A York City fan has been banned from all professional football matches for six years and jailed for soccer violence that terrified a packed pub.

Accountancy student and bank employee Geoff Alastair Clapham, 22, was one of the ringleaders as a large group of York fans hurled glasses and ashtrays at a similar group of Doncaster fans in the Golden Lion pub, in Church Street, York, on November 15, York Crown Court heard. Clapham himself threw two glasses and incited his companions to pursue the Doncaster fans through the door.

The pub was packed with Christmas shoppers, families with children and the elderly, who ducked under a table or were showered with glass fragments.

"It was a terrifying experience for people in that public house," Judge Gavin Barr Young told Clapham.

"Throwing glasses and other missiles in those circumstances is likely to cause such danger as if you had picked up a glass and thrown it in someone's face." Clapham, of Green Gate Lane, Knaresborough, denied affray, but was convicted by a jury. In addition to the 12-month jail term and six-year football ban, he was banned from the Golden Lion for a year.

His barrister, Glenn Parsons, said Clapham was a football fan, not a hooligan, and that his behaviour was out of character. He was devoted to his club and had been about to start his third year of accountancy studies with bright prospects.

On Thursday, the court heard that he had been among the supporters who saved York City from extinction by raising funds.

Clapham will be unable to attend York City matches as the ban applies to members of the Nationwide Conference as well as the Nationwide League, Premier Division and the national team.

Updated: 09:28 Saturday, May 22, 2004