of football hooliganism.
He talked about sitting alongside opposing fans and said that in 1984 at a Fulham FC match, he ‘battled to get out in one piece’.
In another post he said in Colchester in 1985 ‘our train mob all on there, midweek game about 20 us, fighting like f***’
Last year he was arrested and appeared in court for football violence-related offences.
Damn.
Update: Friends and family say the attack had nothing to do with the Swansea – Cardiff rivalry and that he left his hooliganism behind. From the London Evening Standard:
“He would be at every Cardiff City match. He’d been a bit of a lad in the Eighties and got into a bit of trouble. But that was a different era. He’d left that all behind. These days he’d go to matches with his wife but she couldn’t make it last night.
“It wasn’t hooliganism. A friend who was with him said Mikey was punched once and fell to the ground and cracked his skull.”
Friends of Mr Dye denied he was attacked in a confrontation between rival fans of Swansea and Cardiff football clubs. They claimed Mr Dye was punched by an England fan who fled.
The 6 men who were arrested following Dye’s death have since been bailed out.
[Daily Mail, Getty]