Local organisers of the main pro-Palestine protest outside Aston Villa’s football match against Maccabi Tel Aviv, held in the majority-Muslim Birmingham enclave of Aston, spent much of the evening on loudhailers imploring everybody to stay peaceful.
Yet a half-hour before the 8pm kickoff there was a moment of such volatility that it seemed, for just a few minutes, police might struggle to retain control.
The protest was on a grassy area behind the Trinity Road Stand looming overhead. There was music, speeches and chants of “from the river to the sea”. Black-clad local youths – some of them the sons and grandsons of Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants to Aston – also chanted “death death to the IDF” (Israel Defense Forces).
At 7.30pm a rush of match-bound Villa fans came up Trinity Road. A section stopped on the narrow roadway under the stand, turned to the Palestine protesters and chanted for Tommy Robinson, the anti-migrant hard-right activist.
Some of the local Muslim youth surged
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