The iconic Witton Road near Villa Park was noticeably devoid of its usual claret and blue hues this Thursday.

Instead, the street was lined with Palestinian flags, showcasing the red, green, white, and black colors on every lamppost.

Cardboard signs displayed bold messages like “No war games allowed” and “If you see a Zionist call the anti-terror hotline.”

Passersby heading to the local mosque noticed one placard condemning Israel for “shooting babies in Gaza and playing games in Birmingham.”

This was the scene greeting Maccabi Tel Aviv as their team bus slowly made its way through the streets of the UK’s second-largest city. Menacing figures in balaclavas had put up hundreds of confrontational signs overnight, including a banner on a motorway bridge demanding, “Kick Israel out of Fifa.”

By the time Maccabi arrived at the stadium, two lively protests had already started on opposite sides of the prestigious football venue.

One was staged by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a Corbynist alliance whose foot-soldiers have been taking to the streets of London on an almost weekly basis since the Gaza conflict kicked-off.

Its thousands of supporters carried signs promising to ‘Show genocide the red card’ and ‘Keep the racist scum out of Brum’.

By the time Maccabi Tel Aviv arrived, two noisy protests were getting underway on separate sides of this grand football stadium

Our Fight protesters carried Israeli flags and placards arguing, among other things, that their opponents were ‘extremists’ motivated by anti-Semitism

A group of pro-Palestine protesters wave placards and flags outside Villa Park

Israeli fans pictured watching the action in Holon, Israel

The other, smaller demo was organised by Our Fight, a Jewish protest group offering what it described as ‘solidarity’ to Maccabi fans. Its members carried Israeli flags and placards arguing, among other things, that their opponents were ‘extremists’ motivated by anti-Semitism.

Separating the warring tribes were 700 nervous-looking police officers, including many in riot gear. They’d been flooding the local streets since lunchtime, when local schools closed early in anticipation of trouble, and a temporary no-fly zone, plus orders permitting stop and search, came into force.

Police arrested six people before the match started, three on suspicion of racially-aggravated public order offences.

The total would rise to 11 by the end of the night, with police keeping powers to stop and search until 3am. 

The tense scenes marked the culmination of an utterly toxic dispute which kicked-off last month, when Maccabi’s travelling fans were banned from attending the Europa League clash.

Officially, the decision to effectively blacklist them hinged on ‘safety concerns’.

West Midlands Police said that the presence of large numbers of supporters from the world’s most famous Jewish football club might antagonise the local Muslim community, who make up roughly two-thirds of residents in the suburbs surrounding Villa Park. The game was therefore branded ‘high risk’.

That was the official story, at least. But in practice, the whole thing had revolved around politics. Or to be more precise, a highly sectarian strain of politics which has, in recent years, been on the rise in many of our major cities.

At its centre is Ayoub Khan, a local MP who defected from the Liberal Democrats to contest the 2024 general election on a pro-Gaza ticket. He defeated Labour’s incumbent Khalid Mahmood, overturning a 15,000-vote majority in the process.

Every lamppost had been adorned with the red, green, white and black flags of Palestine. Below them were cardboard placards bearing such punchy slogans as ‘No war games allowed’

A row of demonstrators wave Palestinian flags in front of a screen

Imam Asrar Rashid addresses the protest against Maccabi Tel Aviv

In common with many of his fellow political travellers, Khan takes the view that hosting Israeli teams amounts to legitimising ‘genocide’. He began campaigning against Maccabi Tel Aviv’s visit from the moment it emerged that Villa would be playing them.

Thanks to a couple of powerful allies, including at least two anti-Israeli politicians who sit on Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group, which licences matches, he was able to convince local lawmakers that the Israeli club’s fans, who have a reputation for occasional hooliganism, represented a threat to public safety.

This sparked criticism from the top of politics. Sir Keir Starmer declared the ban on away fans ‘wrong’. He said: ‘We will not tolerate anti-Semitism on our streets’ and stated that all supporters should be able to attend games ‘without fear or intimidation’.

Yet despite being Prime Minister, he seems to have been powerless to overturn the ban in the three weeks that followed its announcement. 

Meanwhile, the Israeli government has labelled the situation ‘shameful’ while Kemi Badenoch thinks it’s a ‘national disgrace’.

Before kick-off, I bumped into Khan outside the Trinity Road stand, where he was preparing to address protesters. 

If he had his way, he said, the whole match would have been cancelled: ‘We’ve done it with Russia. We’ve done it with South Africa and apartheid. So I think there needs to be consistency and the right moral decision is not to allow Israel to play in any tournament.’

Regarding Starmer’s remarks, he added: ‘This has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with policy and principle and then has everything to do with safety and hooligans. It’s a disgrace that Keir Starmer raised anti-Semitism. He’s weaponising religion.’

The tense scenes marked the culmination of an utterly toxic dispute which kicked-off last month, when Maccabi’s travelling fans were banned from attending the Europa League clash 

A fan points at a rival supporter as tensions mount in the minutes before kick-off

Police officers on horses attempt to keep the crowd under control ahead of the fixture

That view certainly has many supporters in Khan’s constituency, which includes neighbourhoods around Villa Park and is one of the most deprived areas of the UK. 

Once a white, working-class neighbourhood, it’s nowadays 70.2 per cent Muslim, according to the last census.

Shops cater almost entirely to the community, with halal butchers and fried chicken shops next to travel agents offering ‘umrah [pilgrimage] packages’ and money-transfer services to Bangladesh.

Khan’s former office, where he worked at a solicitor before entering Parliament (intriguingly, it’s on a street near Ozzy Osbourne’s childhood home) is now a shop offering ‘Muslim marriage events – professional matchmaking services.’

While many locals, including Khan, support Villa, the community in which they live is a world away from the glamorous high-octane world of the Premier League, not to mention the world inhabited by most of the club’s fans (who include Prince William and David Cameron).

The ticket-holders I ran into seem largely horrified at the manner in which their team’s European campaign has been politicised.

‘I definitely had to think twice about coming tonight,’ said Ryan Thomas, a 33-year-old season ticket holder from Erdington, who was enjoying a pre-match pint in the Witton Arms.

‘All the online propaganda makes me uneasy. I’ve seen the videos of people with masks on their faces putting up signs. It’s not what we are about.’

Hours before kick-off, hundreds of police officers, as well as scores of riot vans, dog units and drones took their positions in Birmingham

A solo Maccabi fan is escorted by police along the roads by Villa Park

Crowds of pro-Israel demonstrators marched through the streets of Birmingham in the lead-up to kick-off

People holding banners in support of Palestine rub shoulders with rows of police officers outside Villa Park

Thomas, who paid £35 for his seat in the Lower Holte End, reckoned the ground would end up being roughly half full.

‘A lot of people are staying away. There’s a real stigma about going. They don’t feel safe. I know people with elderly parents who’d usually come but won’t risk it. People with kids.

‘There’s an uneasy atmosphere, and I won’t feel entirely safe until I am actually in the ground.’

As the kick-off approached, anti-Israeli protesters were contained in Aston Park, next to the stadium. Their chants were, however, drowned out by the stadium disc jockey, who played music at high volume to entertain fans within the concourse.

On the other side of the ground, the Mail came across a small group of Maccabi fans.

One, who gave his name as Yusef, pointed out that his club has players of Jewish, Christian and Arab heritage and said that he’d travelled to Villa Park to ‘stand against hate’.

While he’d decided to respect the stadium ban, Yusef intended to watch the game from a nearby pub. 

‘We need to stand against the fact that people who just want to come and watch football in England have been stopped because they are Jews, they are Israelis,’ he said.

Separating the warring tribes were 700 nervous-looking police officers, including many in riot gear 

A large Palestine flag is unfurled in the shadow of the Premier League ground on Thursday night

Demonstrators wave placards opposing Maccabi’s involvement in the match and the arrival of their fans

Hundreds of police officers gather outside Villa Park before forming a cordon to prevent surges

A banner laid out on a green near to Villa Park, suggesting Israel should be banned by FIFA, football’s governing body

Thousands of pro-Palestine and pro-Israel fans head to Villa Park despite heightened police presence and Maccabi fans being banned from attending

‘This is 2025. We are going back to the 1940s all over again.’

Mark Wilton, who organised the Our Fight demonstration, meanwhile described the campaigners behind the travel ban as ‘lobbyists who are playing a political game to further their ends, which is to boycott Israel in the arts, politics, culture and now sport.’ 

He added: ‘At the end of the day, people just want to watch a football match. Where you stand on the war shouldn’t matter.

‘When the dust settles, people from Birmingham will, I hope, be thinking this doesn’t represent our city. Brits will be thinking this doesn’t represent our country. A football match shouldn’t be politicised.’

But it just has been.