THERE are so many ugly faces in football that it could fund and run a gargoyle XI and that's without recruiting any of the many players who have climbed the ugly tree and bounced back down hitting every single branch.

Now screaming with a Banshee-type screech into the headlines is the creased countenance of the yob fan.

Thought he'd gone away? No chance. There he was in all his festering flush of bile and gob of venom at Goodison Park, at Celtic Park and at Turf Moor.

Manchester United goalkeeper Roy Carroll was felled by a coin thrown by a home 'fan' during Everton's FA Cup fifth round defeat by the Red Devils. Similarly, Rangers' skipper Fernando Ricksen was cut around the eye after being hit by a cigarette lighter during the Old Firm collision with Glasgow rivals Celtic at the hoops' green and white stronghold.

And then at Turf Moor in the East Lancashire spew-stew of a cup duel between Burnley and Blackburn Rovers, a home Clarets' fan ran on to the pitch to 'have a go' at Rovers' Welsh wild-man, Robbie Savage.

The moral outrage was predictable and justified, but the surprise element was that it was considered a shock by some punters.

Thugs at football, whatever next? This is the people's game, hyped to heaven by its Sky pay-masters and beloved - for the time being, at least - of the chattering classes for whom prawn sandwiches and a quaffable little wine play a more pivotal role in the 'football experience' than any offside trap. Two tribes go to war? Heaven forbid any such prospect.

But listen, the thugs have never gone away, so let's welly that illusion into touch.

Indeed, for almost the last decade their vicious exploits were feted by the cheese and wine set both on film and especially in novels, where life as a hooligan took on a vain veneer of romanticism. Boot-boys with floppy fringes. 'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we *!!**!! go.

But a kicking is a kicking, no matter what the bastard in boots is wearing and if the game is to be serious about banishing the stain of the ranting minority, then it's up to clubs as well as the FA to come down hard.

This country has deluded itself that the scar of hooliganism, which sliced like a Stanley knife across football in its most vicious form during the 1970s and 1980s, had departed.

There are less incidents of aggro inside the nation's grounds, but that's largely due to the keener police presence and closed-circuit cameras clamping down on inner-stadium trouble. But trouble has merely shifted to less monitored locations - town or city-centre shopping arcades, bus termini, railway stations, urban underpasses where fists and feet, heads and blades combine in malicious mayhem.

If the gangs are getting bolder and restoring their chaos to our stadiums - yes they are our stadiums, the majority of fans who just want to support their own team in a passionate but aggro-less way - then let's use the high-tech armour at clubs' disposal.

Both Everton and Burnley are likely to be subjected to fines from the FA as punishment, but that's not getting at the true culprits.

There are enough cameras at grounds now - be they police or broadcast station property - to home in on the missile-throwers and turf-invaders.

Catching the latter is easy. I mean how senseless can you be?

But for the snide chuckers, as well as turning the cameras on, then let's turn in those individuals.

If cameras cannot pinpoint exactly who hurled what and when, then clubs should have the right to say, right, all those in the vicinity - an entire row of seats, or bank of seats perhaps - will have their season-tickets withheld until the culprit is revealed.

It may be a bit like turning the light out in class until the guilty party turns up. But if drastic measures aren't taken then we could be heading for a return to football's dark ages.

Updated: 10:41 Tuesday, February 22, 2005