Braced for the hooligans, and nuclear attack

Fifty-seven years ago, Japan was preparing for a last-ditch stand against the "Devil English-Americans" poised to invade their islands. Ragged and hungry, Japanese made ready to fight us on the beaches with rusty swords and bamboo spears, farm tools and bottles of petrol. This time around the Americans won't be there - they play a different kind of football - but once again Japan, now high-tech and well-fed, is preparing to resist the old enemy in a new and baffling form - what Japanese police, radio and newspapers fearfully call "Engerish sokka hoorigans."

Anyone who thinks that Japan, as co-host with South Korea of the World Cup finals due to kick off on 31 May, is taking the threat lightly hasn't watched Japanese TV lately. Night after night viewers have seen exciting sequences of the Japan riot police taking on other policemen pretending to be football hooligans who, for extra realism, wear white shirts with three red lions, wave Union Jacks and shout things like "WE VELLY TOUGH CHAPS" (after a gentlemanly protest by the British Embassy, the pretend hooligans now wear more varied outfits). The police, who script these shows, always win, of course.

Last Saturday 1,600 riot police tested new tactics and equipment, including rocket propelled nets, plastic shields marked "Police" (in English) said to be capable of deflecting bullets and knife thrusts and clubs doubling as fire extinguishers in a dress rehearsal in Osaka, where England plays Nigeria on 12 June. On the day, Osaka stadium will deploy 11,000 riot policemen from all over Japan, the biggest concentration ever for a single event. (Some 8,500 tickets have been sold to England supporters).

On Sunday police and firemen in Sapporo where England plays Argentina on 7 June practised combating nuclear fallout and anthrax attack, although critics point out that football hooligans have not so far used these weapons.

"There's always a first time," the local police chief was quoted as saying, grimly. On Monday the Japanese coastguard held its first-ever drill against seagoing hooligans supposed to have hijacked a car ferry, after drinking too much while watching football on TV and smashing up the saloon. Coastguards with riot shields and clubs boarded the ferry from patrol boats while - showing the new thinking behind the drill - a helicopter hovered overhead, subduing the pseudo-hooligans with its fierce rotor downdraught.

Are the Japanese over-reacting? And why have England fans been singled out as the specific danger? Simon Collier, a young trade and industry official and keen amateur footballer posted to the British Embassy in Tokyo as World Cup attach? (itself a world first for diplomacy) has issued a soothing "Advice to Traders" in Japanese explaining that the behaviour of British fans, "apart from a very few troublemakers", is more of a good-natured tradition than a menace to world peace. "Some supporters may be noisy and because of their size and number seem intimidating. But they should not be regarded as a threat," says the embassy document, widely distributed in Japan.

"English supporters tend to move around in groups. Before a match they like to stake out a bar or area of a park or square, sometimes draping it with England flags.

"They like to drink beer and sing songs to build up their sense of anticipation. Many will wear the England team shirt - they are proud of their country and want others to know it."

Despite Rupert Brooke (a poet unknown in Japan) - "there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England" - the embassy's handout reassures Japanese that the occupation will be only temporary.

"After a match supporters tend to be tired after all the excitement of the match. They might go for one last drink to celebrate or commiserate and to analyse the game in great detail. But after that they will go back to their hotel to sleep. This is true whether England wins or loses." To help the day's play end happily, the embassy adds some wise advice: in Japan drinkers refill each other's glasses without being asked and get the bill as they leave, whereas the British prefer to pay round for round as they go along, a ploy Japanese bartenders might will adopt for the cup.

Japan Air Lines, famous for free drinks on long flights, has decided that all its internal flights will be dry for the duration of the tournament.

Why all this uneasiness, verging on sporting overkill? Quite simply, football hooliganism, even the fun kind, is unknown in Japan. True, there have been many street demonstrations - but over politics, not over games. These are rituals more than confrontations, and in 40 years there has been only one death, that of a policeman killed by a stone dropped from the bell-tower of Tokyo University in the anti-Vietnam era. Why anyone would save £600 and fly half-way round the world to risk, much less to enjoy a punch-up baffles Japanese academics and law officers.

A study from the University of Aberdeen (where else?) widely read in Japan, suggests that hooliganism came before football, when the young men of the village gathered on the green to burn off excess adrenalin decided that it would be better to kick a ball rather than each other around. It may, therefore, be here to stay. But young Japanese much prefer calm, order and discipline, even in having a good time.

Will Japan get its money's worth on TV? Pitted against Russia, Tunisia and Belgium, their footballers have little hope for the Cup. Their riot police, however, should make it 3-0 against world-class hooligans. Even ours.