The only problem with this account, supplied by West Midlands police in support of a highly sensitive decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from travelling to a match at Villa Park last November, is that this week an independent review by the chief inspector of constabulary, Andy Cooke, concluded that much of it is either exaggerated or flat wrong. (Dutch police told his inspectors that they deployed 1,200 officers, had reports regarding one flag and one taxi driver, and that a Maccabi fan was in fact thrown into a canal, seemingly by members of a pro-Palestinian group).