Soccer Skirmish

"Sports Not Violence" is a project based in Lower Saxony that aims to turn around soccer's rough-and-ready reputation.

With what should be a beautiful game overshadowed in Europe by the brutish specter of hooliganism, the organization wants to return good sportsmanship to the pitch. Its latest attempt, however, failed miserably.

In an admirably optimistic spirit, it recently teamed up with the police department in the city of Aachen to schedule a goodwill game that was supposed to demonstrate to local kids that despite its tarnished image, playing soccer "is a meaningful way of spending their spare time," as one policeman poignantly put it.

But boys will be boys -- and the organizers obviously overestimated the power of good intentions. The fun soon turned into fisticuffs, with the match fast deteriorating into a punch-up when five players set upon a heckler who protested against a perceived lack of fair play.

Other players and fans soon waded in to the fray, while the original perpetrators fled the melee leaving mayhem in their wake.

An experiment in peace turned into an orgy of violence. Perhaps the next time the project tries to stage of sporting match for peace, the game should be croquet. But then there are those mallets…