When will the hoolie hype begin?

With the World Cup just over the horizon and a World Cup in Germany at that, we should be expecting a hyperventilated media frenzy of Anglophobia and dire hooligan predictions any time now.

As ever, we’ll get hype about the host police forces’ preparations centring on measures for preventing, and also dealing with, outbreaks of unrest. Just as before, these will more often than not exaggerate the potential problems with alarmist prophesies, rather than playing down any prospect of public disorder.

As a result, if and when violence does occur, the media’s predictions are ‘proven to be true’ and consequently become self-fulfilling prophesies, with incidents often reported in a ‘told-you-so’ tone.

Spoke too soon! And they're off!