It had a savage cradling, spawned by hours of dread and violence and ugliness on the streets, and when the tear gas drifted away and the wounded had been taken to hospital and darkness fell like a welcome shroud on a damned day, even the little beauty that England thought they had salvaged from their opening game of this European Championship was taken away.
The memories of a draw they snatched from the jaws of victory against Russia here will mingle with recollections of chairs flying through the air, hooligans scattering around the Vieux Port and snarling faces.
Faces covered in blood, a local man holding out his arms in peace and being knocked unconscious by a sickening blow from an English or Russian yob, men lying prone and still on the pavement and the sound of breaking glass.
Fans from both sides clash at the end of the game in which England conceded a last minute equaliser
England fans run up the stand to escape violence as Russian fans clash with England supporters
Those scenes meant Satuday night’s draw was tainted with the air of defeat even before Russia’s equaliser deep into added time.
Those scenes meant it was impossible to view England’s match in isolation. For the first time in 16 years, we are forced to talk about an England football match not just in terms of the action on the pitch but also the havoc wrought by the team’s supporters.
What should have been an evening to rejoice at least in a screamer of a second-half free-kick from Eric Dier was tainted with despair.
What should have been a night to dream that England might be on the verge of something good again was polluted with visions of English and Russian thugs battling each other on the waterfront as the tall masts of the ships in the harbour swayed mournfully in a soft breeze.
What should have been a night to look forward with optimism instead became an evening when worried frowns creased the faces of Football Association officials.
The point that England won on Saturday night, Uefa may yet take away if the trouble that blighted the build-up to this match for three days is repeated in Lens when England play Wales on Thursday or in Saint-Etienne where England meet Slovakia a week tomorrow.
Violent scenes marred the build-up to the match in Marseille with three days of violence in the city
An England fan is detained by French security personnel on Saturday ahead of the match which finished 1-1
The poison of hooliganism, the poison that makes this beautiful game wretch and writhe and grow ugly, is back.
It appears that Russian thugs were responsible for the most chilling deeds of violence and mayhem but English idiots have played their part over the last few days, too. They, too, have brought shame on the team they claim to support.
And so at a time when French security forces are stretched to the limit trying to keep fans safe from the atrocities that have been threatened by terrorists, the fans of Russia and England responded by rampaging through the streets with knives and chairs and whatever they could lay their hands on. The sheer disgusting stupidity of it beggared belief.
‘Regarding the trouble in Marseille today,’ FA spokesman Mark Whittle said after the match as he sat beside Roy Hodgson, ‘the FA is very disappointed by the terrible scenes of disorder and condemns such behaviour.
'It is now in the hands of the relevant authorities to identity those involved and deal with them appropriately. At this time the FA urges England supporters to act in a respectful manner and support England in the right way.'
An England fan prepares to launch a glass bottle as fans clash with police and each other in Marseille
A bloody England fan is led away by French police in riot gear as angry locals look on on Saturday
To walk through the Vieux Port on Saturday morning, before the worst of the trouble flared, was already to hear the sound of defeat. It was the sound of broken green glass from shattered beer bottles crunching under foot. It was the sound of a disease that we thought had been vanquished returning with a snarling, gleeful vengeance.
For those of us who were here in 1998, when English hooligans fought with local youths and laid waste to some of the areas where their descendants have brawled over the past few days, it brought a stomach-churning sense of déjà vu. After 16 years when we have allowed ourselves to forget scenes like this, the eruption of violence here has felt like a particularly rude awakening.
It is a sobering thought that the next major tournament takes place in Russia two summers hence and if we must ask questions of our own supporters and our own Football Association because of what happened here, then we must ask them of Russia, too.
Russian football is shot through with racism and hooliganism and yet we have entrusted it with the 2018 World Cup. It will be a strange way to celebrate football.
And so we watched a football match while the images of a desperate day in France’s second city swirled around our minds.
A bloody man is taken away by service workers during three days of violence scenes continues on Saturday
England fans gather amid clashes that lasted three days in Marseille ahead of the game on Saturday night
It is hard to feel quite the same about a game in the evening when you know that in the afternoon, men have been stabbed in the name of football and the curse of hooliganism has emerged once more as a serious force in the English game.
England’s players did their best to banish the darkness. After some of the doubts that have surrounded them in recent weeks, they played with verve and flair and attacking relish. And Wayne Rooney, who has been the subject of much unwarranted criticism, played like a man reborn to vindicate Roy Hodgson’s gamble of starting him in midfield for his country for the first time.
For more than a decade now, England fans have measured out their lives in the dreams and disappointments of Wayne Rooney at major tournaments. ‘The big man is back,’ he said once when he walked into the grand lobby of England’s mountain-top hotel in Germany before the 2006 World Cup and deep down, we have always believed our hopes depended on him.
Wayne Rooney featured for England in a deeper midfield role in the Euro 2016 opener against Russia
Many worried that Hodgson was twisting the team out of shape to try to accommodate him and the news that he was to start in midfield on Saturday for the first time for England exacerbated the concern.Some had started to doubt him recently. Some even flung up their arms in horror at the idea that he still deserved a place in the England starting line-up.
‘I don’t have to sit here and defend myself,’ Rooney had said on Friday when he was told the Russia players thought he was past it.
‘My game has changed but in many ways it has changed for the better… I played in midfield at Manchester United for some of this season and in many ways it was natural because my football is intelligent football.’
Rooney forced a great save from goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev with a low effort from just inside the area
He began the match as if he were still responding to the question, urgent and assured. Sitting deep on the left of a midfield three, he dictated the play, spreading the ball out to the right to Kyle Walker, stretching the Russia defence out of shape. It was Rooney’s pass that started the move from which Adam Lallana nearly opened the scoring after seven minutes.
One glorious first-time crossfield pass to Harry Kane a few minutes later brought cheers of appreciation from the England fans who dominated the crowd at the Stade Velodrome
Rooney was a constant prompt using short passes to play around the Russians and helping England to outplay them utterly in the first half.
Rooney had a sight at goal in the first half with a volley which was punched away by the goalkeeper
With Rooney at their core, England looked sharper and quicker and more fluent than they have done for some time.
He seemed to have a liberating effect on other players, too, particularly Dele Alli and Raheem Sterling, who both caused their opponents endless problems.
Rooney was at the heart of everything they did as the probed and probed for the opening goal. He hit the post deep into the second half and just as it seemed the winner would never come, Dier smashed in his free kick.
England could not hold on, though, and after the final whistle, more trouble erupted in the stands as fans ran and scattered. It was a fitting end.
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