Are we on the brink of a new age of football hooliganism? The events in East London on Tuesday night will have shocked those who thought that the problems of the 1970s and 1980s were long gone. Was the anarchy outside the Boleyn Ground a throwback to a more brutal age or a foretaste of thuggery?

Fans of Millwall and West Ham United are seminal figures in hooligan culture. The BBC Panorama programme highlighted the mechanics of Millwall’s mobs in 1977, giving details of the Treatment, F-Troop and the Halfway Line, three distinct gangs who prowled Cold Blow Lane.

West Ham fans seized the initiative in the early 1980s as the Inter City Firm (ICF) reinvented hooliganism. The ICF became a household name, its members having an eye for publicity: they pioneered calling cards that were left on victims.

Another documentary, this time on ITV and simply called Hooligan, left a generation of mid-1980s wannabe thugs copying the West Ham crews and created a cottage industry in crude business cards.

Times Archive, 1967: Hooligans on the terraces

Trouble and arrests at Millwall and West Ham

• Panorama: F-Troop, Treatment and the Half-Way Line, 1977

• Inter City Firm: faceless men of violence, 1983

Related Links

• Drink and poor policing blamed for West Ham riot

• Foul

• Football should not beat itself up

The 2005 movie Green Street, starring Elijah Wood, fictionalised West Ham hooligans in fights with, among others, those from Millwall.

So West Ham v Millwall is the Cup Final of hooliganism, and those fixated with football violence were eagerly awaiting this match. In East London and south of the River it was more simple — a rare chance to get at traditional rivals and gain bragging rights. Many of those who took part in Tuesday’s trouble would have been involved back in the 1980s. For some, this would have been their first opportunity in years. Rising ticket prices and the changing nature of the sport have turned many into armchair fans. A night like this, though, is hard for an ageing hooligan to resist. Many will have “come out of retirement” for one night only. The 44-year-old who was stabbed may be completely innocent but plenty of his contemporaries were involved in the trouble.

For the youngsters, this was a chance to experience the mass battles they have read so much about in the “Hoolie-lit” genre. Scores of middle-aged chancers have produced books which detail their adventures in the 1970s and 80s. Most of the content is mock-heroic, exaggerated nonsense, but the young bucks in the stands of today devour the barely literate pages and dream of emulating the authors and experiencing the mad glamour that comes from creating mayhem.

Those who feel alienated by the way the game has moved upmarket will see this battle as a call to arms. There is a belief that a resurgence in trouble at matches will scare the middle classes and corporate diners away from the game and return it into the hands of its traditional constituency. This line of argument contends that battling inside and around the grounds would make football less palatable to Sky, eventually causing the broadcaster to withdraw its riches from the sport. Wages and profits in football would then fall, as would ticket prices. It is a fatuous argument but represents a warped moral justification for punching strangers.

Hooliganism is not coming back because it has never gone away. Closed-circuit television and policing tactics keep it largely underground. Tuesday will give the scene a boost but nights like this should remain rare. But the threat is still there.

Times Recommends

• UK regional accents thrive against the odds
• ‘Scarecrow’ wind farms put rare birds to flight
• What an anti-climax: G-spot is a myth