This happened earlier in today’s Championship playoff match with Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United. Fan headbutts Billy Sharp out of nowhere.
I watched that last night when I went to bed. Awesome match and VERY testy. The ref was a regular EPL ref and he let an awful lot go that he shouldn't have.
Sheffield went down 3-1 on aggregate in the first half and started getting extra physical. At one point the Sheffield manager picked up a ball out of bounds and gave it to the Forest player to throw it in except it wasn't a gentle hand off. Instead he jammed it into his gut with all the force he could muster. That started a melee between both benches and finally ended with only a single yellow card to the manager. There was no VAR available otherwise he'd have surely been sent off. After that it got even more physical and the refs did a horrible job keeping it in check. There easily could have been a red card to each side in the 2nd half and only one of those offenses even drew a yellow.
The match ended up going to penalties to settle the tie and determine who would play for the promotion at Wembley. The Forest keeper save 3 of 4 shots against him (2 were spectacular saves and not even his 2 best of the match) to decide it. Afterward the fans descended on the pitch to celebrate like it was a college football game rushing the field after a huge upset.
Forest fans have been relegated below the Premiership for decades and now they're 90 minutes away from restoring themselves to where they were for nearly a century prior. I guarantee you there was some liquid courage involved in that attack, but also a healthy dose of genuine hatred after the way that match played out paired with decades of pent up frustration. I'm not making an excuse for the behavior; just trying to add some context to the short snippet of video.
I had a boss about 15 years ago who was a big Nottingham Forest supporter growing up, but gave up caring after the EPL got corporatized and clubs like Forest with tons of history were left in a place where they couldn't realistically compete. I worked for him again about 5 years ago and he still couldn't care less about English football. I texted him this morning about that match. Still nothing yet.
Anyway, I've been following them ever since Gareth told me about them (and I read about them briefly in a book called Soccernomics around the same time period) and really paid attention to their rise the last few years. This season was especially fascinating as they were near relegation early on this campaign before changing managers to achieve this success. I hope they can pull off promotion against Huddersfield.