How Egypt's revolution descended into tragedy on night of violence in Port Said "The whole concept of any independent organisation didn't exist, not unions, not political parties," he said. Then we started to organise football ultras ... to them it was the youth, in big numbers -- very smart people -- who could mobilise themselves quickly. Violence has long been part of Egyptian football, and not all of it had its roots in opposition. The Ahly-Zamalek derby, one steeped in age old nationalist antagonisms as much as proximity, has often provoked clashes between the fans as much as the police. So much so that the match is played at the neutral Cairo International Stadium and foreign referees take change of the matches. Ayman Younis, a former Egyptian international, played for Zamalek in the 1980s and 90s and remembers how the passions would sometimes rise to terrifying levels. He said: "In 1990 I found my BMW car on its side and they had signed it "Ahly Fans." And that was when we lost 2-0, but they remembered that I scored in the first game earlier in the season. On another occasion 5,000 opposition fans turned up at his house. Yet it was in 2009 that the frustrations in Egyptian football made global headlines. A World Cup qualifier between Egypt and Algeria already had bad blood. In 1990, when the two teams met for a World Cup play-off, which Egypt surprisingly won, riots broke out following fighting on the pitch. Egypt's team doctor lost an eye after being bottled, allegedly, by a member of the Algerian team. When the two teams met 19 years later the government-controlled press reminded everyone of the slight, raising the pressure before the game. Mubarak had often wrapped himself in the flag of the national team, the most successful in African history and holders of the Africa Cup of Nations, to boost his popularity. So much so that ultras like Assad refused to support the national team. The negative, anti-Algerian press led to violence, specifically when the Algerian team bus was attacked and several of the players injured. Government-controlled media reported that the Algerian players had injured themselves. When Algeria eventually beat Egypt, riots broke out in Cairo, Khartoum, Algiers, the south of France, even London. Ambassadors were recalled. Colonel Gaddafi even offered to mediate between the two countries. What had started as a football match ended in a diplomatic incident. Little over a year later, Mubarak was gone thanks to the January revolution with the ultras playing their part in his downfall. For the first time the ultra groups of Al Ahly and Zamalek joined forces and marched in their thousands to Tahrir Square. With few groups in Egyptian society having any experience of resisting the police, the ultras found themselves on the front line. We are fighting them [the police] in every match. We know them," Ahmed, a leader of Zamalek's Ultras White Knights group, told me last April. We know when they [the police] run, when we should make them run. We were teaching them [the protesters] how to throw bricks. The détente did not last. With the hated police retreating from the grounds, 2011 saw a huge rise in violence. In April, when Al Ahly last travelled to Port Said to play Al Masri, 20 people were injured when riots broke out between both sets of fans at the train station. The Al Ahly team complained that their bus was attacked by rocks and the Egyptian FA even considered cancelling the league. Now as pictures emerge of bloodstained seats few in Egypt believe this was a tragic accident or the result of brutal football thuggery. Many questions remain. Why did the police watch on as Al Masri fans stormed the pitch? Why were the gates left locked? Why did many of Al Masri's fans apparently carry weapons? The answer for many ultras lies with the military council who rule the country. As Assad said after escaping the carnage: "It's the army and police["s] way to get back at the ultras for our stand against them in the revolution." James Montague is the author of When Friday Comes: Football in the War Zone, a book about football and politics in the Middle East.