Up to 100 England fans held in Stuttgart

Up to 100 England supporters were detained in Stuttgart overnight for mostly drunken and aggressive behaviour as they gathered for Sunday's second-round World Cup match with Ecuador, police said on Saturday.

A spokesman for the city's police, Stefan Keilback, said 113 fans were held in the centre of the city after drinking heavily and throwing tables and bottles.

"There were no hooligans, just drunk people," he said.

A spokeswoman for Britain's Home Office working in Germany said she had been told there were 80 detentions mostly for preventative reasons due to drunkenness.

She said the trouble involved England and Tunisian fans.

Under German law police can detain individuals for threatening behaviour or if they suspect they are likely to commit a crime.

Some 60,000 England fans are expected to descend on Stuttgart for Sunday's match.

BRITISH PRAISE

Stephen Thomas, the head of the British police team working in Germany, praised the Stuttgart police for their actions on Saturday night, saying the fans were singing racist and abusive songs.

Also Read Feature: Stars out of Africa Let the samba begin! The rich, the famous, and the great game Ronaldo back to his best? Tell us! Vieira, the French toast

"Some 300 to 400 fans were drinking in Stuttgart centre at 6pm and by 1am about 100 were left. They refused to disperse and the police here quite rightly took them into custody," he told the BBC.

"They acted fully in conjunction with ourselves and I, in fact, made the final decision (for them to be detained).

"We gave them lots of opportunities to disperse ... they were preventative arrests."

The English have a long history of soccer-related violence but there has been little trouble in Germany so far, with only a small number of arrests for mostly drunken behaviour or people trying to get into a stadium without a ticket.