Arsenal 1, Death Eaters 0
By Bissek
Draco Malfoy was walking to his Charms class when he heard two Muggleborn second-years arguing.
"I tell you, Arsenal's defense is too weak! They don't stand a chance at Newcastle."
"Liar! The Magpies will be shot down, just like they were last year!"
"Five sickles says that Arsenal will be beaten at St James Park next Thursday."
"You're on! I'll be glad to take your money."
Draco looked up the word "arsenal" in his memory and came up with the term "collection of weapons". His Lord might find this information interesting.
Bellatrix Lestrange knelt before her master.
"My Lord," She said. "I have just received word that the Muggles will be transporting a large arsenal of weapons to St James Park in Newcastle next Thursday, for the purpose of dealing with a magpie infestation. This arsenal will be lightly defended. Should we take action?"
Lord Voldemort smiled. "Yes. Take a team and destroy this arsenal. It is time that the Muggles learned to fear the Dark Lord."
"Yes, my Lord."
The following Thursday, the Arsenal Football Club traveled to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to face off against the home team, Newcastle United. The game ended in a 4-1 loss for Arsenal, with commentators backing both teams agreeing that a major contributing factor to the defeat being the benching of a key defensive player due to a red card received in the previous week's match.
With the game over, the fifty thousand-odd fans who had come to watch the game kicked off a tailgate party. There was cooking, and eating, and drinking. And, whenever fans in the red and white of Arsenal were too close to those in the black and white of Newcastle (especially if one or both groups had been drinking), there was fighting. While Newcastle was not one of the great rivals of Arsenal the way Manchester, Tottenham and Chelsea were, that didn't mean that Arsenal's fans weren't up for a brawl anyway, especially given the painful defeat their club had just received. The local constabulary, long familiar with the aftermath of football games, had officers on duty to break things up before anything escalated beyond a few lost teeth.
This was the scene that Bellatrix Lestrange and her colleagues found themselves in when they apparated to St James Park. Instead of a gathering of military hardware, they found themselves facing what appeared to be a cross between a picnic and a bar fight.
"Where is the arsenal?" One of them wondered. Nearby posters and signage confirmed that the arsenal was going to be there today.
"According to this, it should have been here mere hours ago. If it isn't here, it must have only just left. We'll just have to ask the Muggles where it went." Bellatrix smiled, eager to start the torture.
Edgar Heath was a large, burly man in Arsenal red who, after downing four pints, decided to avenge four allowed Newcastle goals by cracking at least four Newcastle skulls. He'd already taken down his first when suddenly, his entire body felt like it had been set on fire. He screamed in agony as his limbs twitched and spasmed. He would have fallen to the pavement, but as the pain stopped, he found himself floating. People around him gasped in shock as he flew to a group of masked figures in black robes.
"Foolish muggle," A woman's voice giggled from behind the mask of the figure closest to him. "So weak. But I can make the pain stop. All you have to do is tell me where the Arsenal is."
Edgar didn't know what a muggle was, besides obviously being an insult. He also didn't know who the woman was, but he did know what she was. She was dressed in black, and therefore, she was for Newcastle. And she was asking about Arsenal, so she was clearly planning to do what she did to him to the team. There was only one thing a proud fan could do in a situation like this.
Edgar slammed his head forward, cracking the woman in the mask. As she fell back, Edgar stopped floating and dropped to the ground. His legs to wobbly to let him stand, Edgar instead raised his voice to shout.
"No true fan would ever betray his club, girlie. UP ARSENAL!"
"UP ARSENAL!" came a loud cry from all the watching men in Arsenal colors. This was followed by a massed charge against the figures in black robes.
The Death Eaters specialized in causing terror. They used spells that caused death and pain to individuals to break the wills of everyone watching. Unfortunately for them, when rage overpowered fear, dropping your opponents one at a time doesn't help. Especially when outnumbered more than fifty to one. In the time it took to cast a single killing curse against a mob a thousand strong, one man died, and the other nine hundred ninety-nine were ten yards closer to expressing their anger. The Death Eaters were crushed under a tidal wave of red and white.
By the time the riot police arrived to break up the fight, Bellatrix Lestrange and her colleagues were in need of hospitalization. Later interrogations of the group that backers of both teams agreed had started the riot caused the authorities to conclude from their babbling about wanting to destroy weapons meant for bird-hunting so they could conquer Britain in the name of dark wizardry that they were delusional and remanded them to mental hospitals. With their wands in splinters and their portkeys confiscated, they would remain there the rest of their days.
Edgar Heath served three months for assaulting a man before the riot officially broke out, then returned home to a hero's welcome in Arsenal pubs across London as the man who held true to his club, even when under torture.
The Wizarding World paid no attention to the Newcastle riot, thinking it just a muggle affair that didn't concern them. Voldemort tried to figure out what happened to his men, but he never considered that they might have been bested and captured by muggles, and his agents in the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix could not find any evidence of what they did with them. And so an entire Death Eater strike team was wiped out by a power they knew not: the power of football hooliganism.
A/N: Britain is renowned for its sports hooliganism. As such, the one-sided reaction to the Death Eater attack on the Quidditch World Cup seems odd. It seems to me that a terror attack on drunken British sports fans would be more likely to require the police to respond to protect the terrorists from the drunken British sports fans.
Arsenal was chosen as the team to demonstrate this because their name makes it easy for them to look like a valid target in the eyes of someone who knows nothing of non-magical culture. Newcastle was chosen as the other team because their colors include black.