Ranking every club in England by how many fans were arrested last season | OneFootball

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Football fans have earned a reputation for causing trouble. Not all spectators of course, but a very loud minority use match days as an excuse to act like idiots, and it almost always results in a run-in with the law. Police are certainly no strangers to arresting fans at football games and a recent survey has revealed which clubs had the most fans arrested throughout last season.

It's no crown any club wants to claim, but unfortunately, one club has to have had more fans arrested than anyone else. It's not a reflection on the team, but on the fans that follow them. Without further ado then, let's look at the results and identify some of the biggest talking points.

West Ham United are top again

For the second year in a row, West Ham United's fan base had the most arrests, with 89 spectators being taken in by the police over the course of last season. The news comes after the Hammers claimed to have put in place improved and robust systems on match days in order to deal with issues.

In terms of the arrests, 23 were made for throwing missiles within stadiums, a number far higher than any other fan base. Another 27 arrests were made for public disorder. The club aren't the only Premier League club at the top of the list, though. In fact, four of the big six are among the six worst fan bases in terms of arrests.

Where do the big six rank?

Due to the sheer size of their fan bases in comparison to some of the smaller clubs on the list, several of the big six teams are fairly close to the top. Just behind West Ham with 83 arrests is Manchester United. Considering the volume of protests the fan base has conducted in recent years, it's no surprise to see them rank highly.

Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham are also in the top six of the list. Chelsea come in at 12th avoiding the top 10 by the slightest of margins, while Liverpool are by far the most behaved of the big six fan bases, sitting way down in 24th. To put into perspective how well-behaved the Anfield faithful is in comparison to some of the other sides in England, teams like Plymouth and Bolton Wanderers, clubs with much smaller fan bases had more arrests than the Reds last year.

Fulham have the least arrests in the entire Premier League

In their first season back in the Premier League, Fulham exceeded expectations and had a great campaign, and it seems their fans did too. The Cottagers' fan base had almost no arrests throughout the year and didn't even reach double figures. They had fewer arrests than the likes of Rochdale, Oxford United, Gillingham, Port Vale and Swindon Town.

That's quite astonishing considering the size differential of the clubs' fan bases but is a shining indication of how little trouble the Cottager's fans cause during match days. They aren't the best-behaved fan base, though, not by a long shot.

There were 11 teams with zero arrests all year

With the report covering every team in the English Football League and the National League, there were 116 teams included in the list and 11 of them didn't see a single fan arrested all season. That's an incredible achievement and highlights the incredible support that certain teams have without feeling the need to cause any trouble.

The teams who didn't have a single fan arrested are, Altrincham, Sutton United, Boreham Wood, Eastleigh, Gateshead, Harrogate Town, Morecambe, Salford City, Solihull Moors, Woking and Yeovil Town. Not one arrest between those 11 teams is pretty impressive. With movies like Green Street and Football Factory pretty much-glorifying football hooliganism and violence on match days between fan bases, it's a breath of fresh air to see these teams go the entire campaign without one arrest.

The number of arrests around the country is the highest in almost a decade

While those 11 teams can boast to not having a single fan arrested, it seems more fans were taken in by the police throughout last season than any other year in the last decade. It's not quite an all-time high number, but 2,264 fans were arrested last season, more than the 2,198 the year before and more than every year all the back to 2013/14.

The figure that year was 2,273, nine more than the season just gone. The highest total of arrests in a season came in 2010/11 when 3,089 fans were caught causing trouble by the police.

The number of hate crimes reported actually fell, though

One positive, though, is the number of hate crimes reported at football matches last year actually dropped, indicating things were heading in the right direction on that front. In 2021/22, 384 hate crimes were reported during football games, while the number dropped slightly to 370 this year.

The number of race hate crimes significantly dropped, with 248 reported incidents far less than the 383 the year prior which is very encouraging. Unfortunately, the number of crimes aimed at sexual orientation actually rose last season. 119 incidents of sexual orientation hate crime were reported throughout the year which is 13 more than the previous year's 106.

The entire report shows that there's still so much work to do and there are still a small portion of football fans who think it's acceptable to abuse people due to their ethnicity, race or sexual orientation and that's a disappointing revelation. With numerous campaigns out against hate right now, one can only hope these sorts of numbers dwindle in the future and crimes like these can be considered a thing of the past at some point.

So, what about the entire list of all 116 teams then? Want to see where your team ended up? Well, don't worry, we've got you covered. The entire list of all 116 sides is available here. Or, alternatively, we have compiled our very own list of the top 25 below.