They fought them on the beaches, they fought them on the streets. England came to the World Cup and it was, well, it was different and it was ugly.
There is a pattern to World Cup match days in the sun-kissed towns of France. Fans pouring into the railway station from early morning onwards, a carnival of face painting, scarf swapping, ticket scalping, beer drinking and communal singing.
Outside the Gare Saint-Charles yesterday the CRS buses had bars on the windows and black teargas masks hung from hooks within. The riot squad police were swarming like bluebottles and the local taxi drivers were staying at home.
There is something unique and disturbing about the blanket of sourness which English football fans carry around with them. They live down to their choleric reputation in every possible way. The usual caveats are necessary but they don't suffice. It is a minority but it is a persistent minority permitted to fester and grow by its own peers.
Any large group of well-tanked young men in football shirts and gang formation will intimidate a local populace when it arrives in town singing and chanting. Irish fans have done it unconsciously for years. There was a lovely afternoon in Lichtenstein a few years ago, spoiled slightly when the trembling citizens of Essen seemed unable to distinguish between the chanting green hordes marching outside their windows and the images they had seen on television through the years. If you looked you could see fear and loathing on their faces.
Irish fans, in common with most other countries', are self-regulating, however. There's always someone to "hold me back". Voices of reason always prevail. Hands are outstretched in friendship. They leave a good taste behind. With England it's different. Uniquely different.
On the train down to Marseille yesterday the man behind the breakfast counter was having a tough time. A career spent quietly dispatching cafe au lait and croissants had left him unprepared for the task of regulating the dozens of English fans who were suffering from acute early morning thirst.
He served the cans of Heineken as quickly as his arms would let him, smiling incomprehensibly at the abuse and banging fists on the counter. Eventually they began shaking their cans before opening them and spraying the poor man with foam when they tugged the ring pull. It was a small, cruel incident and no voice from within the peer group put a stop to the humiliation.
Little surprise then that the violence which had scarred Marseille on Sunday night had sporadic companion pieces all day yesterday. On the Avenue de Prado the bars weren't full, they were annexed and colonised, ringing to the tunes of the lumpen. If it wasn't for the English you'd be krauts. No surrender to the IRA. Get your tits out for the lads.
There were baton charges in the streets around the ground before and after the game. There was even trouble as the action unfolded. Down on the Plage de Prado where the French, in a gesture of charming innocence, had set up a party for those fans with no tickets there was trouble. Tunisians watching the match were attacked by a rampaging English mob when Alan Shearer scored England's opening goal.
The selling of alcohol in Marseille was banned after the match but within an hour the batons were drawn and the teargas was wafting down the avenues. There was a seething ugliness everywhere, shops shuttered, windows broken, riot police crouching in sidestreets.
At the heart of World Cups, away from the money and the television there is a soul of lovely innocence. People from all corners watching football and swapping colours. Another piece of that world disappeared in Marseille over the past couple of days.