When people talk of coincidences, they tend to be of the happy variety; or at least, if the opposite is true, they’re described with a wry smile. “You’ve planned a late-night shopping trip to Bluewater? I’m having two fillings that day as well. What a coincidence.”

But there are no smiles to be had about the unfortunate coincidental theme surrounding the football world this week. Monday’s stories surrounding a rather distasteful and upsetting email, allegedly accidentally sent by Garry Cook to Nedem Onuoha’s mother disparaging her battle with cancer, were followed by the death of football fan Mike Dye outside Wembley prior to the England vs Wales game on Tuesday.

Cook has immediately scrambled to a defensive position, saying his email account was hacked and he was on holiday in South Africa at the time. And those internets haven’t reached that part of the world yet as well, he didn’t say. It’s not an implausible argument, though; I daresay most office workers have had a prank email or two sent in their name before, though I doubt it would have had such a negative and directly personal impact on their lives, or the lives of its recipients.

Meanwhile, several arrests have been made regarding the death of Cardiff City and Wales fan Dye. The possibility of an inter-club rivalry being behind the attack were played down in the initial reports, but it’s a sad fact that this man’s death was caused by people whose side he was supposed to be on.

So on the one hand, we have a Chief Executive of a football club on a multi-million pound salary allegedly making light of a life threatening illness to the sufferer, and a Welsh fan who lost his life at the hands of other Welsh fans outside Wembley on the other. And so you are left wondering once again, how many times does football have to learn its lessons?

I’m finding it difficult to articulate my feelings towards Gary Cook. Football has a rather chequered recent history with men of his ilk; men from corporate backgrounds who serve the bank balance above all else. But really, I don’t need to say anything; I can let him do it for me, here talking about former Man City owner and all round top bloke Thaksin Shinawatra:

“Is he a nice guy? Yes. Is he a great guy to play golf with? Yes. Does he have plenty of money to run a football club? Yes. I really care only about those three things. Whether he is guilty of something over in Thailand, I can’t worry … I worked for Nike who were accused of child-labour issues and I managed to have a career there for 15 years. I believed we were innocent of most of the issues. Morally, I felt comfortable in that environment.”

Mike Dye’s death, apparently at the hands of a hooligan element of the support, shows we are still trying to deal with the legacy of football hooliganism which traces its roots back to the 70’s and 80’s. Whether an incident like this is sporadic or isolated or not is a moot point. No football match and no football team is worth dying for. Things may be better on the whole for the majority of football fans these days, but that will be of little consolation to the family of the 44 year old man who died on Tuesday night.