Four football fans have been given sentences of up to three months in prison for throwing a rival team’s supporter over the railings during a match.

Trouble broke out during the Eredivisie game between Willem II and Feyenoord on October 16 when Feyenoord supporters who were sitting among the home fans celebrated a goal for their team. The Willem II fans attacked two men, throwing one of them out of the stand.

In court the four supporters of the Tilburg side said they had been ‘provoked’ by the Feyenoord fans. ‘He insulted us with the disease my father-in-law died of two weeks earlier,’ one of them said.

But the court said football fans had a ‘right to celebrate’ when their team scored. One of the defendants was jailed for three months, another for two weeks and the two others were given community work orders of 60 and 40 hours.

Feyenoord won the match 2-0.