TWO football matches were affected by crowd trouble at this year’s Varsity.

The men’s 1sts football, played on the Talybont astroturf, was abandoned around five minutes before the end of the second half when the crowd turned on a linesman.

Bottles and a flare were thrown on the pitch, at which point, the referee called an end to the match.

The following intramural match saw scuffles when Cardiff fans behind Swansea goalkeeper Luis Escott threw a bottle at him.

Ben Swanson, intramural secretary, said: “Luis ignored the Cardiff supporters and threw the bottle off the pitch.

“The Cardiff fans, then squared up to Luis who again did nothing to antagonise them.

“This confrontation caused numbers of fans from both sides to run around to behind the goal and several more ran onto the pitch.

“More bottles and cans were thrown as well as punches from both sides.

“The referee, with the help of his stand-in linesman and intramural treasurer Daniel Lewis, managed to control the situation and the game was completed which I was very surprised about.

“A lot of credit should go to the referee for completing the game as he could have easily abandoned it as his colleague had done previously which would’ve been devastating following our hard work which earned us a 4-3 victory.”

No police were called in either incident.

No one from the athletic union has been able to comment.

But Mr Swanson added: “It was really disappointing to see so much stupidity from fans from both sides and it would have been the players who suffered most of all.”