MacIntyre equipped with hidden recording equipment

"There are those amongst our society whose sole purpose in going to football matches is not to go to a game or enjoy a game or allow others to enjoy a game, but to disrupt a game either during the football match, before the match or after the match," Mr Vaudin said.

"Their game is not football, their game is violence."

Posing as wealthy criminals the BBC journalists had befriended Mr Marriner after attending Chelsea football matches, frequenting the same local pubs and even renting a flat in the same block.

'Organisation of violence'

With hidden video cameras installed in a Mercedes car, reporter MacIntyre drove Mr Marriner and Mr Frain to the Leicester v Chelsea match on 21 November, 1998.

"There was film footage of the journey which shows clearly that there had been a pre-arranged agreement between Marriner and Frain and a group of people on three Chelsea coaches to meet a group of Leicester hooligans in Loughborough.

The meeting place was going to be a pub outside Leicester - There was going to be a fight before the match even started

Charles Vaudin, prosecuting

"Throughout the journey there were phone conversations between Marriner or Frain and the people on the Chelsea coaches - part of a group assisting in the general organisation of violence," Mr Vaudin said.

Unfortunately for them, he said, the police had learned of the planned battle and were there in such large numbers that no large scale trouble occurred.

But Mr Marriner was later filmed in Filbert Street as fighting broke out on the terraces, and spilled over into Leicester city centre after the match.

"That is the sort of violence that the Chelsea Headhunters relish," Mr Vaudin added.

'Dirty little lie'

But one of the defence barristers told the court it was the journalists who were "dangerous men" who could not be trusted.

Michael Wolkind QC, defending Mr Marriner, said Mr MacIntyre and Mr Atkinson could be shown as "greasy and self-congratulatory" individuals who believed they would never be brought to book for their questionable tactics.

Footage they had shot, which had been uncovered by the defence, would show neither man was "reliable", he added.

The programme the journalists eventually put together had been a "dirty little lie", he said

He added: "Mr MacIntyre and Mr Atkinson are not attractive reporters. They wanted their man at any cost. So they are not really journalists, they are headhunters."

Mr Marriner, of Hampton Road, Feltham, Middlesex, and Mr Frain, of Granville Road, Reading, both deny affray on 30 January 1999, and conspiracy to commit violent disorder between 15 August and 21 November 1998.