Soccer players may need to be protected from spectators if incidents of crowd trouble are to be prevented, a leading coach has declared.

The comments from Scott Morton, of North Village, come in light of violence at Sunday's Martonmere Cup match between Somerset and the Red Devils at BAA Field.

The fracas erupted after an incident involving Trojans' Paul Maybury and the Village's Vernon Tankard.

Tankard took exception to a bad foul by Maybury, lashing out with his leg, and the latter responded by knocking Tankard out cold.

Both players were sent off but worse was to come when members of the crowd launched an attack on Maybury and Somerset's assistant coach Gary (Tuba) Mallory in an act of revenge.

Police were called to the scene and restored order, but the incident could have repercussions for the future.

Morton said while he had yet to discuss the matter with the chairman of the North Village Sports Association, the time may be fast approaching where spectators, club officials and players have to be separated by more than a line of rope.

Continued on page 23 Coach reacts to violence Continued from page 21 "It's unfortunate that in Bermuda the supporters are so close to the players that we cannot prevent these types of situations because all the grounds are basically the same,'' said Morton.

But he went on: "There needs to be something, for example when the players are coming onto and off the field for substitutions, sending offs and whatever -- some type of barricade or secure area..so that the spectators are not within an arm's reach of them.'' The coach said while regrettable, Saturday's incident had to be placed in context.

"Because it happens in Bermuda we say the state of soccer is getting worse and all we do is talk negative about it. But when you look at it it's happening all around the world,'' he said.

"I'm not justifying what has taken place but it's not just in Bermuda that it's happening.'' Returning to the initial incident, Morton said Tankard's injuries were not as bad as first thought.

"He had to get some stitches in his mouth, but doesn't have a broken jaw or anything like that -- so he's pretty much straight,'' he said.

"I haven't heard or know of any action that would be taken on behalf of the club concerning any matter, but I'll be addressing the situation directly with the sports chairman to see how we can prevent such incidents in the future.'' Meanwhile, president of the Bermuda Football Association, Neville Tyrrell, described the whole incident as "disturbing''.

"The BFA will obviously look into the situation and see why this thing exactly reached the level it did. But again spectators getting involved in something they shouldn't have been involved in clearly shows we all need to know where our boundaries are and stay within them,'' he said.

Tyrrell said such scenes certainly did nothing to help counter the current shortage of match officials.

"As it is we are chronically short of referees and with each incident that happens like this I am sure the person in the middle must be saying to himself `Do I really need to continue to do this?','' he said.

A Police spokeswoman said while officers attended the incident, no charges would arise out of it.

"There isn't going to be any further police involvement in this,'' she said.

"We did attend the scene, neither one of the persons involved wished to make a complaint so that's it.'' The Royal Gazette was unable to contact Somerset coach, Norbert Simons yesterday afternoon.