A POLICE FOOTBALL spotter has been praised for his role in helping to stamp out English football hooliganism abroad.

Dc Huw James, who used to be Oxford’s football intelligence officer, was handed a Presidential Commendation at a Thames Valley Police award ceremony, on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

The former Cowley constable has spent the last three years on secondment to the UK Football Policing Unit, run by the Home Office, working to cut trouble involving England fans abroad.

It was the unit’s job to oversee the gathering of intelligence about possible trouble and share it with other European countries.

Officers also followed the England team and helped police in other countries keep the peace at games.

Among his career highlights was travelling to the World Cup in South Africa this year, where he was based at Johannesburg and Pretoria, controlling a team of spotters with video cameras.

A father-of-three, Dc James, who was inspired to work as a spotter after helping police Oxford United games, said: “In South Africa, we knew there could be some problems but the supporters behaved brilliantly.

“There were only seven arrests during the World Cup – which weren’t football related – so it was clearly a success.”

Football disorder has plummeted in the last 10 years since the introduction of football banning orders in 2000, which ban troublemakers from domestic and international games for a set period.

It followed mass disorder at Euro 2000 in Belgium and Holland, where fans ran riot, culminating in almost 1,000 arrests.

He has also policed the World Cup in Germany in 2006 and has followed the England team all over the world, including Kazakhstan, Belarus and France, meeting players such as David Beckham and John Terry.

Dc James said: “There has been a huge shift in how we stop violence inside and outside the ground. It really did have a massive impact.

“Now, if you are a football supporter abroad and you create disorder or seek disorder there is a big chance you will be identified and banned from games.”

Dc James, 42, became a football intelligence officer in 2002, keeping the peace at Oxford United games at home and away. He is now based at the Thames Valley Police training centre in Sulhampstead in Berkshire, helping to run intelligence courses.

He said: “I feel very privileged to receive the award and to have been able to go abroad to represent the British police service.”