MARSEILLE, June 15: English Soccer hooligans ran amok in this southern French city, battling Tunisians, police and local people in a series of running battles ahead of a World Cup match.Drunken hooligans fought pitched fights with chairs, knives, bottles and glasses, burning cars and attacking bystanders yesterday, witnesses said. Rescue services said at least 24 people were injured and more than 30 arrested, most of them English. One person was seriously ill with knife wounds.An Englishman was seriously injured, slashed in the neck with a bottle. Bleeding profusely, he was loaded into an ambulance, a Reuter correspondent said.Thousands of English fans have poured into Marseille for the first round match between England and Tunisia today. English fans attacked local people with bottles and fought North Africans. Riot police fired tear gas and drove hundreds of English fans into side streets in an attempt to douse down the trouble.By midnight, English hooligans had been dispersed into small groupsand were coming under attack by large groups of French youths of North African extraction.Police appeared to be taken by surprise by the speed with which minor skirmishes turned into full-scale fighting. The clashes erupted yesterday after scattered incidents on Saturday night. During Sunday evening the trouble spread from the old port area to nearby side streets as the violence intensified.One Reuter correspondent saw a French man in his 40s attacked by English hooligans with bottles in the Quai de Riveneuve, near the old port.The man collapsed, blood spurting from his head, and crawled away as the hooligans kicked him.Fighting spread around the city as Beurs, French youths of North African origins, arrived in the City Centre to take on the English. Hooligans attacked bars and restaurants and even boats anchored in the harbour. Several cars were smashed, burned and overturned, including one belonging to an English television company.Blatter condemns LENS: Fifa president Sepp Blatter condemned theugly scenes between police and the fans in Marseille. However, he added it was not possible to control everything that comes with football. ``What we have to provide for spectators is security and comfort in the stadiums. People must feel safe when coming to and leaving stadiums. But football cannot control the world,'' said Blatter.
