Drunken English Soccer Fans Rampage in Germany

About 300 drunken English soccer fans sang “God Save the Queen” as they smashed taverns and fought German pub patrons early today. Police found the body of an Irish fan floating in the Main River.

In Britain, the government was weighing a crackdown on soccer hooliganism.

Police said there was no immediate indication of foul play in the death of the soccer fan, who was identified only as a 29-year-old resident of Dublin. The victim apparently drowned while intoxicated, they said.

Before sunrise today, roving groups of English rowdies overturned cars, smashed windows and furniture in several Frankfurt bars, and attacked Germans inside and outside the pubs.

Police Arrest 11

Ten English soccer fans and a West German were arrested in the violence that broke out in Frankfurt’s “Apple Wine” district and near the city’s main train station.

Several people were slightly injured in the clashes, including three police officers, authorities said.

Frankfurt police were bracing for more trouble as fans gather for Saturday’s European Soccer Championship match between England and the Soviet Union.

Officials said more than 1,400 police officers will be deployed in the city starting tonight.

In London, the British government proposed barring England’s national team from the World Cup, the Olympics and other international events after a “soccer summit” Thursday at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s 10 Downing Street home.

‘We Were All Appalled’

“We were all appalled by what has happened in Germany,” said Home Secretary Douglas Hurd. “We were clear that present arrangements are not enough and have got to be strengthened.”

Hurd also proposed travel restrictions on fans involved in violence, tighter controls over who gets into matches, stepped-up police surveillance and tougher licensing laws outside soccer stadiums to cut down drunkenness before and after matches.

But Herbert Schnoor, interior minister for North-Rhine Westphalia state, said West Germans, not English fans, were the initiators of violence on Tuesday and Wednesday in Duesseldorf.

“These (German) hooligans were not soccer fans, but just thugs who could not stomach the thought that English fans had a reputation for being more brutal than themselves,” Schnoor said in a radio interview.