And we thought drunken thugs clashing around a soccer match was an sight that had been relegated to history.

Not when England is involved, especially overseas. Especially in France. Especially in Marseille.

English louts who reportedly had been drinking all day attacked/were attacked/counter-attacked in an atmosphere of beer-fueled chaos near the Old Port of France’s second city as the European Championship opened in Paris.

It reminded more than a few of us, of an age to remember, the so-called Battle of Marseille between England fans and Tunisia fans, which also brought chaos to France’s biggest southern city, at the 1998 World Cup.

This is still unfolding, but the photos from the scene, and the reports of clashes between Russian fans and England fans, and perhaps some France fans, too, make for extraordinary viewing.

It was like going back in time, to the era of Among the Thugs, when soccer matches involving English teams were an invitation to get profoundly drunk and brawl. The book came out in 1990, when hooliganism was a pernicious problem in England.

Apparently, organizers in France and England — and perhaps Russia, too — have forgotten the risks of hundreds of mostly young men causing chaos in city centers ahead of a soccer match.

In this case, England versus Russia, tomorrow night.

The authorities perhaps will concede that they have spent so much time and energy trying to forestall terror attacks at the world’s second-biggest soccer tournament that they overlooked the historic scourge of madness that often follows traveling England fans.

It appears that a minority of an estimated 25,000 England fans who traveled to France spent their time drinking heavily, singing insulting and/or nationalistic songs.

It was understandable that French police would want to break up groups of people roaming the streets; they have terrorists to follow, too. They sent tear gas towards the carousing fools, who threw bottles at the cops, leading to some of the fans telling English media that the French police overreacted.

The Daily Mail quoted a French chef as saying of the rampaging England fans: “What are they doing? This is madness. We have come for the football and it seems they have come for the fighting.”

Another suggested that “sun and alcohol” drive England fans to madness. They had plenty of both at Marseille.

This will not just go away. Officials in England are obliged to look in to this, because it is an embarrassment to England, European football and global soccer.

Violence at soccer tournaments was supposed to have become a thing of the past. Clearly, we were wrong in thinking that.