Throughout the day on Friday, the mayor of Liverpool and club officials begged fans not to congregate in the city for a second, full night of celebrations. Their pleas were ignored as thousands congregated on Liverpool’s waterfront to sing, share beers, hug and, inexplicably, to aim fireworks at the city’s iconic Liver Building…

One of Liverpool’s most prominent supporters, the former football editor of The Times of London who has written several books on the club, was among those who said the fears were both unfounded and offensive.

“The authorities believe that fans, like lemmings, will pour out of their houses, spit in the face of social distancing and gather like morons,” Tony Evans wrote on Twitter in May. “People who would never thing of doing stuff like this in a million years accept that those neanderthals who support Liverpool or Leeds will pour into the streets and spray drunken spittle at each other. Yeah, right. Give people a bit of credit.”

On Saturday morning, he returned to social media to explain that the situation in the country had now changed, and other groups had already seemed to abandoned social distancing. “The behavior of some LFC fans appalls me. But stupidity has no colours,” he wrote.