The most vital lesson to be learned from the outbreaks of violence at the London Stadium is not that West Ham need to tackle their security problem even harder than Billy Bonds used to go in for the ball.
Those clashes with Chelsea fans on Wednesday night – which followed West Ham supporters fighting with each other in the preceding weeks – come as a wake-up call to English football at large.
The cosy presumption that hooliganism has been eradicated from the game was always a fallacy.
In reality the cancer of crowd thuggery which our European neighbours used to call The English Disease has been suppressed, not cured.