The usual rousing crowd rivalry will be absent when Aston Villa play their Europa League home match against Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday, with the away stand empty of supporters.
The long-debated police decision to ban fans of the Israeli team on safety grounds – both their own and those of locals – was divisive.
What did it say about the UK if Jewish fans were not able to attend a football match without the threat of violence, either on the receiving end or dishing it out as some supporters of the team have been known to do?
The fallout crystallised touchpaper issues in many parts of Britain, but particularly Birmingham, where a third of the 1.1 million population is Muslim.
It has shone a spotlight on integration, immigration, racism, sectarianism and personality politics in Britain, exposing the challenges the government is wrestling with. Many fear that if that potent mix is handled badly, there is a threat of no-go zones or a return to the riots that scarred some towns in the 1980s. Last summer's attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers give a glimpse of what can happen.
Flag divide
The Islamic population of Birmingham has grown considerably since the first Kashmiris arrived shortly after the Second World War, with 341,000 Muslims registered in the city alongside more than 160 mosques.
That population has largely lived harmoniously with others but there has been a notable shift in the signals you pick up on the streets of Birmingham.
On a tour of the city during last year’s general election the only flags seen flying anywhere were Palestinian, as locals showed their support for Gaza in the war with Israel.
During a visit to Aston Villa's home ground, Villa Park, in the suburb of Aston this week, Union Jacks and St George’s flags flew from nearly every lamp post. They appeared after a Unite the Kingdom movement encouraged people to fly the flags in public spots in a show of nationalism. Debate has raged whether this is a harmless show of pride in the country or whether it sends a more insidious message that 'foreigners' are not welcome.
The prevalence of flags has echoes of Northern Ireland during The Troubles, when Unionist flags delineated pro-British areas and Irish tricolours republican ones. That was a grim sectarian conflict that saw more than 3,500 lives lost.
No one is suggesting that is what is in store for Birmingham, but there are troubling signs of intercommunity division.
Home turf
Coincidentally, Birmingham is the home city of the newly installed Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, the person ultimately responsible for law and order in the country. The Maccabi situation is embarrassing for her, not just because it is her home turf but because the Home Office was apparently told a ban on fans was imminent but took no action.
As a Muslim, she is all too aware of the issues that arise in places with a high ethnic population.
The 45-year-old MP for the Birmingham Ladywood constituency is regarded as Birmingham’s political chief, maintaining a strong influence on the local council and whose father was formerly chairman of the city’s local Labour Party.
But political observers in the city say that “she leads from the front end” in ensuring there is no sectarian approach to politics. “She's also very heavily involved in the internal politics of Birmingham and a lot of people think she is controlling things behind the scenes,” said one.
What Ms Mahmood and all Labour MPs are very conscious of is that following the Gaza conflict their seats are now at risk to Muslim independents, with the home secretary losing 40 per cent of her majority to an independent in last year’s election.
Three of the city's 10 MPs are Muslim, two are Labour and one an independent, the outspoken Ayoub Khan who took the seat off Ms Mahmood's former colleague Khalid Mahmood – no relation – who lost by just 507 votes, which has led to clashes.
Mahmood v Khan
Mr Khan led the campaign to prevent Maccabi fans from being allowed to attend the match, highlighting previous trouble including at a match in Amsterdam last year at which many Muslim locals were provoked before running battles took place. He has been accused of inflating the security concerns to enhance his own political power base, something he strenuously denies.
The area’s former Labour MP for 23 years, Mr Mahmood, says his successor has dangerously conflated football hooliganism with the Gaza conflict, telling The National the issue has been “inflamed” and “darkened the name of the Muslim community”.
“You don't over excite people, you don't inflame the situation, no matter how upset you are,” he said.
Mr Mahmood’s argument is that by starting a petition in September to stop the away fans coming, Mr Khan unduly influenced the decision.
“We’ve all got huge concerns about what happened in Gaza, but what you don't do is conflate sport with Gaza,” he said.
The issue had also led to a greater sectarianism in Birmingham, argued the former politician, “something I've fought against for a long time.”
Khan’s rebuke
Mr Khan is unrepentant in his views. “It's easy to call me sectarian, because they feel that by labelling me as that they can isolate me,” he told The National.
He accused every other politician of coming “out to support hooligans” from Maccabi whereas he "stood up for the communities that I serve and if I remain silent I'm not doing them justice”.
He called it disgraceful that the Muslim community had been “scapegoated” while other politicians had ignored the anti-Muslim behaviour of Maccabi fans, particularly in Amsterdam last year.
“The whole debate has been weaponised by using religion when it had nothing to do with religion,” he argued, saying it was made into a religious debate by some suggesting the Jewish supporters “will be attacked by Muslims”.
“So the British Muslims in Birmingham certainly feel like they've been singled out by mainstream politicians.”
Mr Khan campaigned against the Maccabi fans attending but he is very clear that no Israeli team should have been allowed in the competition given the country’s actions in Gaza.
“We should not entertain any Israeli athletes in this country. We've banned international teams before as we did in South Africa during apartheid and used isolation as a form of punishment in recognising a country’s human rights violations.”
He also denied that there was influence from the Muslim Brotherhood organisation, something that had been speculated.
Far-right calling
Once again, Britain’s simmering arguments over immigration and integration have been exposed by the likes of hard-right activist Tommy Robinson, seeking to exploit it to fit their own political needs.
Thus the anti-Islam campaigner was quick to don a Maccabi football shirt and post it to his many online followers, which likely played a part in prompting the Israeli team to ultimately say it would refuse any British offer of tickets for its fans. Clearly the club did not want its already tarnished reputation further damaged by hard-right thugs stirring up trouble in Birmingham.
But it is also not just the hard-right that have stirred the pot with the Conservatives' shadow justice minister Robert Jenrick – before the Maccabi ban – stating during a visit to the Handsworth area of Birmingham that he “didn't see another white face”, criticising the lack of integration.
That plays into the rightward drift of British – and European – politics in reaction to the large-scale migration over the last decade.
Ms Mahmood was largely appointed as home secretary because of her competence and hardline approach to immigration. She is charged with tackling the crisis of small boat crossings – nearly 37,000 so far this year – and the cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels. Those issues have dominated the news agenda, acting as a tool for populist politician Nigel Farage’s right wing Reform party to gain support. The issues have already driven some disorder.
Police intelligence
Back to the match, and there seemed a genuine prospect of the UK far-right joining Israeli fans and seeking to start trouble with the city’s Palestinian supporters.
Football insiders have told The National that the force’s information suggested “it was going to be bad” and their ability to protect the home and Maccabi fans, as well as police, with a likely pro-Palestinian protest was going to be “really difficult”.
“This was police intelligence, it wasn't necessarily political, but it has exposed a load of politics,” the football source added.
The Birmingham political insider said there were real concerns “over some massive protests that could lead to violence”. “Politicians have ignored that there is a very real possibility the police are right, that they cannot protect these fans,” he added.
Fans response
For the residents of Birmingham it has drawn an unwanted spotlight on the Muslim community, that was, according to people near Villa Park, largely indifferent to the Israeli fans coming.
“If the Israeli fans came here they would see we live in harmony together, peacefully,” said Saidur Miah, a car trader. “There's good and bad in every community, in Muslim communities and in Israeli communities,” he added. “But when people draw attention to Muslims like this it feels like it’s hurting us and they are trying to escalate the situation.”
Football fan Jabril, a teenager from Sweden, believed that Maccabi fans should have been let in to support their team. “There might have been trouble but the police could have handled it,” he said.
Waiting outside Villa Park was another football fan, Scott Vendy, who argued that the issue could also cast a shadow on England’s wish to host a World Cup.
“If the police are saying they can’t manage a small game like this, how are they going to manage a World Cup?” he said. “The problem is when you get politicians trying to get involved in football, it just gets messy.”
His view is clearly reflected in the tangle left behind in Birmingham where next Thursday’s game has become much more than a football match.
