England fans were the world's worst. Because of them, English clubs were disqualified from European competition for five years. The country despaired. A government report in 1986 said that "football may not be able to continue its present form for much longer". Part-answers were proposed: no away fans, identity cards for all fans, sterner penalties for offenders, fences, moats. In 1989, the Football Spectators Act was passed.

Change came with the formation of the Premier League, and it was not coincidental. Another report in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster mandated minimum standards for stadiums, not least that they were all-seaters. Other measures were introduced, with civilising effect: alcohol bans, bans on racist chanting, CCTV cameras, more police, more stewards, bans for offenders. Prices were set high, altering the demographics. The money flowed in, the fan base broadened and the hoodlums were forced out. Society's values changed, and so did soccer's.

The English Premier League today is a brilliant spectacle. Hooliganism has not been eliminated, but it has been marginalised. English fans have outlived the stigma of the past. "Gooners", for instance, was once the name of a rough and crude gang of Arsenal supporters, but now has been appropriated as a nickname for all the club's supporters. On a notional ladder of countries and their violent fans, England would now be well down the table.

The cleansing has paid off. Television can't get enough of it, and the Premier League can't get enough of television's money. It is now rich beyond compare. Players used to leave; now they come. Chelsea, this season's travails notwithstanding, became instead of a place to risk being blinded, a place to be seen.

Why raise all this here and now? Because it is the English mistake from which Australia can learn, the English lesson Australia should heed. The rump that is causing trouble in the A-League now, especially at Western Sydney Wanderers games, are like the original hooligans in that they are out not for love of the game, but their own tawdry amusement. No one who stands with his bare back to a match, and whose pyrotechnics bring it to a suffocated halt, can claim to be on the game's side.