It's not too long, less than a season in fact, since the last high profile missile attack during a Real Betis game at the Manuel Ruiz de Lopera stadium when Sevilla coach Juande Ramos was hot with a bottle and had to be stretchered from the pitchside and now we have Athletic Bilbao goalkeeper Armando getting the same treatment and another game being abandoned.

A bottle filled with liquid was thrown at the goalkeeper as he went to retrieve a ball in the 72nd minute of the league game between Bilbao and Betis and he was carried off with a cut below his right eye and the referee had no option to but abandon the game.

Athletic Bilbao, in a club statement, demand that the Spanish authorities go further than closing the Real Betis stadium for a few games as they did after the Ramos incident last year and want the club docked points from their La Liga tally to really punish the club harshly and give them an incentive to stop their fans behaving in this way.

Real Betis have said they have banned the perpetrator from all future sporting events and would feel harshly done by if league points were docked. They could point to a similar incident in December 2007 where Real Madrid's goalkeeper Iker Casillas was hit by a missile thrown from the crowd while playing an away game for Los Merengues and the offending club were only fined a measly 600 Euros. Ironically Madrid's hosts that day were none other than Athletic Bilbao. Maybe they've got short memories of their own indiscretions up in the Basque country this weekend.