Luton is an old industrial town that became home to the Irish who flocked there as a result of the recession of the 1950s here at home, with plentiful employment to be found at the airport, in hat making in the Plaiters Lea district, and of course in automobile production. Vauxhall’s plant employed thousands of Irish over the decades, right up until the last van rolled off the production line three weeks ago. There’s a famous saying that only those who have lived in Luton earn the right to criticise it. As someone who came from an Ireland that was on its knees in the 1980s, I have nothing bad to report about my time there, apart from the occasional racist reminder of where I came from. But it’s hard to go back without being reminded of one particular night in March 1985 – a night that changed the face of English soccer. I was visiting Luton that week to find my feet and accommodation in advance of starting work. My friend told me over a couple of drinks that he was thinking of heading to Kenilworth Road to the Luton Town-Millwall game that evening. He asked if I’d like to go. It should have been a ticket-only game, but not that night. You just paid at the stiles. It was a mistake that still haunts every decent supporter of ‘the beautiful game’. Two hours later, we found ourselves in the Oak Road End of the stadium. From the moment we left the pub, we could smell danger on the cold breeze. All day, the mood around the town had been ominous. There had been random spats of violence. Shop fronts at the nearby Arndale shopping centre had been vandalized by gangs of away supporters who had been drinking since early morning in pubs around St Pancras station in London. The sheer volume of Millwall supporters who made the journey, and their chanting and jeering, was making local supporters heading to the stadium very nervous. The terrified looks on the faces of fathers pulling their young sons closer to them as they navigated the slow-moving crowds said it all. Inside the stadium, the noise was so intense I had to put my hands over my ears. All the stands were at breaking point, they were so overcrowded. We watched in shock as gangs of Millwall supporters climbed over the fences and scrambled onto the pitch. Mobs started to invade the Bobbers Stand, pulling up empty seats and using them as missiles to fire down on Luton fans seated below. Coins and golf balls flew through the air, randomly striking anyone in their path. One man behind us collapsed, his face pouring with blood. I recall watching George Graham, Millwall’s manager, trying to reason with his supporters from the side of the pitch, only to turn and run when seats and debris were thrown at him from the stand above. I couldn’t believe how Luton’s goalkeeper, Les Sealy, whose home close-by had a knife thrown at it, carried on defending the home goal under the barrage of missiles and abuse from the Millwall supporters that rained down on him from behind the goal area. Play had to be suspended several times, while the stands were being stripped of anything that could be used as a weapon, and gangs of away supporters were chased off the pitch by the police and their dogs, who, at one point, were themselves chased into the tunnel by marauding thugs. One policeman who was trying to revive a colleague - who had stopped breathing after being hit on the head with a bottle - was himself punched and badly beaten. After the final whistle, the violence spilled out onto the Dunstable Road as the yobs were making their way back towards the railway station. House fronts and car windows were smashed. On the trains that had carried supporters out of London earlier that day, a British Rail spokesperson said: “It was like a bomb had exploded inside some of the carriages.” This was ultraviolence on a scale that no one could have imagined. It’s hard to believe not a single life was lost, either on the pitch or in the stands. No one expected that level of carnage. Luton manager, David Pleat, later described the scenes: There were people being carried away on stretchers, fans on the edge of the pitch and players constantly looking up at their families because billiard balls were being thrown at the directors’ box. "I can’t tell you much about the football, because there was so much else going on. It was completely out of control.” There have been few occasions when I feared for my life, to the extent that I thought I could die; that was one of them. It was the first game of English soccer I ever attended, and my last. I lost the magic that night and I haven’t ever been able to get it back. I don’t even enjoy watching a game on television, because all I hear from the stands are the same sickening racist songs. Racism is a perennial problem in soccer, but it's not just soccer. In April 2014, the Barcelona defender Dani Alves was about to take a corner in a match against Villarreal when a banana landed on the pitch in front of him. He won huge support globally when he picked it up, peeled it, and ate it. After the match, Alves said humour was the best way to combat racism in sport, which led to a spate of fellow players responding in solidarity by picturing themselves eating a banana. Irish sport might not have the scale of racist abuse that English competitors frequently face, but could that be because migrants who have made Ireland their home are reluctant to join the sports community here? Seeing what happens to people like racetrack sensation Rhasidat Adeleke (who is Irish), who became a target for online bigots last summer, is surely a factor. The absence of compassion leads to targeted prejudice – nothing else. Without compassion we are nothing other than supportive of racism. During my time in Luton, anti-Irish racism was rife in the UK. I was often stopped on my early morning drive to work by a policeman who hated the Irish. “Fenian Paddy” and “Provo sympathiser” were names he used to call me. One morning, he pulled in ahead of my car and forced me to stop. One of my headlights was broken, he informed me. I got out of the car and pointed out that both headlights were in perfect working order, at which point he produced his baton and smashed one of them. “Now it’s not working,” he replied smugly. An expensive repair job was paid for by the local constabulary, who apologised. No disciplinary action was taken against him. My late friend, the essence of compassion, was a Luton Town supporter all his life. There will be a seat empty at their home game against Coventry next Saturday. As he once said to me, there will always be racism in sport while fans simultaneously inhabit two parallel universes. When a home-loving family man with a respectable job and high standards becomes someone else purely by donning his football jersey and along with it, a teflon coating of prejudice that allows him to sing songs and chant hate that the other version of him wouldn't recognise.